Despite having several decades of history, New China's public diplomacy still lags behind many other countries, affecting its international image and soft power, senior diplomats said at a forum at the weekend.

"We have made much progress in negotiating with foreign governments, congressmen, and military officers, but lack experience in dealing with the public and media agencies," Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying said at a forum on public diplomacy held Saturday by Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU).

The international view of China often swings between overestimation and underestimation, either warning of the "China threat" in the face of Chinese achievements, or "China collapse" when any problems arise.

In addition to limited numbers of cultural exports and disagreements over ideology, the backwardness of China's public diplomacy is another major reason for this situation, Fu noted.

The history of New China's public diplomacy dates back to 1935, 14 years before the CPC took power. Mao Zedong, the top leader of the Party, invited two foreigners, including one American journalist, to Shaanxi in order to introduce the CPC and its army to the world.

However, the act didn't lead to a tradition of public diplomacy.

The current leadership has come to realize the importance of this kind of work. President Hu Jintao said in July last year that public diplomacy would be a focus of all foreign affairs in the future, raising it to national strategic level for the first time.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs upgraded the administrative level of the department in charge of public diplomacy last year and began to set up news centers at international summits.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and 2010 Shanghai Expo also created opportunities for foreigners to learn more about China.

The moves were mainly led by the government representing a sovereign nation.

Zhao Qizheng, head of the foreign affairs committee in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, believes that public diplomacy covers all activities expect for government-to-government diplomacy, and that non-governmental agencies and the public should play a bigger role in the future. 

Zhao hailed the establishment of a public diplomacy center at BFSU on August 26, the first non-government think tank that addresses the field in China, suggesting the university train more professionals in translation, and especially political wording.

"The primary task is to improve translation, as adverse effects would trigger more misunderstandings," Zhao, also the honorary director of the center, said. 

Fu said Chinese officials and enterprises are always either awkward or slow when dealing with the media.  Unlike their foreign counterparts who respond to misconceptions in a timely manner, she said some Chinese enterprises sometimes take years to clear up allegations by foreign media of being spies or having Chinese military backgrounds.

She suggested that special and systemic training in this field is vital. "Just being able to grasp foreign languages and knowing their polices is not enough."

Some foreign critics said China has failed to realize that what foreigners really want to know about the country "is not kung fu or Chinese medicine, though these are good."

"We want to know about the tremendous changes happening in China, such as why it only takes China decades to complete a job that other countries have spent centuries doing, and why Chinese policies change every five or seven years," Johan Galtung, a Norwegian scholar of conflict and peace, said at the forum.

"Rome was not built in a day, and public diplomacy should be a long-term endeavor, which is one of the keys to its success," Li Yonghui, professor of international relations at BFUS, told the Global Times yesterday.

"The integration of non-governmental resources and establishment of a tracking system to assess the impact of public diplomacy input is also important," Li said.