Cheng Hong (left), wife of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, visits Addis Ababa University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in May.

Liu Hongsong, a Chinese visiting scholar at the London School of Economics, says soft diplomacy can help clear up public misconceptions about the China-EU relationship. So the Chinese leadership's efforts in soft diplomacy are highly significant in improving the partnership, he says.

Shada Islam, policy director of the think tank Friends of Europe in Brussels, says soft power is a critical element of any country's public diplomacy.

"Over the years China has been very successful in using soft diplomacy to win friends and reassure the general public in Europe that its rise is benign," she says.

Islam recalls speaking to Belgians after President Xi visited the College of Europe in Bruges in April and about China's panda diplomacy a few days earlier. People were very positive in their responses, seeing Xi as wishing to engage with youth and to extend a hand of friendship to the public, she says.

In the West, leaders' spouses play an important role in public diplomacy, for example, by showcasing clothes made by their countries' couturiers.

"I think Xi's wife Peng Liyuan is an important messenger of China's soft power," Islam says. "Diplomatically, the presence of Li and his wife will also be good for China's image.'

Michal Krol, a research associate at the European Center of International Political Economy in Brussels, says efforts by China's leaders to reach out to foreign people in non-political settings augurs well for the way China will be perceived overseas.

Cooperation and understanding between the EU and China depends on the ability to communicate in a way that transcends empathy, he says.

"Having an open relationship is vital for learning about each other's cultures. In this way the countries identify and affirm commonalities and tackle differences through soft power diplomacy, seemingly in a cost-free way."

However, Islam says, Europeans are hearing a lot about rising tensions in the seas around China, and many have a distaste for territorial confrontation.

"Chinese public diplomacy practitioners must take this into account. Public diplomacy and soft power only have resonance and can only impress when countries are intrinsically perceived as peaceful and non-threatening."

Echoing Islam, Kirby says China always learns quickly, as it has in practicing soft diplomacy.

"It can reassure people that there is more to unite them to a nation on the other side of the world than there is to divide them, so if it's done sincerely, it can be worthwhile.

"But it should still leave time for quite substantial, serious discussions out of the public spotlight."

One aspect of soft diplomacy that is not so good, he says, is that it can "leave many people with no information by which to judge bilateral relations except pandas and footballers".

It is possible that the public may not be told that two sides are having serious, tense and possibly antagonistic discussions on important issues, he says.

"The pragmatists will say that what matters is not how many babies Premier Li kisses, but what financial and security promises he makes."

One of those with a direct interest in Li's visit to Greece is Christos Vlachos, a managing partner of Silky Finance, a consultancy in Athens, who long has had business connections with China.

He sees soft diplomacy in education and culture as highly significant and beneficial to both sides.

"Though symbolic, all such diplomacy is essential."

He would like a school to be opened in Athens where courses are taught in Chinese, Greek and English and that has Chinese government backing.

He has done a feasibility study with two school owners in Athens who have shown a great deal of interest in making the curriculum trilingual, he says.

Contact the writers through fujing@chinadaily.com.cn

Li Xiaofei contributed to this story in Brussels.

(China Daily European Weekly 06/13/2014 page10)