ABSTRACT
There are currently two positions in China contending against each other regarding the vehicle of China’s cultural diplomacy. One asserts that ‘culture’ should indisputably be the core of cultural diplomacy, and China is rich in its cultural heritage. The issue regarding foreign influence demonstrates a particular challenge for China’s popular culture. Many scholars have argued that contemporary popular culture is actually a soft belly for Mainland China. However, China’s cultural soft power was only rated as “middling” and continued to trail behind – not only behind the USA, but also behind that of Japan and South Korea. As the British Council has reported, the appetite to invest in cultural diplomacy is especially high in newly emerging nations such as China, whose government is deploying heightened cultural diplomacy activities to raise its international profile and standing, as is befitting its rising global economic power.
