Promoting the Right to Speak in Telling Chinese Stories (People's Discussion)
Core reading
In the new situation, we need to be more sensitive and more fully grasp the opportunities and conditions given by the changing times, and take the initiative to make our own voices. This not only helps to strengthen the initiative and influence of our own discourse, but also helps promote international public opinion to reflect the world's development trends more truthfully and in a balanced manner.
A China that is constantly reforming and innovating, and is continuously expanding and opening up, and a China that is determined to make all Chinese people live a happy life and make a huge contribution to world peace and development, do not worry about not having a good international reputation.
Over the past 70 years since the founding of New China, we have created a miracle of rapid economic development and a long-term social stability. Many countries and many people of insight in the world have sincerely praised China's development achievements. However, some people do not know much about China's development, and some still have misunderstandings or even prejudices. Since the reform and opening up, China embraces the world, learns from the world, integrates into the world, and contributes to the world. It hopes to cooperate with all countries in the world to achieve a win-win situation and develop through its interaction with the world. In the process, we need to accurately express China's claims and make a Chinese voice so that more people can listen and understand China. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, General Secretary Xi Jinping has attached great importance to the work of external communication, and has repeatedly mentioned in a series of important speeches to tell Chinese stories and spread Chinese voices. We must grasp the profound connotation of Chinese stories, master effective methods of telling Chinese stories well, actively fight for the right to speak internationally, enhance the recognition of the development of China by the international community, and present a real, three-dimensional and comprehensive China to the world.
The international image must be shaped by itself
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, under the guidance of Xi Jinping's diplomatic ideology, China's foreign communications work has made great progress and made great progress. We have put forward China's policy propositions and important initiatives on many occasions, demonstrating our support for economic globalization and multilateralism, and effectively conveying the Chinese voice to the world. Many experts and scholars in China and the media have taken the initiative to step onto the international arena, sending out Chinese voices, and responding to external concerns. China ’s external communication methods are more diverse, not only for the world ’s communication, but also for “one country, one policy” for precise communication. The means of communication has accelerated from a single traditional media to a multi-media fusion.
While firmly safeguarding national sovereignty, security, and development interests, we proactively declare our position and propositions. Not only does the government have a clear and firm position in diplomatic situations, but business and academia have also come to the forefront to play an important role and use their own practices to help. Power diplomacy has clarified a lot of vague perceptions from the outside world. These achievements and accumulated experience in practice make us confident that we can better understand China and make a better image of China in the world through our efforts and voices.
Improving external communication capabilities is a long-term task and a systematic project. The outside world's perception and judgment of China will change with the change of China's own discourse and behavior. We must sum up experiences in a timely manner, accurately grasp the development trends of the world and the characteristics of the times, continuously strengthen the building of discourse capacity, and explore methods that are more in line with the national conditions and reflect the conditions of the world, so that China ’s external communication is more targeted and timely, and its appeal and penetration are enhanced. To accelerate the international influence of Chinese discourse. Actively strengthen the construction of the external discourse system, innovate the expression of foreign discourse, enhance the affinity of cultural communication, and make the image of contemporary China more beautiful in the world. For example, at present, if we are to actively respond to the concerns of the international community, we must use various forms to speak in a timely manner in the international public opinion field, tell the story of China ’s fight against the epidemic, clarify the positive actions and progress of China ’s epidemic prevention and control, and highlight the concept of a community of shared future for man .
Seize the opportunity given by the changing times
The power of communication determines the influence, and the right of speech determines the initiative. In the theory of international communication, the word discourse embodies a kind of thinking symbol and communication tool. People use discourse to communicate meaningfully between communicators and listeners, and convey specific values. A country's right to speak internationally means not only its right to speak in the world, but also its validity and influence.
In theory, the elements contained in discourse are more complicated. The first is the content and quality of discourse. Discourse needs to be influential and needs to be supported by high-quality content. The second is the ability to set and disseminate international issues. In real international relations, countries with strong ability to set international issues and discourse dissemination are often better able to shape and guide public opinion and master the discourse initiative. The third is the facts and practices contained in the discourse. Successful discourse needs to be based on rich facts and practices, and vague concepts and announcements are not enough to impress people, and it is difficult to improve the right to speak. The fourth is the recognition and feedback of dialogue. Only by winning the audience's approval and forming positive feedback can the discourse influence gradually increase.
As China gets closer to the center of the world stage, more and more national and international people are willing to learn about China, treat them to China, and explore the reasons for China's great achievements. The voice of China continues to expand with its growing influence. However, on the whole, the public opinion pattern of "the West is strong and the weak" has not been completely broken, and our right to speak and influence in the international public opinion field still needs to be improved. At the same time, our use of the right to speak is not enough. It should be noted that the international public opinion field is very diverse and multi-perspective. Audiences of different backgrounds accept information from different channels. Official and diplomatic communication alone is not enough to reach all occasions, and more people need to participate in the international expression.
