This is the first full-length book on the concept of “People’s Diplomacy,” promoted by the president of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, at the peak of the Vietnam War from 1965-1972. It holds great appeal for historians, international relations scholars, diplomats, and the general reader interested in Vietnam. A form of informal diplomacy, people’s diplomacy was carried out by ordinary Vietnamese including writers, cartoonists, workers, women, students, filmmakers, medical doctors, academics, and sportspersons. They created an awareness of the American bombardment of innocent Vietnamese civilians, and made profound connections with the anti-war movements abroad. People’s diplomacy made it difficult for the United States to prolong the war because the North Vietnamese, together with the peace movements abroad, exerted popular pressure on the American presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon to end the conflict. It was much more effective than the formal North Vietnamese diplomacy in gaining the support of Westerners who were averse to communism. It damaged the reputation of the United States by casting North Vietnam as a victim of American imperialism.

This book explores how Vietnam's leadership conceptualises and conducts public diplomacy (PD) and offers a comparative analysis with regional powers. Drawing on social constructivism as its theoretical framework it investigates the rationale behind an authoritarian regime's implementation of public diplomacy to contribute to a better understanding of the broader framework of foreign-domestic policy. This theoretical and practical exploration of Vietnam's PD in cases of cultural diplomacy, South China Sea diplomacy and online activism situates it in the general academic and theoretical discussion on soft power. Key variables to the conceptualisation and conduct of Vietnam's PD, namely national interest, national identity and changing information technologies, especially the Internet and social media, are also thoroughly investigated. With crosscutting themes ranging from politics and international relations to communication studies, it will appeal to students and scholars of identity politics, populism and nationalism.

In People's Diplomacy, Kazushi Minami shows how the American and Chinese people rebuilt US-China relations in the 1970s, a pivotal decade bookended by Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China and 1979 normalization of diplomatic relations. Top policymakers in Washington and Beijing drew the blueprint for the new bilateral relationship, but the work of building it was left to a host of Americans and Chinese from all walks of life, who engaged in "people-to-people" exchanges. After two decades of estrangement and hostility caused by the Cold War, these people dramatically changed the nature of US-China relations. Americans reimagined China as a country of opportunities, irresistible because of its prodigious potential, while Chinese reinterpreted the United States as an agent of modernization, capable of enriching their country and rejuvenating their lives. Drawing on extensive research at two dozen archives in the United States and China, People's Diplomacy redefines contemporary US-China relations as a creation of the American and Chinese people.

As China takes up the mantle of a global power, its diplomatic policy has changed significantly as it assumes a role of regional leadership. Until recently, China has not tended to talk about its developmental strategy as a model for others to follow. Since the rise of Xi Jinping this has changed, and the state has become more open in sharing its developmental experiences with its neighbours. This has become an important part of China’s diplomatic relations with other countries in East Asia. Beijing has also emphasized people-to-people diplomacy, with outward tourism and other exchanges of peoples seen as an important part of building stronger relations with its neighbours. The chapters in this book all address different elements of this strategy, looking at China’s bilateral relationships with other East Asian countries in terms of developmental relations and the increasing mutual exposure of their citizens. This book will be of great interest to scholars of Chinese diplomacy, especially those with a particular interest in soft power.

This new edition masterfully explains the origins and outcome of America's war in Vietnam by focusing on its local dimensions.

In 1965, fed up with President Lyndon Johnson's refusal to make serious diplomatic efforts to end the Vietnam War, a group of female American peace activists decided to take matters into their own hands by meeting with Vietnamese women to discuss how to end U.S. intervention. While other attempts at women's international cooperation and transnational feminism have led to cultural imperialism or imposition of American ways on others, Jessica M.Frazier reveals an instance when American women crossed geopolitical boundaries to criticize American Cold War culture, not promote it. The American women Frazier studies not only solicited Vietnamese women's opinions and advice on how to end the war but also viewed them as paragons of a new womanhood by which American women could rework their ideas of gender, revolution, and social justice during an era of reinvigorated feminist agitation. Unlike the many histories of the Vietnam War that end with an explanation of why the memory of the war still divides U.S. society, by focusing on linkages across national boundaries, Frazier illuminates a significant moment in history when women formed effective transnational relationships on genuinely cooperative terms.

Publisher's description: "This book presents new perspectives on the Vietnam War, its global repercussions, and the role of this war in modern history. The volume reveals 'America's War' as an international event that reverberated all over the world: in domestic settings of numerous nation-states, combatants and non-combatants alike, as well as in transnational relations and alliance systems. The volume thereby covers a wide geographical range-from Berkeley and Berlin to Cambodia and Canberra. The essays address political, military, and diplomatic issues no less than cultural and intellectual consequences of 'Vietnam'. The authors also set the Vietnam War in comparison to other major conflicts in world history; they cover over three centuries, and develop general insights into the tragedies and trajectories of military conflicts as phenomena of modern societies in general. For the first time, 'America's War' is thus depicted as a truly global event whose origins and characteristics deserve an interdisciplinary treatment."

"Using new and largely inaccessible Vietnamese sources as well as French, British, Canadian and American archives, Pierre Asselin sheds valuable light on Hanoi's path to war. Step by step the narrative makes Hanoi's revolutionary strategy from the end of the French Indochina War to the start of the Anti-American Resistance Struggle for Reunification and National Salvation (the Vietnam War) transparent. The book reveals how North Vietnamese leaders moved from a cautious policy emphasizing nonviolent political and diplomatic struggle to a far riskier pursuit of military victory"--

"These six volumes focus on the history and legacies of the Vietnam War on the basis of the best scholarly articles. The six volumes analyze, respectively, the origins of the Indochina wars; military strategy; the role of prominent individuals; the antiwar movement; the lessons of Vietnam; and representations of the war in popular culture. A brief introduction accompanies each volume."--V.1. Series Introduction.

Shows how human rights displaced anti-imperialism as the dominant framework for changing the world in the 1960s and 1970s.