China’s global presence has become a significant subject, however, littleattention has been directed to the role of higher education in wielding China’s softpower. This thesis examines the effectiveness of China’s public diplomacy strategyefforts in The Bahamas and how China has used higher education to improved its softpower image and enhancediplomatic cooperation between China and The Bahamas.Elements of the research address the central question: is the Sino-Bahamascooperation strengthened by China’s soft power through its educational scholarshipexchange program in The Bahamas?Despite the distance and separation by cultural and political differences, TheBahamas and China continue to strengthen their relations through global publicdiplomacy. The objective of this research is to assess how the Chinese governmentuses soft power, through educational scholarships and cultural exchange to strengthenits cooperation with The Bahamas. This research highlight the effectiveness of softpower as a tool of China’s public diplomacy in The Bahamas,which can be measuredby their tactical gift giving through infrastructure development projects, sports,investment opportunities, enterprise partnerships, and most importantly throughtheeducational exchange programs.Because of the lack of literature between Chinaand The Bahamas from the public diplomacy perspective, the data used in this thesismainly relies on credible sources such as senior government officials and publicofficers interviews.To fully capture the effectiveness of China’s soft power on the Sino-Bahamasrelations in the areas of educational exchange programs and cultural diplomacy, thisthesis, conducted a survey with92Bahamian scholarship recipients who are studyingor have studied in China. The focus of this survey was to understand the influenceChina had on these Bahamians and how these students assisted in the strengthened ofChina’s image through sharing their experiences with others.This research supports its argument in five parts. Chapter one gives a briefintroduction to the definition of soft power to which this thesis will conform.Furthermore, chapter one provides the framework for this research and discusses theobjectives of this study. Chapter two investigates the relevant literature, especially, onthe emergence of public diplomacy and soft power and explores China’s public diplomacy efforts in The Bahamas. This section also analyzes the relevant theoreticalapproaches to wielding soft power through higher education.Chapter three targets the Sino-Bahamas cooperation and demonstrates how theemerging relationship between two states has been fortified through China’s softpower. It further analyzes the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threat of theSino-Bahamas relations and provides recommendation for improvements.Chapter four represents the case studywhich is the thrust of this research andattempts to highlight how China’s education scholarship program has prompted thedevelopment between the two countries and has enhanced China’s soft power. Thecase analysis provides an historical view of higher education in The Bahamas, and theprogression of scholarship opportunities for Bahamians in nearby countries such asthe United States and Canada, in comparison to China, and the increasing economicfactors that are stimulated as a result of the strengthened relations between the twostates.This case analysis answers the following questions: Does the educationscholarship programhelp to strengthen the Sino-Bahamas diplomatic cooperation?And who benefits more from this exchange?Chapter five sums up the entire thesis andprovides recommendations for strengthening the educational exchange between thetwo countries. Chapter five also shows findings that the Sino-Bahamas cooperation isstrengthen by China’s soft power through its education scholarship exchange programin The Bahamas. |