ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores the richness of substantial empirical data and scholarly debates with new insights developed in conceptualising China’s cultural diplomacy from multiple theoretical perspectives. It explains the alternative analytical frameworks have been employed to deepen and enrich our understandings of the global cultural terrain of struggle. The book identifies the structural limits and operational challenges faced by its flagship project, the Confucius Institute (CI). It discusses the multiple challenges it faces that are rooted in the unbalanced contested terrain of struggle, the current position of Chinese culture and its approach of cultural promotion. The book focuses on effects of China’s cultural diplomacy on the receiver’s end. H. W. French has commented that in many respects, China’s CIs seem like a throwback to the 1950s and 1960s, when the United States and the Soviet Union were competing intensely for international prestige and influence.
