https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4404-7997
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ABSTRACT
This article is part of the Special Section on China’s Twitter diplomacy. Arguing that the concepts of hard power and soft power may no longer reflect the ever-intricate state of global politics in the twenty-first century, it intersects two distinct concepts in international relations, Peter van Ham’s social power and Robert Pape’s and T.V. Paul’s soft balancing theory, to examine China’s public diplomacy and its outcomes in the COVID-19 era (2019–2023). It is a case study of the communication strategies of the Chinese embassy in Paris, whose ambassador, Lu Shaye, proudly presents himself as a wolf warrior diplomat. To untangle China’s social power and soft-balancing mechanisms in Sino-French relations, this article uses quantitative and qualitative mix-methods, applied to three distinct datasets: N = 9,162 tweets from three Chinese diplomatic accounts in France; interviews and reports in the French broadcast and printed media; and foreign policy documents and statements. It shows that China’s social power consists of mainly place branding, while some of its communication attempts to frame certain issues and set the agenda in China–France relations and global affairs, by undermining, frustrating and delegitimizing, that is soft-balancing, the French and the West at large.
Acknowledgments
The author is indebted to her research assistants who contributed to the data analysis: Kevin Cheung Man Kam, Kail Crystal Cagang Cheng, and Olivia Chan Oi Wa, for their inputs amidst subsequent waves of COVID-19 in Europe and Hong Kong. The author is also grateful to the reviewers, Cherian George, Daya Thussu, Lam Wai Man, as well as the participants of the two workshops held in May and December 2022 for their much constructive comments on the early draft versions of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
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4 Suisheng Zhao, ‘A Revisionist Stakeholder: China and the Post-World War II World Order’, op. cit.
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42 Ibid. pp. 159.
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45 Op. cit. pp. 115.
46 Peter van Ham, ‘Social Power in International Politics’, op. cit..
47 Op. cit. pp. 8.
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52 Emilie Tran, Role dynamics and trust in China–France coopetition, op. cit.
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54 Op. cit. p. 166.
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