It is of extreme importance to understand the concept and motivation of soft power by China – the most rising emerging market power today and already the first export nation with the second-largest economy in the world [...]
It is of extreme importance to understand the concept and motivation of soft power by China – the most rising emerging market power today and already the first export nation with the second-largest economy in the world.
Concerning China and its foreign policy, soft power is one of the most frequently used political and social concepts during the last two decades. It has to be immediately noticed that one of the major reasons for China’s easy acceptance of soft power is that soft use of power has historically a strong cultural foundation in traditional Chinese foreign policy (for instance, in the case of the Korean Peninsula). Traditional China has a rich military-free culture, which mostly contributes to China’s use of cultural power in its foreign relations.[1] The revival of material and cultural power prompts China to easily find an echo in the concept of soft power. As a matter of fact, all ethnic Chinese people are proud of their cultural history.
Given that soft power is highly related to culture, it can be said that it is natural that China should stress the importance and use of cultural and soft power concerning its competitive cultural advantage in international society. Additionally, for most Chinese political and economic elites, the factor of civilization is playing a key role in shaping the future global order of world politics. In other words, in the eye of the Chinese elite, the way civilizations shape world order is not through clashes, as Samuel P. Huntington claims (a theory of Clash of Civilizations), but through dialogue between them. Such belief in civilization as well as is reinforcing the Chinese emphasis on soft power. Another reason for this is that Chinese society is fundamentally a relation-based society. This means, practically that social power is originating mostly, but not entirely, from the density of relational networks. Social power should be used for strengthening rather than disrupting the balance of social relations. Such a particular understanding of power is as well as consistent with the nature of soft power.
Some principles relating to Chinese use of soft power in foreign policy could be summarized briefly as follows:
At the cultural level, people from different cultures and civilizations should be mutually appreciated through communication. Diplomacy is, therefore, understood by the Chinese political authorities to be a useful means to reduce tensions among different civilizations.
At the economic level, China prefers to use persuasive rather than coercive means in order to address political disputes. In practice, in many cases, China insists that disputes cannot easily and simply be resolved through economic sanctions.
At the societal level, soft power building should help to establish mutual social assistance systems in international areas. That is why China is stressing the importance of transnational societal linkage in a globalized world.
It has to be emphasized that most citizens of China like officials and scholars are fully aware of the great gap in terms of soft power capacity between China and the USA. There is an opinion when the long line at the USA embassy visa application window in Beijing starts to get shorter, this may well mean that the soft power gap between China and the USA has become more balanced. In a soft power survey in East Asian countries in 2008, for instance, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs showed that the USA has much more soft power than China in East Asia. Even more, China’s soft power, in some indices, was even weaker than that of South Korea and Japan.[2] Through the opposite lens, with the growing wave of China-craze and businessmen’s rush to China, however, is it accurate to think that China is facing an unprecedented opportunity to upgrade its soft power around the globe?
It is frequently reported that China’s image in Africa, compared with its image there before the reform program started in 1979, is quite mixed. On one hand, China greatly increased its official aid to several African states, but on the other hand, its image is more or less damaged by some Chinese companies’ profits-before-everything activities there (that is the same with many Western companies too).
Several indicators are showing that China’s soft power is increasing in Asia and the rest of the world during the last twenty years, particularly after the 2008 global financial crisis that started in the USA.[3] From that time onward, soft power has become a keyword in Chinese foreign policy as there is great potential for the development of China’s soft power.[4] It has to be noticed that in many countries in developing world of emerging market economies Chinese formula of authoritarian government and successful market economy (China’s tripling of its GDP over 30 years) has become more popular than the previously dominant American formula of liberal market economics with democratic government. However, from a general point of view, even if the authoritarian growth model produces soft power for China in authoritarian countries, it does not produce attraction in democratic countries. In other words, what attracts Venezuela, may repel in France.[5] However, many Western nations are losing their image and soft power in developing countries in their race with both China and Russia because of their neo-imperialistic policies recognized as such by ex-Western colonies in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. For instance, the G. W. Bush (Junior) administration’s general tendency towards unilateralism and in particular its approach to the “war on terror” damaged the USA’s soft power and bred resentment, particularly within the Muslim world. This US unilateralism was dramatically demonstrated by the USA’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. Indeed, the then UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly that, as the invasion had not been sanctioned by the OUN SC, and was not following the principles of the UN Charter, it was a clear breach of international law (like NATO’s aggression on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999). The 2003 Iraq War demonstrated how the OUN could be reduced to the role of a bystander in a world dominated by the hegemonic USA. However, such action undoubtedly weakened the USA’s soft power.[6]
Instead of placing weight only on the economy and material resources, for the application of soft power, the future of China’s soft power will depend on what kinds of ideas China can contribute to the world, especially under the current uncertain international conditions and global rivalry between China and the USA and the USA and Russia. The most significant challenge to US power and global hegemony is the rise of emerging market states (like BRIC) especially China. In general warnings about the decline of US global hegemony date back after the Vietnam War and the Iranian Islamic revolution. The rise of China is, nevertheless, the most significant phenomenon in IR during the last 40 years, suggesting the emergence of a new global hegemon, with China, set to overtake the USA in economic terms during the 2020s. Although China’s global power is very closely related to its economic resurgence, its influence is as well as growing in other respects. China has by far the largest army in the world and is second only to the USA in terms of military spending. Chinese influence over Africa, in particular, has expanded considerably due to massive financial investment, linked to securing supplies of energy and raw materials. China’s structural power is as well as growing, as is reflected in the growing influence of the G-20, its role within the WTO, and the fate of both the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change and the 2021 Glasgow Climate Change conferences. China’s soft power is linked to its association with anti-colonialism and its capacity to portray itself as the representative of the global South. On the other hand, the USA’s soft power has declined in several respects. Its reputation has been damaged by its association with corporate power and widening global inequality, and resentment developing against “globalization as Americanization”. Serious damage has also been done to the USA’s moral authority by the military invasion of Iraq and by the terrible treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the Guantanamo detention camp.
