On March 19th 2004, the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited experts and scholars from Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Information Office of the State Council, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Nankai University, Foreign Affairs College, Institute of Modern International Relations as well as Xinhua News Agency to discuss China's public diplomacy. Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Shen Guofang attended and addressed the seminar.

Shen Guofang said, in recent years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made efforts to be public-oriented and serve the general public in the spirit of "giving top priority to the people, seeking truths and being pragmatic". However, there is still a long way to go before we can meet the requirements of the times, satisfy the expectations of the people and catch up with the development of public diplomacy in some developed countries. He indicated that there were quite a number of challenges waiting to be addressed. To this end, a Division for Public Diplomacy has been established under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The seminar was aimed to explore ideas, channels and measures with regard to public diplomacy so as to bring about a new situation of public diplomacy in China.

During the seminar, Ming Anxiang, Qu Xing, Guo Huimin, Cheng Manli, Shi Anbin, Han Zhaoying, Yuan Jinlin and other experts and scholars presented their views on the definition, operation and mechanism of public diplomacy respectively.

Shen Guofang said at the end of the seminar that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs attached great importance to exchanges and interaction with the public in order to better serve the Chinese people and the lofty goal of building a fairly well-off society.

Kong Quan, Director-General of the Information Department, hosted the seminar.