“International Advisory Council” for Local Governors: A Public Diplomacy Perspective

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《Global Review》 2018-01

Since the end of the 1980s, local governments in China have been organizing "international advisory councils," a new method to interact with specific overseas experts, whose nature is a special form of local public diplomacy [ JB emphasis]. The local international advisory council provides an important platform for communications between the governors and council members. In effect, the international advisory councils have boosted attractiveness and international competitiveness of host provinces and cities, and have aroused more interests and attention of the target groups to the local development. Some of the advisory councils contribute to the general diplomacy of the country as well. Nevertheless, the development of local international advisory councils has hit a bottleneck at the moment. Therefore, local governments may take steps to integrate the advisory councils into their overall plan of foreign affairs, develop new channels of interaction, as well as produce international public goods by setting up the research system of the council, which will also be conducive to the future development of the new-style public diplomacy.