A Study On The Cultural Diplomacy Of China Toward Africa Since 1949

Cultural diplomacy refers to the foreign cultural exchange activities that are carried out by a government or NGOs, authorized by a government to other governments and people. It has four characteristics, namely, the non-mandatoriness, the inside and outside interactiveness, the persistence and long-term effectiveness of its influence, and the ideological nature. Cultural diplomacy can be divided into three forms, which are the government-dominated cultural exchanges, the NGO-organized cultural exchanges authorized by the government, and the government-participated cultural exchanges. For a country, Cultural diplomacy is an important tool to achieve its strategic objectives, a significant approach to enhance its national cultural soft power, and an effective means to build its national image.After the founding of new China, the international environment makes African countries become one of the targets for China to strive for friendly cooperation. China began the cultural diplomacy toward Africa after the 1955 Bandung conference, based on the principle of serving politics, mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit. Since then, China increased its cultural interaction with African countries through high-level visits, educational cooperation, performing tours of art groups, cultural exhibition, film export, and organization of or participation in multilateral international events. China ceased its cultural diplomacy toward Africa abruptly after the breakout of Cultural Revolution in 1966, and gradually recovered it till the early 1970s. Since its reform and opening-up, the major task of China's cultural diplomacy toward Africa has become to promote the further development of Sino-African political relationship and economic and trade cooperation. In this stage, the dimension of China's cultural diplomacy toward Africa has been further expanded, the content has been greatly enriched, and the form has been largely diversified.In the 21st century, China's cultural diplomacy toward Africa steps into a new development stage because of the needs of the development of Sino-African relationship and the emphasis on culture from the government. During this period, the relevant mechanisms of China's cultural diplomacy toward Africa have been growing mature, and a cultural-exchange management mechanism supervised by the Ministry of Culture has been established. In the new era, the Sino-African personnel exchange has become much more frequent, the educational exchange and cooperation have been continuously deepened and the media cooperation has also begun to take shape.In conclusion, since the founding of new China, China's cultural diplomacy toward Africa has presented the following characteristics, which are always aiming at peace, focusing on each other's interaction, gradually weakening the ideology, and transferring the means from government dominance to government-citizen coordination. Cultural diplomacy plays an important role in strengthening the Sino-African mutual political trust, promoting Sino-African economic and trade exchanges, elevating China's cultural soft power in Africa and boosting Africa's future development. China has three advantages to promote its cultural diplomacy toward Africa in the future, which are the abundant cultural resources, the solid foundation for hard power and the strong Sino-African relationship. Meanwhile, there are also some challenges faced with China in its future cultural diplomacy toward Africa, such as the large cultural differences between China and Africa, the dispersive management mechanisms, the insufficient funds, the relatively unitary means of culture transmission, and so on. Therefore, China should take effective measures, which may include training qualified cultural-exchange personnel, promoting the reform of management mechanisms of cultural diplomacy, extending the fund-raising channel, attaching importance to the combination of public media and cultural diplomacy and fully leveraging the bridging role of Chinese and overseas Chinese in Africa, to tackle the challenges.