A brief understanding of International Public Relations

Before talking about international public relations, the role of “Government” in an international environment should be considered.

It is supposed that, no matter what the political system in a country is, no government could represent its whole country’s will, especially in democratic counties. An open communication environment undoubtedly puts more pressure and challenges on the government when dealing with its internal public opinions, compared to other different political systems. Major public opinion tends to be more powerful in influencing a democratic government’s decision. But in an international environment, as a body which has the authority to make and enforce rules, laws and regulations, government tends to express its opinion in the name of its country. This means, the government is the final one to decide the image of its country on the international stage, and, it is the only authority makes practical influences on the country’s relations with other countries.

Based on the above opinion and the concept of “Public Relations”, in my opinion a country’s international public relations can be understood as “the management of communication to improve or maintain a positive relationship with other counties, with the purpose of gaining more international understanding and support for its opinions and actions.” For the sake of the win-win goal, two-way communication models are always conducted between two counties, and, the government is the main public relations practioner and facilitator that represents its country in international public relations; it designs and complements the public relations campaigns.

International Public Relations should be differentiated from “International Diplomacy” and “Public Diplomacy”. Since Diplomacy refers to the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states, anything which is labeled with “Diplomacy” should be regarded as a tool to deal with international public relations. International diplomacy is the conduct of international relations through the intercession of professional diplomats with regard to issues of peace-making, trade, war, economics and culture. It focuses on the function of “negotiation” and “Diplomatic visits”. Public Diplomacy which is always closely associated with the United States Information Agency, focuses on the ways in which a country (or multi-lateral organization such as the United Nations) communicates with citizens in other societies. It can be comprehended that Public Diplomacy divides another country’s government and citizens into two publics. Different from other independent publics whose attitude will not influence another one, there is a mutual influential power between the government and citizens in one country. Public Diplomacy tends to take advantage of the favorable public to influence or even force the other one to change the attitude and behaviours. The effects of it are more obvious in democratic countries. However, in international public relations, a country’s government and its citizens should be regarded as a whole, and, the dealing focus should always be put on the government, which represents the whole country’s voice on the world stage.

A good example of a country taking advantage of a “Diplomacy” tool to deal with international public relations is the recent diplomatic visit from the president of the United States, Obama’s, to Asia. On 15th November 2009, in Obama’s first diplomatic visit to China, he successfully conveyed the attitude from the American government on the China-America relationship, climate, and global economy to the Chinese government and Chinese people. If conveying ideas and thoughts was his purpose for this campaign, the diplomatic visit was definitely successful. But how much this diplomatic visit could do for the relationship between China and America in the long term is still unknown and hard to predict. It is true that a slogan of “Yes, we can” helped Mr. Obama win the American’s hearts. His successful campaigns showed the power of his public relations machine. China, as one of the largest nations, is crucial to the United States in its international public relations and vice versa. So, how Mr. Obama and his American government could win the Chinese hearts and minds is the answer which the whole world is eager to know.


As we can see, a campaign in dealing with international public relations is different from one of a company’s; it is more complicated to set an objective and needs a much longer time scale to measure how much it works on changing the publics’ attitude and behaviours.

Don't miss Obama's fantistic speech in China: