Public Diplomacy By Local Governments—A Research On Theories And Practices Of Chinese National Image Construction

In the Constructivism theory paradigm of international relations,combined with the soft power theory,this paper proposes the construction model of national image under the background of big data era.Scholars generally put the State actors as the construction subject of national image while less attention for research value of Sub-state actors.However,local foreign affairs and diplomatic activities have become increasingly active driven by globalization,and the government image is the core of the national image,therefore,the local government as the construction subject has certain innovation value and practical significance in this paper.China's national image studied in this paper is a country's international image in a narrow sense,which refers to the overall impression and subjective evaluation of China by the external international public,excluding the national image in the eyes of the internal public(that is,the national image in the eyes of the domestic citizens).National image is a part of National interests.Identity determines interests.The establishment of Shared knowledge and Shared ideas forms a mutual identity relationship.Private knowledge and Presupposed ideas transform through intersubjective interactive practice.In this transformation process,the content and mode of interactive practice play an important role in the evolution of national self-serving identity to collective identity,so this paper focuses on the interactive practice in the process of national image construction.Government international public relations and Public diplomacy,with international strategic communication as the core,are not only main contents of the interaction between local governments and non-state actors in other countries but also main means of constructing identity relations.As an ancient waterfront town in southern Yangtze River,Wuzhen has mined cultural soft power resources from traditional tourism resources,and formed not only a unique local festival brand but an international conference brand by taking Wuzhen drama festival and Internet conference as interactive practice carriers.Considering the war experience of the Nanjing Massacre,Nanjing cooperated with UNESCO to spread the urban spirit of“peace and development” through the Youth Olympic Games and its derivative activities basing on its unique historical and cultural status.Relying on the geographical advantages of Wusong port,Baoshan has fully excavated local resource endowments under the “One Belt and One Road” initiative to build a world-class cruise home port while conducting international interactive communication practice through cruise economy and cruise tourism.Based on three case studies,this paper proposes the approaches for local governments to build China's national image: based on local resources ? communication and interaction(information transmission)? mutual identity relationship ? local international image ? national image.In addition,this paper tries to find out indirect and auxiliary roles of big data in the construction of national image by local governments,and it has certain exploration value as a reference tool in local public diplomacy and government international public relations.