Late last year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chose Christmas, a festive occasion in the West, to send a friendly message to the United States. On December 25th, the People's Daily and the Global Times, the official newspapers of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, announced the launch of a "Stories of Sino-US Friendly Cooperation" submission campaign. Themed "Transcending Cultural Differences, Inheriting Friendship and Trust," the campaign solicited submissions from organizations and individuals at home and abroad in a variety of formats, including text, images, and videos, aiming to showcase touching stories of cultural, economic, and social exchange between China and the United States. The campaign will run for six months, with the deadline for submissions being June 20, 2025. This "smiling diplomacy" toward the United States was launched through the "Guling romance" incident. The People's Daily published two consecutive full-page articles from various sectors calling for the restoration of friendly Sino-US relations. The international community's interpretation of this was largely unanimous: facing pressure from a resurgent Trump, the CCP was proactively projecting goodwill and expressing a friendly attitude toward the United States in an effort to defuse the hostility of Trump's "super-hawkish" administration. The question is: Will it work? Today, many people understand that this is just a CCP "international united front" ploy, and it's not easily fooled.
