Killing Protests with Kindness: Anti-China Protests and China's Public Diplomacy

Abstract

Anti-China protests have posed challenges to China’s ambition to further expand its political and economic influence globally. How does Beijing respond to anti-China protests? And how do anti-China protests affect Beijing’s use of public diplomatic resources? We address these questions by examining the effect of anti-China protests on China’s public diplomatic engagement across low- and middle-income countries in Asia. We argue that anti-China protests lead to an increased level of non-financial public diplomatic engagement (e.g., elite visits) as well as financial engagement through foreign aid. We further argue that the effect of anti-China protests on increasing public diplomatic engagement is contingent on regime type. This is because China takes the anti-China message from autocracies more seriously given the higher political costs of participating in public protests in autocracies. Compared to democracies, autocracies are also in a better position to use anti-China protests as a means to signal their political constraints, compelling China to invest more public diplomatic resources for the countries.

Do Young Gong

Ph.D. Student

My research interests include international relations, armed conflicts, the interdependence between political violence, and leader survival.