Micheál Martin has just finished a four day official visit to China.  On Monday he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing and by all accounts the trip has been a glowing success.

It’s been an eventful week geopolitically with Donald Trump and Nicolás Maduro making most of the headlines. 

But quietly beavering away in the background was Micheál Martin as he pressed the flesh in Beijing. 

The trip came off the back of an internal study by the Department of Foreign Affairs into the Government’s diplomatic soft power and included a notable non-answer to a question on the events in Venezuela from the Taoiseach.

So just how much is achieved by these visits? To what degree is the off camera dialogue reflected by the on the record rhetoric? 

And does Ireland’s soft power pack much of a punch internationally?

Today on the podcast, Shane Beatty speaks with former Irish Ambassador to France, Rory Montgomery about diplomacy, soft power and what really goes on behind the scenes on these state  visits.