A transnational vision of The King and I: On American culture and policy in David Henry Hwang’s Soft Power

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article takes Soft Power, David Henry Hwang’s “musical within a play”, to foreground the importance of transnational appreciation in an era of superpowers. Hwang offers an alternative vision of world order by critically engaging with debates surrounding the rise of China and the Confucian concept of self-cultivation to expose the arrogance of western culture and narrow-mindedness of unilateral foreign policy. The article identifies Hwang’s strategy as “reciprocal criticism” – utilizing other cultures for self-critique without establishing superiority but rather encouraging mutual improvement – and highlighting performativity: it does not merely describe issues but creates a new reality through the re-imagining of The King and I, an orientalist musical, into a contemporary piece of theatre that elevates Asian American voices. Significantly, Soft Power reveals that any potential solution to the current global crises, such as climate change, regional conflict, and racial inequality, requires transnational visions capable of negotiating different ways of seeing.