Chinese Cultural Diplomacy: From Brics Alliance of Museum to Curitiba Local Agenda

Resumen

The main purpose of this paper is to analyses how China is present in Brazilian society by its arts and cultural diplomacy since BRICS Museums Alliance signed in 2018. Thereby, many Chinese artistic exhibitions and other cultural and visibility events have been happening in Brazilian spaces and public museums. Therefore, by problematizing arts as a tool of foreign policy interests, we sought to analyze the content of these exhibitions to identify current values of Chinese cultural representation, especially in the City of Curitiba that demonstrated significant involvement with China. The methodology was organized by three levels: i) the contextualization of Chinese cultural diplomacy and the creation of BRICS Museum Alliance; ii) analysis of museums and exhibitions in Brazil that have aligned with Chinese cultural diplomacy in recent years; and iii) analysis of Curitiba as a current case of Chinese cultural diplomacy by government speeches and interviews. The main results show that: i) China has been expanding its cultural diplomacy in Brazil by BRICS; ii) presenting a self-image of tradition (reliability and stability) in a high technology context (new options besides West) and friendly to local governments; iii) as we can see in Curitiba, by public initiatives as Largo da China and Bienal de Curitiba.