Lin/Xi Jinping: When Public Diplomacy Really Works

It's far too brilliant for any propagandist, of any nationality, to have thought it up: The presumed future leader of the People's Republic of China, Vice President Xi Jinping, visits the United States at a time when relations between the two countries are tense; meanwhile, a Chinese-American, Harvard-educated Jeremy Lin, not long ago a bench warmer for the NY Knicks, becomes an instantaneous professional basketball star.

What great (unexpected?) publicity for "Communist" China!

Chinese kid makes it in the USA when a Mainland China vice-president comes to our shores -- the Land of the Free where, for all we know, "Jinping" could be the name of a panda.

Sure, Lin's Christian family originally came from Taiwan, but "so what" for most of us in the USA, who couldn't find that far-off island on a map.

And what better for the PRC than for Americans to think that all Chinese are just like us: they play basketball and they're Christian!

Not to speak of the Chinese disaspora in North America: Is it not in the PRC's interest that hyphenated Chinese feel proud to be Chinese?

Sometimes coincidence is far more effective than calculation. Which tells us something about "strategic plans" for public diplomacy.

P.S. As a naive American, I am assuming, of course, that the N.B.A. PR apparatus and the PRC's propaganda organs didn't strike a deal to make Jeremy, a laudably talented person in many fields, an overnight media sports sensation.

The New York Times: "The N.B.A. has estimated 300 million people in China play basketball. The retirement last year of Yao Ming, a basketball star from mainland China, deprived the N.B.A. of its main Asian draw. But Lin’s emergence has at least temporarily strengthened the league as a centerpiece of Chinese online chatter. "

Imagine, if you were an N.B.A exec: 300 million B-ball consumers/spectators in China ...  and all it takes to grab 'em (and it's cheap) is to get a Harvard-educated Chinese-American who "made it" in the Land of Opportunity to make a few more hoops for NYC on the tube.

Wow! We're talking about real money -- on the cheap!

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