The New Colombo Plan: addressing the barriers to scholarship recipients’ contributing to Australia’s public diplomacy goals in China

Bradley McConachie ()
Additional contact information
Bradley McConachie: Griffith University

Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 2024, vol. 20, issue 1, No 5, 55-65

Abstract: Abstract Australia’s New Colombo Plan (NCP), as a public diplomacy initiative, is about refreshing the nation’s brand by providing imagery of a modern, innovative and secure country that is ready and willing to lead and do business. The Chinese Communist Party continues to report that Australia is a mouthpiece for the U.S. and the Australian Prime Minister’s attack against China’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak has increased tensions. This article investigates the research question: What barriers need to be addressed to maximise the New Colombo Plan alumni’s contribution to Australia’s public diplomacy in China? Recommendations to practitioners are offered, including the need for higher language skills and increased collaboration between the NCP and the Australian Studies Centres. The findings support current studies tracking alumni stories to combat inevitable criticism of funding domestic students to study abroad. Future success requires, the continued high-profile support by the Foreign Minister. Interviewees reported that the NCP has received positive comments in-country but measurable outcomes will be slow in coming. Addressing the barriers to achieving the program’s objectives is a way to address any criticism of using funding to support international education as public diplomacy as the implications of defunding such programs could be much worse.

Keywords: Public diplomacy; Scholarships; Australia; New Colombo Plan; Nation branding; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41254-021-00209-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:pbapdi:v:20:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1057_s41254-021-00209-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/41254

DOI: 10.1057/s41254-021-00209-3

Access Statistics for this article

Place Branding and Public Diplomacy is currently edited by Robert Govers and James Pamment

More articles in Place Branding and Public Diplomacy from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().