Traditionally, public diplomacy has been conducted by governments through communication with the public of foreign countries to improve their image or reputation abroad. Today, countries around the world are becoming interdependent in the tide of globalization and many countries have incorporated public diplomacy into their global strategies. In China there is also an increased emphasis on public diplomacy. Over the past years, China’s public diplomacy has made remarkable progress in institution-building, researches and practices. There are two distinctive characteristics of China’s public diplomacy. First, due to the concentration of power in the government, the Chinese authorities are able to mobilize huge resources for its public diplomacy practice. Second, Chinese public diplomacy efforts have been defensive so far while Western countries usually practice offensive public diplomacy. China’s public diplomacy is a response by the government to the misunderstanding and misperception of China abroad. China’s cultural diplomacy is aimed for further understanding of Chinese history, traditions, culture and society instead of spreading or imposing Chinese values upon others. Chinese leaders believe that public diplomacy can be developed like other dimensions of developments in national level. Even though China has been active in public diplomacy, it still lags behind the United States, Europe and some Asian countries. The perception of China abroad is an important indicator to assess the effectiveness of China’s public diplomacy. But other factors such as Chinese foreign and security policies, economic performances, political ideologies and different values have strong influence on the perception on China. Therefore, it is difficult and may be too early to tell how public diplomacy practices have improved China’s image abroad. But, the success of the promotion of a true and full image of China will still depend much on the efforts of its public diplomacy. China needs to build an effective public diplomacy strategy and needs to improve its skills to make full use of public diplomacy instruments.