China’s Cultural Diplomacy: A Great Leap Outward with Chinese Characteristics? Multiple Comparative Case Studies of the Confucius Institutes

Abstract

This paper explores the prominent features of China’s state-led campaign of cultural diplomacy. Through multiple comparative case studies of its flagship project of the Confucius Institute, it aims to identify and contextualise the various variables affecting its effective operation. It finds that this dependent variable is mainly determined by the independent variable of the CI’s ability to localise its product and process to suit different target audiences, along with a number of extraneous variables, including ideology, nationalism and the media environment in the destinations. People-to-people interaction is also an important mediator that contributes to facilitating mutual understanding. All the variables and the complexity of their inter-relations constitute the Chinese characteristics and are charted out in a diagram.