EU Public Diplomacy and EU Public Diplomacy in China

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning!

As part of my job in charge of public diplomacy at the Delegation of the European Union to China in Beijing, I often travel to many cities around the country to give presentations about the EU, its history, its make-up, its policies, its future direction etc to some very bright Chinese university students. I see a major part of my job as being to get people to think about Europe and to realise the relevance of Europe in their lives. I always begin these presentations with an interactive exercise. And that is how I will also begin my presentation here this morning.

So, I ask your indulgence for a few moments and would like to invite you all to close your eyes and think for 30 seconds about Europe. Just close your eyes and think of Europe. I want you to remember the first thing that comes into your mind when you think about Europe. Now you can open your eyes again.

Usually, during my presentations, I go around the room and I ask each person to tell me what the first image that entered their mind was, but today due to time pressure, I'll just list a few of the things, not in any particular order, that I bet 90% of you will have thought of: football (including David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Milan); fashion, perfume and luxury goods (Gucci, Prada, Versace etc); architecture and historical monuments (Eiffel Tour, Big Ben, Leaning tower of Pisa, Coliseum, churches and cathedrals, city squares with their quaint architecture vibrant café culture etc); beautiful mountain and river landscapes, blue skies and fresh air; high-end cars (Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborgini, Porsche, Bently, Rolls Royce etc); pizza, pasta, French cuisine, along with beer and wine; the major EU countries (France, UK, Germany, Italy and perhaps Greece and Spain); Greek mythology and philosophy; beautiful women (and handsome men!), probably blond haired; and given the recent news, very probably the single currency and the euro crisis, especially in relation to Greece.

Now, I would like to do something I have never done before. I would like to ask you to close your eyes once again and this time think about the United States of America. Just close your eyes and think about the U.S. and remember the first image that comes into your mind. Now you can open them again. Just keep that image in your mind because I'm now going to ask everyone to close their eyes one last time and think about China. So please shut your eyes and think about China and remember the first image you think of.

Along with images of JFK, Mao Zedong, Obama, Yao Ming, Mc Donald's, Coca Cola, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China, Hollywood movies, famous actors etc., I am guessing, and only guessing, as I have not experimented with this before, that a few people may also have thought of images related to the military of both countries, perhaps some images of GIs or PLA soldiers.  

And here lies perhaps the greatest difference between the projection of European power and that of China and the U.S. There is no unified European army – each EU member state of course has its own armed forces, some of which are members of NATO, some of which also take part in peace-keeping missions under an EU or UN banner (which of itself is of course a major public diplomacy action), but the EU does not have an army ready to defend the EU as a whole or prepared to go to war with other countries as a unified force. This means that our hard power is limited to economic hard power mainly and therefore our soft power (culture, values and policies) must be our main tool for influencing world affairs through attraction rather than coercion.

On this point, in a recent discussion on public diplomacy that I was involved in, I heard the opinion put forward that there can be no real successful soft power, without hard power to back it up. I can’t really agree with this position. I can think of many examples of countries today that consistently and successfully wield soft power without having hard power to back them up.
Brazil is a good example: it is almost impossible not to like the country and its people due to their vibrant culture, skilful football and ability to have fun. Switzerland is another case in point. They are a tiny mountainous nation outside the EU, but right in the centre of the European continent and they are very well regarded internationally due to their prosperity and products. Even in ancient Greece, the Spartans who wielded almost exclusively hard power were nowhere near as successful as the Athenians in terms of spreading Hellenic culture and ideas throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Now, speaking of Greece, I would like to tell you a story from the sixth century B.C. by a fellow called Aesop:

The Wind and the Sun were arguing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his coat shall be regarded as the stronger. You go first.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as he could upon the traveller.
But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his coat round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his coat on and promptly took it off.

I think you see what I'm getting at.

Now, at about the same time that Aesop lived (sixth century B.C.) half way across the world in China, another great philosopher Sun Zi also wrote: "To win 100 battles is not the supreme art of war. The supreme art of war is to subdue your adversary without fighting at all."