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic
Ex-University Professor
Research Fellow at Centre for Geostrategic Studies
Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution.
References:
[1]See more in [Lei Haizong, Chinese Culture and Chinese Soldiers in History, Beijing: Commercial Press, 2001 (in Chinese)].
[2]Christopher Whitney, David Shambaugh, Soft Power in Asia: Results of a 2008 Multinational Survey of Public Opinion, Chicago Council on Global Affairs [www.thechicagocouncil.org].
[3]Sheng Ding, The Dragon’s Hidden Wings: How China Rises with Its Soft Power, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008.
[4]People’s Daily Online, “How to Improve China’s Soft Power”, 2010-03-11.
[5]Ingrid d’Hooghe, The Limits of China’s Soft Power in Europe: Beijing’s Public Diplomacy Puzzle, Clingendael Diplomacy Papers, No. 25, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingandel, 2010.
[6]By definition, soft power is the power of attraction rather than coercion. It is the ability to influence others by persuading them to follow or agree to norms and aspirations that produce the desired behavior, as opposed to using threats or rewards.
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter (X), Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/LegalStatement!
DonatetoSupportUs
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
On Mar. 24, US president Barack Obama announced that all 9,800 US troops currently stationed in Afghanistan will remain until the end of 2015. This generated a fair amount of criticism: it was, after all, Obama’s promise that the last American troop would leave the country in 2014.How have Obama’s plans for pulling out of Afghanistan fared so far?Those expecting the US to leave Afghanistan, however, should take a minute to consider this: the US still hasn’t left Germany. In fact, there are quite a few places the US hasn’t left, and while certainly most of them don’t pose a threat to American soldiers, ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
According to a report issued on June 6th in German Economic News (Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, or DWN), the German government is preparing to go to war against Russia, and has in draft-form a Bundeswehr report declaring Russia to be an enemy nation. DWN says: “The Russian secret services have apparently thoroughly studied the paper. In advance of the paper’s publication, a harsh note of protest has been sent to Berlin: The head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian State Duma, Alexei Puschkow, has posted the Twitter message: ‘The decision of the German government declaring Russia to be an ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
The full extent of the damage to international peace and security caused by the US-led Syrian strikes will take some time to become clear. But its impact on the very concept of legality in international affairs is already evident.Simply put, the most powerful county in the world and its chief satellites, the UK and France, have thrown the rule of law into the trash can. The only "law" now is the law of the jungle. There is no going back.Ironically, the attack itself was claimed by its perpetrators as enforcement of legality, not of its obliteration. For example, NATO Secretary-General ...
Read the opinion by Noam Chomsky about POTUS (Presidents of USA) after the Second World War in the light of the Nuremberg laws.Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]
The most useful parable about progressives is that offered by Bernard Sanders, self-styled “socialist-progressive-independent” rep from Vermont. Sanders owes his political career to rage against the Vietnam War among radicals, many of whom moved into the state in the early 1970s. They forthwith planned a long-term, carefully organized, assault on Vermont’s two-party structure. Sanders linked his political ambitions to this effort to organize a third force, the Progressive Alliance. He became mayor of Burlington and, later, congressman.At a rapid clip the emphasis moved from party-building to Sanders-building. By 1994, it was apparent that the only movement B. Sanders was interested in ...
“Neocons” believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled power – forcefully if necessary – to promote its values around the world. Some even speak of the need to cultivate a US empire. Neoconservatives believe modern threats facing the US can no longer be reliably contained and therefore must be prevented, sometimes through preemptive military action.Most neocons believe that the US has allowed dangers to gather by not spending enough on defense and not confronting threats aggressively enough. One such threat, they contend, was Saddam Hussein and his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Since ...
