Chinese Soft Power Research Articles

Othering as soft-power discursive practice: China Daily’s construction of Trump’s America in the 2016 presidential election

The relationship between Chinese soft power and Chinese media has been a focus of a growing body of literature. Challenging a resource-based conception of soft power and a transmission view of communication that inform much of the debate, this article adopts a discursive approach to soft power and media communication. It argues that their relationship is not just a matter of resource transmission, but one of discursive construction, which begs the questions of what mediated discursive practices are at play in soft power construction and how. Addressing these oft-neglected questions, we identify a typology of three soft-power discursive practices: charm offensive, Othering offensive, and defensive denial. Focusing on the little-understood practice of Othering offensive, we illustrate its presence in Chinese media through a critical discourse analysis of China Daily’s framing of Donald Trump and the United States, and argue that the Othering offensive in Chinese media that portrays Trump’s America as a dysfunctional and declining Other serves to construct a Chinese self as more responsible, dynamic, and attractive. Adding a missing discursive dimension to the study of soft power and the media, this study has both scholarly and practical implications for analysing a nation’s soft power strategy.

Comparing Chinese and EU Soft Power: The Credibility Factor

This paper presents arguments to evaluate soft power as perceived by the European Union (EU) and by China. Since the presentation of Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power, it has become apparent that notions of audience and message reception are important. We will further argue for the relevance of the psychological idea of dissonance. We will compare and contrast soft power discourses for their alignment with reality, and assess them for discrepancy. Ultimately, we will conclude that such contradictions exist and create a “dissonance” or disjunction, which we will explore in relation to the concept of credibility. In the second section, an analysis of China’s soft power serves to highlight the effects of the implementation by a “hard” state, in a centralized and controlled manner, of a soft power policy. We will examine tables in an effort to extend our comparison beyond the discourses perpetuated and promoted by both China and the EU. We will challenge these discourses using indices, including the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, the Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International, as well as The Good Country Index, The Soft Power 30, and the World Justice Index, each representing a component of soft power as proposed by Nye, i.e., culture, political values and foreign policy. Additionally, we will closely examine social questions to better develop our understanding of soft power policy. Results indicate that while credibility appears more important to China than to the EU, it is, nonetheless, a central tenet for both parties. The third section takes a comparative approach to its discussion of the normative power of European and Chinese soft power. It reveals contradictions within the policies of both political bodies, and simultaneously draws two conclusions. First, that a “cultural fool” does not exist, i.e., individuals are able to decipher and understand messages. Secondly, that individuals attribute credibility or unreliability to policy messages framed by a state, an organization, or the media.

Forum Macau: Chinese soft power in the Portuguese-speaking African countries

Forum Macau: Chinese soft power in the Portuguese-speaking African countries

China’s Development Assistance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

As the increase of bilateral trade between China and sub-Saharan Africa in the last ten years has been skyrocketing at the expense of Western countries, paralleled by the renewed projection of Chinese soft power in the continent by means of technical aid and economic agreements, the author will analyse the scope, the underlying factors, and the potential consequences of Chinese development assistance to countries in the region. In a comparative manner, the paper also briefly describes the main features that make Chinese foreign assistance different from its Western counterpart. The author argues that there is a contradiction between the economic agenda of Beijing aimed at reproducing centre–periphery contradictions on the world stage with China at the centre of the envisaged world system, and a political discourse still based on the principle of non-interference and opposition to neo-colonialism.

Liu Cixin's Three-Body Trilogy and the Status of Science Fiction in Contemporary China

The recent success of Liu Cixin's hard sf trilogy Santi [The Three-Body Trilogy, 2006-2008] is symbolic of the important rise of Chinese science fiction both in China and in the rest of the world. This trilogy tells the story of the future invasion of Earth by a belligerent extraterrestrial civilization with advanced technology and the ways in which humans try to defend themselves. It begins with the Chinese Cultural Revolution and ends with the heat death of the universe. A huge bestseller and great critical success, it is also being adapted to film. The English translation of the first volume also won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015. With the considerable success he achieved with this trilogy, Liu Cixin has become for the readers, critics, and supporters of Chinese soft power the standard-bearer of a new “era” of Chinese science fiction, called upon to promote the “Chinese dream” to the international community. In light of the history of science fiction in China since 1949 and its political reappropriation, this present contribution offers an examination of the conditions of production and reception of The Three-Body Trilogy in China and abroad and details the reasons for the critical, academic, and even political passion that it arouses today.

