Make it easier to talk about politics

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are in Beijing at the time of the China-US strategic dialogue. Received an unsolicited interview with ' Lu Yu. ' At first, it was a bit of a surprise, because after all, it was two political figures, and it was just a major meeting between China and the United States. And the positioning of the program, but has been a little relationship with politics.

But after watching the show, it turns out that this is a pretty smart choice. Because politics is so boring in the eyes of many people, and if such a serious political interview, it will only attract those who are concerned about the issue of the Chinese audience. But it's not the same in this light-hearted talk show, where people who are concerned about politics will wonder what politicians like to talk about in such a program, People who do not care about political topics only need to see the two respondents as two celebrities, and the person who talks about his or her personal life is usually very attractive, because the audience will feel that the other side is no longer superior, no longer a personal color officials.

In my opinion, this is part of the public diplomacy that the U.S. government is actively promoting, in other words, diplomacy is no longer the government's interaction with government, officials and officials, but a government official who faces foreign people directly. In fact, diplomatic activities, apart from bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Governments, how to let the people of each other's country It is also the goal of diplomacy to know the country, especially the policy of the Government, and to create the image of its own country.

In the past, the people have been in a relatively passive position of acceptance, for the diplomatic activities of other countries, basically only through the media in their own country, or the description of the Government to obtain relevant information, and to form the impression that such a process, is likely to be due to the inadequacy of information, or even misguided, to produce deviations, or prejudice. The objective of public diplomacy is to make the people of these countries, through the direct interaction of the official and the foreign people, or through the media, directly present themselves in front of the foreign people, so that they can form their own impressions and decide their preferences through their own eyes and ears.

After Obama took office, his team has done a lot in this area. For example, using the opportunity to visit Africa, Obama and the African netizens to engage in dialogue, this is a new phenomenon after the net, in the mainstream media with the right of speech, more and more people use the Internet to get the information filtered by the media, And slowly formed their own ability to spread, the object of the dissemination of more grassroots, the speed of transmission is much faster than the traditional media.

Of course, a snare is nothing more than a tool for promoting public diplomacy, and the advantage is that it allows the government to skip the media and direct access to people, such as opening their own accounts on social networking sites. But there are many other ways, for example, face-to-face contact with people in each other's country, such as leaders, officials going to other countries to make public speeches, and media interviews and so on, the goal is to allow as many people as possible to see themselves and hear themselves. However, the effect of transmission is good or bad, depends on the choice of ways, Different countries, the same way, may have different effects.

In fact, Chinese leaders have done so long ago, in addition to speaking at universities abroad, three years ago, Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Japan, to the park and the Japanese people chatting, Tai Chi chuan, then caused a big stir. Three years later, he visited Japan again, and the old lady who went to the early forging chain said she remembered the Chinese prime minister.

For commercial media, the choice of news is less politically charged, so official activity is rarely covered, unless there are issues of particular interest to the people of the country. But scenes like this, playing Taijiquan together, playing baseball with Japanese college students, The expression is also particularly rich and interesting, of course, this will be the most coveted news material. And then see the major Japanese television stations, the repeated broadcast of such scenes, the bilateral talks between the heads of Government, in addition to the official media such as NHK have the responsibility to play, other television stations and even the picture has not appeared.

Also in Japan, 2000, at that time, Premier Zhu Rongji appeared in a famous talk show in TBS, facing the Japanese audience under the stage, and he also performed his erhu solo and received enthusiastic applause from the Japanese audience. And this scene in the global media broadcast, so that people for the Chinese leaders have a different impression of serious .

In China, many people believe that every citizen has the responsibility to show the image of the country, and this is public diplomacy. In my opinion, this is a concept that needs to be rectified, the responsibility of diplomacy, regardless of what the preceding attribute, is the responsibility of the Government, the people's behavior, if always and the national honor Hook, that the people's responsibility, Is too great, the most important problem is that for those who are accustomed to the individual only represent their own foreigners, the public performance is no more good, and the government has no relationship.