Branding Asia through public diplomacy: Structural-historical factors, convergences and divergences

This article extends on ongoing discussions of nation branding in Asia from a conceptual and practitioner viewpoint. Insights on assertive and accommodative branding strategies are compiled from the cross-examination public diplomacy statements of Asian national leaders on the issue of Westernization, and the corresponding assessments of the nations by nation branding analysts. The review comprises a vignette of the general positions communicated by a cross-section of Asian nations, inclusive of China, Iran, Singapore, South Korea, a profile of small Middle East nations and the United States’ position in Asia. The aim of this review is twofold. First, I seek to examine the convergences and divergences in the preferred branding positions of Asian nations, as informed by the specific structural-historical conditions of a nation, despite the common reference to these nations as ‘Asian’. In this, I found the distinctions between large and smaller nations, rather than cultural distance/proximity. Second, I seek the conceptual clarification of a nation branding analysis of public diplomacy exchanges, its distinctions from public diplomacy and its utility as a subfield of nation branding. Copyright © 2012 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd.