Communicating China to the world: representations, reception, and effects

China’s increasingly assertive diplomatic presence holds major implications for public diplomacy and soft power, notions that up to now have been largely characterized by western conceptualizations and theorizations, leading to Western-centric views on the one hand and analysis focused on western practices on the other. Through critically engaging with the concepts of public diplomacy and soft power, this text re-examines and reconsiders the evolving concept of public diplomacy and the current global balance of soft power, and contributes to the understanding of different models and issues of both public diplomacy and soft power.