Two and a half millennia later another significant thinker Joseph S. Nye JR gave us a more elaborate explanation: "Power is one's ability to affect the behavior of others to get what one wants. There are three basic ways to do this: coercion, payment, and attraction. Hard power is the use of coercion and payment. Soft power is the ability to obtain preferred outcomes through attraction."

He adds: "The major elements of a country's soft power include its culture (when it is pleasing to others), its values (when they are attractive and consistently practiced), and its policies (when they are seen as inclusive and legitimate)."

He concludes: "In today's information age, success is the result not merely of whose army wins but also of whose story wins."

It is not usual for us Europeans to be up working at this time of the morning on a Saturday! This is not really a joke but rather an illustration of how much we cherish our work-life balance, which is one of the most attractive features of European cultures and European lifestyle. You could say it is essential to creating a “harmonious society” in Europe.

I say European ‘cultures’ rather than European ‘culture’, because of course the European Union is made up of 27 (soon to be 28 with the addition of Croatia), different countries, peoples and cultures speaking 23 different languages. And I say lifestyle in the singular because from Finland in the arctic circle to Malta in the sweltering south of the Mediterranean Sea close to Africa, from the Island nation of Cyprus whose trees sway in the warm breeze of the middle east, to that other island nation of Ireland facing the north Atlantic breakers, we share common values, a common spirit and attitude towards life and a millennial history going back thousands of years.

But this history has of course not always been peaceful. And this brings me to my first major statement regarding EU public diplomacy: The EU itself is probably the greatest and most successful public diplomacy tool ever invented by man. And by the EU I of course mean the club of 27, but even more so the EU institutions of the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Council, the European Courts of Justice, the European Central Bank, the European External Action Service etc which constitute the glue that has bound these countries together in a common union with common goals, economic, social, political, that is unrivalled by any other union of sovereign states in the world.

Countries that were at each others’ throats for centuries due to various economic and nationalistic rivalries, now work together in the largest single market in the world. And have done so successfully for more than 50 years. Former enemies and rivals would not even think about waging war with each other for economic or nationalistic causes anymore. The major theme of the EU is sharing for the common good of all member states and negotiation at the table to find a consensus acceptable to all.

While cultural differences remain, along with many stereotypes – Finns will never be as loquacious as Italians, with or without using their hands; French will never work in the same manner as Germans – they are seen as a positive thing, something to be celebrated, something at times to joke about, something to experience and embrace when you visit the different countries of Europe, even as a European. It is no accident that the motto of the EU is “Unity in Diversity”.

So I would point out that the two major attractions of Europe, and what should therefore be one of the main focal points of our public diplomacy, are our cultural diversity and our lifestyle (which stems of course from our culture, history and traditions, policies and values such as democracy, rule of law, social inclusion, religious tolerance, freedom of movement, freedom of expression and the universal human rights of the individual).

I mentioned already that the major success of the EU model is the ability to put aside selfish national interests and share resources. This is particularly important in terms of public diplomacy in the age of information and globalization with growing economic interdependence between nations and with common challenges such as climate change, energy security, food security, water security, combating disease etc.

No single country can tackle these problems on their own and therefore, even against our strongest selfish instincts, and what realpolitik might dictate to the contrary, we must learn to pool our resources, share our intelligence and engage in cooperation. It is by sharing and working together that diverse viewpoints can be brought much closer in line towards a common goal. As I said before, the EU has over 50 years of experience in this area and has developed an expertise in sharing for a common good. In engaging with third countries we try to continue this model of cooperation rather than coercion.

Like any public diplomacy, EU public diplomacy covers three broad overlapping areas:

The first involves daily communications in terms of press conferences to explain policy issues and rapid response to crises or countering misinformation or misperceptions. In Brussels there is a daily midday briefing for journalists where the spokespersons of all commissioners are available to answer questions on all policy issues. In the information age it also involves the publication of daily press releases online and of course the use of twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other social networks.

