The Influence Of Culture On Public Diplomacy

"Public Diplomacy" was first put forward by Edmund Gullion, the president of Fletcher Law and Diplomacy Institute of Tufts University, in 1965 when Edward Public Diplomatic Research Center was established in the institute. With the thorough development of globalization, informationization, citizen society, the countries' interdependecne, integration and conflict among cross-cultural parts, public opinion effect,etc., diplomatic contact of different countries has become closer and closer. Under such an international great background, public diplomacy is being paid more attention to.The modern diplomacy emphasizes openness of diplomatic decision-making, pluralism of diplomatic subject and diversification of diplomatic participation method. Public diplomacy regards people from home and abroad as information output target, the public feedback on foreign policy by way of new-type communication, thus let the elites of the policy-making level widely and rapidly learn the result that the decision is implemented so that they can make policy which more people can accept and meets the minimum resistance while safeguarding country's interest. Traditional diplomacy pays attention to the contacts on the senior level while public diplomacy puts emphasis on drawing support from means of masses such as the media, cultural exchanges, to influence views of foreign people to their country. At the same time, public diplomacy facilitate the promotion of the national image and abtain of economic goal.This thesis focuses on cultural factor of public diplomacy to explain its importance. Culture, politics and economy interdepend and interact with each other in globalization. The level of cultural exchange is generally proportional to national comprehensive national strength. The country with competent economy and strong comprehensive national strength, its level of public diplomacy is relative high, it is just apt to succeed in realizing the foreign strategic objective. So launching the cultural exchange in different forms has already become an important route of the diplomatic activity. This thesis takes the issue "Yasukuni Shrine" as an example in Sino-Japanese up-and-down relations, describes cultural origin and the public opinion behind this issue in detail, checks the public diplomacy operation from the two countries in dealing with the change of this problem. Finally find out existing problems in China's public diplomacy to Japan and make some suggestions on future measures.