Damage Control: Chinese Infrastructure Public Diplomacy in Indonesia and Kenya

• In Event: China and Global Public Opinion

Abstract

States spend significant resources on public diplomacy campaigns to pursue favorability among foreign audiences. Public diplomacy is not only about sending positive messages about a country or government, however, and sometimes is used to address negative aspects of one’s existing reputation. Earlier international relations research has focused comparatively less on theorizing or testing which types of messages are effective in addressing states’ reputational liabilities. Whether public diplomacy can help repair negative reputation is particularly important in the context of overseas infrastructure projects, since these projects often invite criticism from the local and international actors given their visibility, complexity, and widespread economic, social, and political consequences. We examine whether public diplomacy can repair reputational liabilities by studying different Chinese public diplomacy messages–specifically messages of blame, distraction, and learning–that address the popular “debt trap” diplomacy narrative often associated with Chinese overseas infrastructure projects. To test the effectiveness of these messaging strategies, we conduct nationally representative surveys with embedded, parallel experiments related to two major, real-world Chinese overseas infrastructure projects in Indonesia and Kenya.

Authors

• Austin Strange, University of Hong Kong

• Xiaonan Wang, Baruch College, CUNY

• Yuan Wang