The second area is strategic communications on broader issues of policy, for example on climate change or specific trade policies or on healthy living. It is by definition more long-term than daily communications and often follows a particular theme or takes the form of an information campaign over an extended period of time. For example, an anti-tobacco campaign.

The third area of public diplomacy is the building of people-to-people relationships, through scholarships, like ERASMUS MUNDUS, cultural exchanges (this year happens to be the EU-China Year of Intercultural Dialogue), training, cooperation programmes etc.

But before I talk more specifically about what the EU is doing in terms of public diplomacy in relation to China, I would like to say a few words about the greatest public diplomacy challenges the EU faces.

You might imagine that the EU faces its most challenging public diplomacy issues in countries in Asia or Africa or the Middle East due to the significant cultural and linguistic differences that abound, but in fact the most difficult area for EU public diplomacy is in Europe itself.
While Europe (its countries, its peoples, its cultures, its food, its products) possibly has the greatest soft power of attraction in the world, the EU (seen as an institution rather than a group of nations, and in particular the executive body of the EU, the European Commission) possibly has one of the worst soft powers of attraction in the world.

There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the workings and institutions of the EU are complex and difficult for even Europeans to understand. Another factor in this is that the European Commission makes the rules, and makes a lot of rules, and many people don't like rules. On top of this, the EU has not been particularly successful in communicating on policies. Its press releases are often very technical and not terribly exciting or newsworthy. A lack of education about the EU in schools and a general apathy among Europeans for politics and politicians in general is also a contributing factor. But a larger problem is probably national politics whereby if an EU policy leads to a success in any EU country, the local politicians will claim this as their own success rather than an EU success, whereas they will likely be very quick to blame the EU for any policy failures, even some of their own making. This then reinforces in the general public in Europe a bias against the EU which is very difficult to counter.

But that said, while certain policy issues may attract some criticism, Europeans are overwhelmingly in favour of being members of the EU and no one, including the vast majority of the people in the EU countries worst hit by the debt crisis, wants to leave the Union as they recognize that they are and will be stronger together as part of the club.

At the very least I feel strongly that European Studies should be taught in primary schools and secondary schools in order to inform students from an early age of the reasons for the founding the EU (the most important being to stop wars in Europe) and the benefits of being members of the EU. This I think would go some way to countering the negative perceptions and may even eventually encourage Europeans to become strong advocates of the EU and to consider themselves Europeans first and foremost as well as being French or German or Romanian.

But coming back to EU public diplomacy in China, I can say that it is overwhelmingly about sharing, cooperation, engagement and informing.

Traditionally, our major public diplomacy tool consisted of the various cooperation projects that we fund and participate in with a variety of Chinese ministries, agencies and NGOs. Many are focused purely for the benefit of China, such as the Yangtze River Basin Management Programme, or the benefit of both China and Europe, such as the IPR2 project which encouraged strengthening of intellectual property rights in China (with an obvious knock-on benefit for EU companies investing in China), while almost none are undertaken with a purely EU focus or benefit.

But more and more, we are working in areas where both the EU and China can derive more significant benefits, such as climate change and energy security. For example, the EU-China Institute for Clean and Renewable Energy (ICARE) in Wuhan and the EU-China Clean Energy Centre in Beijing.

Many of you will have heard of the most successful EU-China cooperation project to date: The China-Europe International Business School or CEIBS, which consistently ranks among the top business schools in the world.   

Of course interventions in the media, particularly print and TV are a mainstay of our public diplomacy in China in terms of reaching both the Chinese and expat public. We also use our bilingual website for publishing daily press releases and carrying other general information about the EU.

Another very important area for EU public diplomacy in China is the frequency of high-level visits and the attention they attract from the media. Indeed, since the beginning of this year there has been a major upswing in the frequency of high-level visitors from both sides.

Visits by our EU Ambassador or other EU officials to the provinces also constitute a major chance for outreach and public diplomacy, especially if we organize an event, such as a lecture at a university, in parallel to any official meetings.

