Mega-Events And Soft Power In China:the Tools To Enhance Public Diplomacy And Foreign Policy

Hosting mega-events to enhance soft power and country image has been the practice of many countries.The trend within emerging economies,particularly the BRICS(Brazil,Russia,India,China,and South Africa),has stimulated much academic interest.With a focus on China,who has been investing funds and efforts tremendously in hosting mega-events,this dissertation aims to identify how its practice in the past two decades relates to the country's politics,government,economy,and society.The 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo serve as the cases to examine the positive and negative impacts.The dissertation also explores China's agenda and objectives of hosting more mega-events including the 2022 Winter Olympics in relation to soft power and public diplomacy.Organizing mega-events to enhance soft power and country image have brought the attention of many countries to choose to do so,and the interest of many scholars to study the different elements behind this trend within emerging countries,particularly the BRICS.Nevertheless,China has been investing enormous efforts and billions of dollars on this kind of events,therefore,the purpose of this thesis is to identify and discuss the significant relationship between politics(governmental,economic,social)and the organization/hosting of megaevents in China during the first two-decade of 21 st century.This dissertation examines the positive and negative impact of hosting mega-events and the possible outcome for China using as case Study Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and Shanghai World Expo in 2010.Also,this paper tries to determine China's objectives and agenda on hosting more mega-events like the 2022 Winter Olympic,and the relation with its wish to increase its soft power and public diplomacy.