The Public Diplomacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) : Beyond The Image

Buzna, Viktor

Hungary

National University of Public Services (Budapest, Hungary), Zrínyi Miklós National Defence University (Budapest,Hungary), University of Bedfordshire (UK)

Defence and Security Studies, Communication Studies

The Way: Causes men / To be of one mind / With their rulers / To live or die with them / And never to Waver.[1] The thought belongs to Sun-Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist and war theorist. It is the first main principle, in his book, The Art of War. As it was written more than two thousand years ago, it tells us that the Chinese leadership is aware of the importance of public opinion a long time ago. The above thesis is now adopted by many different cultures and nations, and its’ present interpretation is especially interesting in case of the People’s Republic of China.

For the western individual, it is difficult to understand how a single-party state society becomes an integrated part of the global consumer culture. “China will not copy Western system in political reform” − said former CPC General Secretary, Hu Jintao on the 18^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012.[2] In accordance to this, few months ago the newspaper Time released an analysis, with a survey about the global habits of smartphone customers. The result shows, that 42% of the Chinese customers are willing to buy only the latest technology, when they decide to purchase a new phone.[3]

The hypothesis of the research: Following the transformation of the value system represented by the Chinese society, the Communist Party of China builds traditional, Confucian values in its communication. With this effort, the negative effects of the western individualism on the society are being balanced. 

Objectives

The main objective of the project is to support Hungarian foreign policy planning with helpful and easily adoptable practices, in order to tighten the relations between the two countries. Also, as this field is not yet well explored, I feel confident to set up recommendations for the Chinese government for more successful communication.

The research would give a deep analysis of the currently dominating ideas within the Chinese society, which is essential information for a successful bilateral cooperation and intercultural communication.

The research is innovative, as it would analyze the communication of the CPC from a new approach: how successfully is it processed to the public and which are the main distinctions between the value systems of the two sides. The Value Based Communication (VBC) is an existing methodology in management studies, the research would follow this process.

Schedule

The research would contain three main areas:

The proportions of the communist, Confucian and consumer culture’s values in the CPC’s communication. I would monitor the appearance of the main principles (values) of the three ideologies in the Chinese news. The first part of the analysis should give an overview on the structure of the ideology, followed by the CPC.

Simultaneously, the reactions from the public opinion would be also analyzed, mainly in the social media site, Weibo. In the last part of the research, the values, appears in the communication of the CPC and in the reactions of the public opinion would be matched. The result should show us, how the CPC values are accepted by the public and what kinds of conflicting points exist.

Beside the empirical analysis, the research would also provide a deeper insight into the main dominating ideas in China, communism and Confucianism. Also, the open sources of CPC communication strategy would be analyzed.

In the conclusion, I would be able to reply the following questions:

• How coherent are the two value systems, the one represented by the CPC and the one represented by the public opinion?
• How effective is the communication strategy of the CPC?
• Which connection points exist between the communication cultures by the West, especially Hungary and China?