Thematic years such as the EU-China Year of Youth last year and the EU-China Year of Intercultural Dialogue this year offer the chance to organize a range of events, conferences and people-to-people exchanges around the main theme throughout the year.

In fact, this year the EU and China have launched what we call the third pillar of our relationship – the High-Level People-to-People Dialogue. This is aimed at encouraging more people-to-people contacts between the two sides in areas such as education, scientific research, culture etc. It complements our other two pillars of political and trade relations.

Culture, although an obvious European public diplomacy tool, is mainly used more by the individual EU member states who together organize hundreds of events in China each year. The EU Delegation itself limits its cultural activities to a few events, such as the annual EU Film Festival, which invite the participation of all the member states under an EU umbrella.

All of these have been and continue to be our traditional areas of public diplomacy in China.

But then a couple of years ago, God created Weibo. And we saw that it was good. And it was and is good. It was especially good because as you know, its foreign equivalents such as Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China for some reason. This I think is a great pity as I think it prevents more contact between ordinary Chinese people and ordinary people in the rest of the world. Such a channel of contact would probably obviate the need for much public diplomacy by all sides as our peoples would get to know each other in a more natural and intimate way.  

However, we can still say that Weibo has in some sense revolutionized our approach to public diplomacy in China for two main reasons: it allows us to reach a wide and interested general public across a wide geographic area without having a presence on the ground and it also provides us with a two-way, instantaneous feedback channel which was almost impossible using the traditional means of public diplomacy.  

The EU Delegation in Beijing runs two microblog accounts on Sina and Tencent with a total of over 400,000 fans after just one year of operation. On top of this we also manage the Weibo of President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, which has over 500,000 fans in China. This compares to less than 50,000 fans in Europe for his normal Twitter feed.

A public diplomacy tool that allows feedback is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The great advantage for us is that we can find out what the Chinese general public is genuinely interested in and also what they are not so interested in. This has helped us to tailor the content that we put on the microblogs so that it is as useful and attractive as possible to our fans. This means lots of information on education, travel, food and wine, fashion etc and almost nothing on politics, which is a real turn-off for our fan base. It is in many ways a bread and circuses approach, but we feel that if you don't give your audience what they want then you will lose them and waste your own time.

On the other hand, the greatest disadvantage is that with an open system for commentary, we always run the risk of trolls, the wu mao army or simply angry and frustrated people. But in the main, we have not had any major problems with this since we began, apart from a few people who confuse the EU (Ou Meng), Scandanavia (Bei Ou) and NATO (Bei Yue).

While many of our member states also have their own weibo accounts, some of which are very successful, weibo gives us the advantage of also allowing member states who may not have the resources to run a weibo account of their own to transmit content about their country using our weibo account.

And this I believe is where the future lies for EU public diplomacy in China. The EU, its member states, its cooperation projects, its tourism promotion agencies, its trade promotion agencies, its chambers of commerce etc are all acting individually and often duplicating what the others are doing. They are too dispersed. There are too many websites and weibo accounts. There is much room for synergies and efficiencies.

We need to look at a more integrated approach by bringing all these actors together in a more centralized way. Think of it as a one-stop-shop for all things European in China, whereby anyone wanting to know anything about the EU or one of its member states would immediately know where to go. To achieve something like this will of course be very difficult and take much time, but for a truly successful public diplomacy, I believe that all actors in this area need greater cooperation and coordination.

In conclusion, I would like to leave you with this final message: In public diplomacy it is essential to avoid propaganda. To do our job properly depends upon credibility. In the information age, the general public is extremely media savvy and can instantly recognize when it is being fed a stream of propaganda. It does not matter how much money you spend, how many billboards you rent, how many column inches you fill or how many TV programmes you broadcast; if you engage in crass propaganda you will quickly destroy the credibility of your audience. The best propaganda is no propaganda at all.

I will leave you with a quote from Edward R. Murrow, celebrated American journalist and former Director of the United states Information Agency:

"Truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that."

Thank you for your attention!