Compared with the past, the international community now pays more attention to China's policy propositions and responses on various issues, hoping to see first-hand information and in-depth interpretation from China. And the first-hand information from China in the international public opinion field is relatively limited, which is not enough to reflect the rich social practices and culture of contemporary China, and it cannot satisfy the international desire to understand China. In the new situation, we need to be more sensitive and more fully grasp the opportunities and conditions given by the changing times, and take the initiative to make our own voices. This not only helps to strengthen the initiative and influence of our own discourse, but also helps promote international public opinion to reflect the world's development trends more truthfully and in a balanced manner.
China is willing to exchange and dialogue with other countries on an equal footing through friendly means. A successful subject of international discourse is both good at speaking with his own microphone and with others' microphones. In other words, in order to gain the initiative of discourse, we need to actively participate in discussions and actively disseminate ideas, and strive to gain the understanding, respect, and recognition of the audience through the penetration of speech, the penetration of ideas, and the persuasiveness of facts. Based on China ’s deep historical and cultural accumulation, we must uphold the spirit of modesty and tolerance, insist on communication, learning, and openness. Through an easy-to-understand and grounded narrative style and expression, we must thoroughly understand what happened in China and objectively judge. What happened outside of China formed a discourse style with Chinese characteristics in the interaction with international discourse.
Focus on communicating public opinion
The world today is experiencing unprecedented changes in a century. Some people's bodies have entered the 21st century, and their heads are still in the old times. They are used to observing new things with their old eyes, and the voice of maintaining multilateralism and promoting unilateralism has always existed in the international public opinion arena. We need to issue a strong positive proposition that the world understands that China's development is ultimately for the good of the Chinese people and to make the world a fairer and better place. As we fight for the right to speak internationally, we need to focus on communicating people's opinions and gain more understanding and trust. This requires us to innovate ideas and methods, and persistently tell Chinese stories.
Explain the Chinese spirit. The international community is now paying attention to China, not only about China's development achievements, but also how a growing China will affect the world. Seeing that China is getting closer to the center of the world stage, there are always people in the world either out of ideological prejudice or out of the arrogance of power politics. Don't apply the development logic of some Western countries to distort and discredit China. Human civilization has a long history, and it is not the iron law of history that a nation is strong. Those who use the backward, narrow, one-sided view of the world to see the world can neither see the progress of history, the trend of the times, nor the future of mankind. Changing the prejudices of others cannot be based solely on criticism and justification. We need to show the international community a more real, three-dimensional, comprehensive China, explain China's intentions and goals more convincingly, and focus more on the narrative focus on showing the vision and actions of China and other countries to build a community of shared future for humanity. We must actively try to use Chinese theories and perspectives to interpret international issues, world trends, articulate the Chinese spirit, show the Chinese style, and give the world a better understanding and support of China.
Form communication synergy. The international image of a country is three-dimensional and multi-dimensional. It is necessary to encourage all walks of life and various social groups to participate widely in external communications. Actively build a large-scale propaganda structure, give full play to the role of different subjects, and form an all-round, diversified, three-dimensional combination of official and private parties, central and local authorities, external propaganda departments and actual working departments, and agencies and individuals. External communication system. While deepening external communication at the professional and strategic levels, it is also necessary to expand external communication at the humanities and public levels. Everyone works together to form a complete narrative of the whole society, wide fields and multiple perspectives. Strengthen the popularization of external communication knowledge and skills, reform the training mode of talents, let different talents play their professional characteristics under the framework of building a community of shared future for mankind, twist the strength of all parties into a rope, and form the largest synergy of communication.
Enhance affinity. To tell Chinese stories well, we must tell both Chinese system stories and Chinese stories. Sometimes, a small story can explain many problems. Many of our stories are told to foreign people, so there can be ordinary people's anger and sorrow in the stories. We can innovate external communication methods and discourse expressions, create new concepts, new categories, and new expressions that integrate Chinese and foreign languages, combine what we want to talk with foreign audiences, and work hard to enhance the affinity of cultural communication. Starting from the little things around the Chinese people, they can tell the true and vivid "Chinese life" in ways and ways that foreign people can hear, understand, and listen to, and let them understand China's road, theory, system, and culture.
In the new era, we must conscientiously study and deeply understand Xi Jinping's diplomatic thoughts, and introduce the world to a real, three-dimensional and comprehensive China. A China that is constantly reforming and innovating, and is continuously expanding and opening up, and a China that is determined to make all Chinese people live a happy life and make a huge contribution to world peace and development, do not worry about not having a good international reputation. We need to grasp ourselves, cultivate internal skills, and better promote external communications, and work together to achieve the goals of improving international discourse power and national soft power.
(Author Fu Ying is the former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director of the Strategy and Security Research Center of Tsinghua University)