China's public diplomacy toward Taiwan to support its reunification agenda

Abstract

The political dynamics between China and Taiwan have made China's reunification agenda increasingly difficult to achieve, while also driving public diplomacy as a strategy to influence Taiwanese public opinion. Although several studies have discussed the China-Taiwan relationship, research specifically analyzing how public diplomacy is carried out to support the reunification agenda is still limited. This research aims to assess how China’s public diplomacy is carried out towards Taiwan in support of the China-Taiwan reunification efforts and to assess the extent to which these public diplomacy efforts have been successful. This research uses a descriptive-analytical qualitative method with secondary data and applies the three-dimensional public diplomacy framework from Leonard, Stead, and Smewing, as well as the four stages impact hierarchy of public diplomacy achievement. The findings shows that China has succeeded in keeping the reunification discourse alive and promoting Taiwan's public engagement with the reunification agenda, but has not significantly changed public perception. The weakness of China's public diplomacy can be attributed to the dominance of state actors in its implementation, the strengthening of Taiwan’s national identity, and the low public trust in the "One Country, Two Systems" framework as the proposed solution for reunification. This study demonstrates that China’s public diplomacy still faces significant challenges in building public support for the China-Taiwan reunification agenda.