Image of Nation is one of important aspect in International Relations today. It can influence the attitude of people and country to another and every country try to attract people and government from another country through the public diplomacy which is focuses on culture. To develop positive image, as part of Indonesian public diplomacy, Indonesia invites foreign student to learn and study Indonesian culture and Bahasa Indonesia. This article focus on analyze the reason of Chinese student from Guangxi Normal University to study Bahasa Indonesia and what is the image of Indonesia after they studied almost one year in Indonesia. The result shows that Bahasa Indonesia is one of prospective language and gives opportunity relate with job opportunity because of Indonesia-China raising relations. In other hand, Indonesia have positive image on the culture, tradition, polite, open minded, familiarity, kindness and friendship. However, Indonesia also have negative image on traffic, time and corruption. Those image describe how Chinese student percepts Indonesia as foreign country. According to this study, there are opportunity and challenges on Indonesian image development.
Keywords: Bahasa Indonesia, Chinese Student, Perception, Public diplomacy
