This edited volume helps the reader to better understand the cultural and rhetorical context of public diplomacy in East Asia and how the values and campaigns of public diplomacy in this region contrast with dominant Western-centric UK, US, and European models. It reinforces the regional focus by concentrating public diplomacy policy in Asia proper. Few books of public diplomacy analyze inter-Asian public diplomacy, and this volume makes a strong contribution to the literature. It also meets a demand for more scholarly inquiry into a part of the world where soft power, cultural diplomacy, and public diplomacy dimensions are becoming popular add-ons to interdisciplinary studies in communications, hospitality management, political science, international relations, and comparative public and cultural policy. To be sure, it is difficult to divorce Western dominance in public diplomacy from non-Western approaches. There is always the issue of primary custody of the “children,” and in the case of public diplomacy, there is no avoiding the North American legacy of soft power as coined by Harvard professor and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Nye or the first use of the term public diplomacy by retired US ambassador Edmund Gullion at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

For all its focus on understanding, one cannot escape the subtitle of this text. East Asia, despite its wealth, integrated economy systems, and person-to-person movement in tourists and exchange students, is still perceived as “troubled” in its political leader encounters, historical legacies, and ongoing disputes. Culturally speaking, soft power projections here have never been stronger. The Northeast Asian “Big Three” countries of China, South Korea, and Japan are competing in reputation and image, but such competition is almost always zero-sum in orientation. The notion of collaborative East Asian public diplomacy is practically unheard of, since nation-states view public diplomacy campaigns as opportunities to expand the size of the revenue pie by attracting more tourists and exchange persons who will spend money in the host national country. The “Asia paradox” separates cooperative trade and economic interdependence from security and historical narrative clashes that pit one nation's public against the other. In that context, diplomacy to publics here is less active listening and mutual understanding and more consumerist and soft power competitive, what the editors have called a “zero sum commodity” approach. It isn't a stretch to say that East Asia has its own K-Pop and J-Pop version of “We Hate You But Send Us Your Baywatch.”

Although not made explicit in the volume's title, the editors refer to their level of analysis as strategic public diplomacy in extended East Asia, comprising all ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, particularly Indonesia, as well as Australia, China, India, Japan, and South Korea. For those of us who live in East Asia, this is a much broader sweep of the region beyond the “Big Three” triangle of the Northeast: China, Japan, and Korea. There is value in such an extension. South Korea and Indonesia are East Asia's newest middle powers to join with Australia, and, in turn have established a values-based multilateral diplomacy platform called MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey and Australia). What the MIKTA lens offers is a nimble, entrepreneurial, and narrative-rich diversion from the back-and-forth vying for regional dominance of military, economic, and cultural giants China and the United States. This look beyond superpower public diplomacy is refreshing and invites the reader to think beyond today's headlines to the power of public diplomacy in relationship-building, developing intercultural sensitivity and peace-building over the long term. Too often public diplomacy is still seen as a necessary evil in explaining and engaging global publics to support narrow policy interests. Understanding Public Diplomacy in East Asia extends our understanding of public diplomacy beyond its power politics and cold war origins. This is not to say that one can at present escape power politics and competitive nation and soft power branding. For instance, in “Regionalization, Regionalism, and Double-Edged Public Diplomacy in East Asia,” co-editor Yul Sohn adopts the sword metaphor to refer to East Asian competitive efforts that are designed to undercut each other's soft power. This approach defies the conventional thinking that soft power persuasion is inherently benign, as in Joseph Nye's notion that soft power competition is every nation's win–win gain, at least in building attraction. Melissen and Sohn set the conceptual framework for the case studies (China, India, Australia, South Korea, Japan) that form the bulk of this volume. Andrew F. Cooper's chapter offers up Canada as an exemplar of traditional middle power public diplomacy and compares its legacy to rising East Asian middle power, South Korea. Yoshihide Soeya's chapter about Japan's public diplomacy reinforces the zero-sum game that is public diplomacy in Northeast Asia. Craig Hayden's chapter offers critical examination of the Northeast Asian rivalry-based public diplomacy operating as it does in the shadow of that default East Asian power, the United States.

The case study focus of this book is enlightening and illustrative of what East Asian middle powers in particular can do to advance longer term, relationship-focused and values-led multilateral relations. Nevertheless, the editors sum up the image and reputation bugaboo for East Asian public diplomacy study and practice: “The average reader of the press could not be blamed for seeing East Asia as a booming but divided region.” This is the conundrum of public diplomacy's lack of internal and external public relations. Public diplomacy is a growth market in the region, but more at the institutional level of the academy and governments. The “average reader” knows more about power politics and harbors negative public attitudes toward regional neighbors based on festering historical grievances, chronic stereotypes, and lack of intercultural communication beyond superficial interpersonal encounters. We need to reconcile the grassroots, neighborhood-based potential for public diplomacy as a mutual understanding and trust-building mechanism with the top-down, ministry-centered, and academic elite institutional inquiries into diplomacy to publics. This book is a step in that direction with its narrative-embracing accounts that show the flexibility potential of public diplomacy to go beyond cosmetic enhancement in policy objectives.