A Primary Research On China’s Public Diplomacy Envoy

The continuous growth in economic and soft power witnesses China’s increasing participation in international affairs, and positive international public opinions and a good international environment play a critical role in China’s peaceful rise. However, the concept of "harmonious development and common prosperity" advocated by China contrasts sharply with the "China threat theory" and "China collapse theory" that prevail worldwide. It is top priority for China to "clarify the real China to the world". Improvement of China’s international image and international public opinions are essential to ensure China’s sustainable development, and hence creative improvement of public diplomacy system and exploration in establishing a public diplomacy envoy system in China to further elevate our public diplomacy capabilities have become urgent matters to attend to for China today.The theory of public diplomacy envoy is based on public diplomacy 《 entity pluralism》 theory and public diplomacy 《elite effect》 theory, as well as the background that China has moved from a regional power, and a power of the Third World to a global power, and the understanding and support from all people worldwide are required to realize the Chinese dream. Establishing a public diplomacy envoy system in China contributes to further implementation of China’s overall diplomacy strategies, creation of a beneficial international environment for China’s peaceful development, and protection of China’s national interests from different levels.Value concepts can be more efficiently communicated to foreigners with international celebrities as public diplomacy envoys. With rich human resources and sufficient outstanding public diplomacy talents, China can leverage different effective public diplomacy methods to tailor celebrity outreach programs and seek to establish a public diplomacy envoy system with Chinese characteristics.The present paper systematically studies the public diplomacy entity theory as well as the nature and concept of public diplomacy envoy to theoretically define public diplomacy envoy and clarify the relationships between public diplomacy and public diplomacy envoy. An in-depth analysis on successful practices for public diplomacy envoy is also performed based on different aspects including context of origin, operation and selection mechanism as well as program result evaluation for US public diplomacy envoys. The analysis also covers characteristics, similarities and differences between US public diplomacy envoy cases and China’s image ambassador cases, and China’s existing economic, political, cultural, governmental and human resources for public diplomacy programs to verify the necessity and viability for implementation of public diplomacy envoys in China, and put forth the theoretical and practical basis for establishing the public diplomacy envoy system in China. Furthermore, the paper refers to the US public diplomacy envoy system to design a complete set of systems for public diplomacy envoy with Chinese characteristics, and build a political supporting system for public diplomacy envoy led by CPC, guided by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, implemented by CPPCC, while supported by different authorities, with the aim to reliably ensure the implementation of public diplomacy envoy activities, improvement of national image and protection of national interests in China.