According to a number of global mainstream media sources, the Pentagon is covering up a disturbing video that was never made public with the rest of the recent torture report.According to various well respected journalists, including Seymour Hersh, the appalling video was recorded at Abu Ghraib, the notorious US torture dungeon in Iraq that made headlines roughly a decade ago, when the inhumane tactics being used at the prison were exposed.Sadly, it seems that the evidence released years ago was only scratching the surface.While the video has remained under wraps thus far, Hersh says it is only a matter of time before it ...
Post-colonial empires are complex organizations. They are organized on a multi-tiered basis, ranging from relative autonomous national and regional allies to subservient vassal states, with variations in between.In the contemporary period, the idea of empire does not operate as a stable global structure, though it may aspire and strive for such. While the US is the major imperial power, it does not dominate some leading global political-economic and military powers, like Russia and China.Imperial powers, like the US, have well-established regional satellites but have also suffered setbacks and retreats from independent local economic and political challengers.Empire is not a fixed ...
Aleppo has become synonymous with destruction and “Syrian state-generated” violence among those whose perception of the situation in the war-torn nation is contained within the prism of mainstream media narratives.The NATO-aligned media maintains a tight grip on information coming out of this beleaguered city, ensuring that whatever comes out is tailored to meet State Department requirements and advocacy for regime change. The propaganda mill churns out familiar tales of chemical weapons, siege, starvation, and bombs targeting civilians–all of which are attributed to the Syrian government and military, with little variation on this theme.The purpose of this photo essay and my ...
In late November 2013, the 'Euromaidan' in Kiev began as a popular protest against a generalized state of corruption and cronyism in Ukraine. The spark that ostensibly ignited the protests was the inability of then President Yanukovych to sign an EU Association Agreement that would cut Ukraine's economic and military ties to Russia in favor of a closer relationship with the EU and NATO.The EU had made the release of former Ukrainian prime minister and "gas princess" Tymoshenko a precondition for signing the agreement. But the fact that Tymoshenko was/is a convicted embezzler of state funds, combined with the rather ...
Two months ago, hundreds of thousands of Chileans somberly marked the 40thanniversary of their nation’s September 11th terrorist event. It was on that date in 1973 that the Chilean military, armed with a generous supply of funds and weapons from the United States, and assisted by the CIA and other operatives, overthrew the democratically-elected government of the moderate socialist Salvador Allende. Sixteen years of repression, torture and death followed under the fascist Augusto Pinochet, while the flow of hefty profits to US multinationals – IT&T, Anaconda Copper and the like – resumed. Profits, along with concern that people in other ...
The Kosovo Question recently once again became an important issue of global politics and international relations for two reasons: 1) The Albanian “government” of the “Republic of Kosovo” announced to officially proclaim the existence of the Kosovo Army (that is a violation of the 1244 UN Resolution in 1999), and 2) The “president” of the “Republic of Kosovo”, a war criminal Hashim Tachi, participated on November 11th (2018) in Paris to the world leaders’ celebration of a centenary anniversary of the end of the WWI (the signed armistice with Germany) as the official representative of an “independent” Kosovo. He was ...
Article by Vladislav B. Sotirović: „A New Age of Global Security: The ‚Ukrainian Question‘ and ‚Kosovo Precedent‘“, Vojno delo (Military affairs), Interdisciplinary Scientific Theoretical Journal, International Edition, Vol. 69, Issue 4, 2017 (May-June 2017), ISSN 0042-8426, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia, pp. 176−211.Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]Save
If anyone needed another reminder that Black lives simply don’t matter in the United States of America, the police in Minneapolis have clearly demonstrated that fact.It will be a long time before I will forget the picture of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck. Even that statement is shocking. I still have not forgotten a very similar picture from 2014: a Black man on the ground being choked by a white policeman. In that earlier time, the victim was Eric Garner. His murderer, Daniel Pantaleo, faced no charges. Chauvin has been charged with third degree murder three days after ...
What must the world think watching the US presidential campaign? Over time US political campaigns have become more unreal and less related to voters’ concerns, but the current one is so unreal as to be absurd.The offshoring of American jobs by global corporations and the deregulation of the US financial system have resulted in American economic failure. One might think that this would be an issue in a presidential campaign.The neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony is driving the US and its vassals into conflict with Russia and China. The risks of nuclear war are higher than at any previous ...
The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center is pleased to announce a new book, Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923. Edited by George N. Shirinian. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2017. 433 pages.The final years of the Ottoman Empire were catastrophic for its non-Turkish, non-Muslim minorities. From 1913 to 1923, its rulers deported, killed, or otherwise persecuted staggering numbers of men, women and children in an attempt to preserve “Turkey for the Turks,” setting a modern precedent for how a regime can commit genocide against its own citizens in pursuit of political ends, while ...
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic
