Domestic Public Opinion And Public Diplomacy: "the State - Society" Perspective,

The dissertation is basically a study of the institutional structure of Chinese foreign policy under the framework of"state–society relations". Based on the study, my research purpose is to investigate the influence of public opinion on Chinese foreign policy and measures the Chinese government takes to guide the trend of public opinion.The introduction part presents the problems and defines the core concepts of the paper—public opinion and public diplomacy. Then, the paper provides a comprehensive literature review on the domestic and international scholarship in the field of interaction between public opinion and Chinese foreign policy, and establishes the research approach and methodology of the paper.Chapter One establishes a research model of"states–society relations"for the research questions, and regards public opinion–foreign policy relations as the sub-field of the model. Based on the history of the effect of public opinion on Chinese foreign policy, Chapter Two elaborates the status of Chinese public opinion under the context of foreign policy, such as its overall characteristics, the channels to influence foreign policy and the roles it plays in Chinese foreign policy-making. This part constitutes the society approach of the research model. Chapter Three analyzes the other part of the model—public diplomacy, in terms of its theoretical and practical roots, as well as the implementation of public diplomacy in China. At the end of the chapter, the paper puts up with several suggestions to improve Chinese public diplomacy. Chapter Four takes the influence of public opinion on China's Japan policy as a case study, and analyzes the public opinion–foreign policy relations under the framework of"state–society relations"that is established in the first chapter.In view of the important effects of societal forces, such as public opinion, on the formulation of Chinese foreign policy, institutional channels should be established to absorb the bright factors of the societal forces. Furthermore, more effective measures should be taken to cope with the diversified societal forces so as to serve the overall development of Chinese foreign policy.