Comments on: Cheng Tianquan: Citizen Participation in Foreign Affairs

By: Keeping an Angry Readership Posted: Will Vietnam become an American Ally? | Justrecently's Weblog

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 14:59:28 +0000

[...] on ROC Flag removed from Regent…MKL on ROC Flag removed from Regent…justrecently on Cheng Tianquan: Citizen Partic…foarp on Cheng Tianquan: Citizen Partic…foarp on ROC Flag removed from Regent…Cheng [...]

By: justrecently

justrecently — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 10:36:53 +0000

I suppose the mob is part of the glory that Chinese public or "people-to-people" diplomacy intends to proclaim throughout the world, foarp. That said, the public anger at the Chinese consulate that handled the trawler incident with Russia earlier this month probably wasn't welcome to Beijing. Russians are simply too barbarian to care about the feelings of the Chinese people - hence no use to make the same fuss there that works so efficiently on London or on Berlin.

By: foarp

foarp — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 08:49:11 +0000

All this would be far more relevant if it paid enough attention to how “people-to-people” diplomacy is actually working at the moment in practice – that is, toleration and encouragement of nationalist protests directed at the enemy-of-the-week, organisation of overseas Chinese to take part in such protests by diplomatic missions. The thing is, in the end this kind of rent-a-mob-ism only appeals to a domestic audience – most of all the leadership – and works to undo whatever may be acheived by the kind of people-to-people diplomacy discussed here.