Institutionalised Societal Diplomacy: China’s High-Level People-to-People Dialogues with Europe (2012–2025)

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This study examines how China employs high-level people-to-people dialogues (PPDs) with European counterparts as institutionalised mechanisms of societal diplomacy. It addresses the question of how China uses these dialogues to advance its foreign policy objectives within the liberal international order (LIO). Whilst often regarded as peripheral cultural exchanges, PPDs function as structured platforms through which China embeds cooperation, manages international identity, and projects normative narratives. The analysis covers 19 PPD rounds with the European Union, United Kingdom, France, and Germany between 2012 and 2025. Using grounded theory coding and abductive reasoning, it identifies outcomes across four dimensions: tangible (projects and exchanges), formalised (institutional procedures and continuity), symbolic (rituals and representational practises), and normative (discursive reframing of values). Findings show that the PPDs advance China’s dual posture as a strategist-reformist actor. As a strategist, China stabilises cooperation and consolidates legitimacy through institutional embedding. As a reformist, it incrementally recalibrates liberal vocabularies, layering emphases on civilisation, pluralism, and development within shared principles of peace, inclusivity, and sustainability. The study contributes to scholarship on rising powers and global order by conceptualising institutionalised societal diplomacy as a model through which China pursues continuity with recalibration, reforming elements of the LIO from within through structured, low-politics diplomacy.</jats:p>