Chinese Soft Power Approaches towards Pakistan: An Analysis of Socio, Economic and Political Impacts

Pakistan has been facing imminent socio-economic, political and diplomatic challenges since 2001. The on-going war on terror has cost losses of infrastructure in the country amounting to $60 billion. China has employed its own version of soft power ranging from diplomatic support on crucial issues to foreign aid and investment, cultural exchanges and higher education opportunities for Pakistani youth. Among them, one of the most important projects is the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) with a total investment of $62 billion. Against this backdrop, this study intends to highlight how China is projecting its soft power in Pakistan and to what extent Chinese soft power could heal Pakistan’s socio, economic, political and diplomatic disasters. This study reveals that Chinese soft power strategies have left far higher imprints on Pakistan through diplomatic support, investment, and provision of scholarships.

Can China’s Economic Statecraft Win Soft Power in Africa? Unpacking Trade, Investment and Aid

Boosting China’s soft power is an important goal of Chinese economic statecraft in Africa. However, African opinions of China – in particular those of ordinary people – are understudied, and existing evidence suggests African viewpoints on China are highly varied and polarized. On the one hand, China’s growing economic linkages are welcomed by Africans as an important alternative to traditional partners, and a vital source of funding for development needs. On the other hand, Africans see China as a source of poor-quality products and an exploitative threat to local markets. How can scholars understand these polarized opinions on China? Using data from the Afrobarometer Round 6 survey (2016), this article aims to untangle African perceptions of Chinese economic engagement through unpacking the distinctive effects of China’s three tools of economic statecraft: trade, foreign direct investment, and aid. Analyses of Chinese influence frequently package these three modes of engagement together, but in practice they have very different consequences for China’s soft power. Negative perceptions of China among African citizens are primarily associated with trade-related issues. China’s investment and aid, on the other hand, generally make a positive contribution to Chinese soft power in Africa. By highlighting the contrasting effects of different instruments of economic engagement, this analysis contributes insight into Sino-African relations and China’s wider economic diplomacy.

Chinese Culture and Soft Power

China’s spiritual gap has to date largely been met by a combination of Christianity and traditional Chinese belief systems. Both present challenges to the Communist Party.

The evolution of Chinese public diplomacy and the rise of think tanks

The evolution and change of Chinese public diplomacy can be seen from panda diplomacy, the Confucius Institutes, Chinese mass media’s “going out” strategy as well as various international events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. Some substantial studies have found that these Chinese public diplomacies could not help much in terms of improving China’s image or enhancing Western understanding of China. This article aims at examining the latest Chinese policy instrument—think tanks—to see if they can boost Chinese soft power. In addition, this article illustrates the Chinese think tanks from an institutional perspective by studying their contribution in the One Belt One Road (OBOR) Initiative through the case studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China (RDCY). The Chinese think tanks have played an important role in targeting foreign publics and working on track II diplomacy. However, there is still room for improvement. The major sources of this article are derived from published materials, websites of Chinese institutions and interviews.

Confucius Institutes and FDI flows from China to Africa

Is the establishment of new Confucius Institutes (CIs) in African countries motivated by resource seeking? We focus on uncovering new empirical evidence about the establishment of CIs, whether they are related to natural resources, and the extent to which the establishment of new CIs and Chinese foreign aid flows affect one another. Whereas Chinese aid flows do indeed appear to be empirically associated with African countries' natural resources, the evidence we report suggests that CIs are established based on a distinct set of motives. We find that CIs, Chinese foreign aid flows to Africa and natural resources have joint predictive power on the subsequent year's Chinese FDI outflows. CIs are not, however, positively associated with the subsequent year's aid flows. And aid flows are not positively associated with the subsequent year's expected number of CIs. We interpret this as evidence that CIs reflect an economically significant expression of Chinese soft power. The goals underlying the expression of this soft power are not subsumed by natural resource seeking and are not easily compressed to a single dimension. The data show that CIs and aid flows are not positive predictors of each other and are not subsumed (i.e., made to disappear) by the inclusion of controls for natural resources. Thus, the presence of a CI reveals independent, novel, and economically significant information about future trade flows that cannot be explained away by differences in resources or other control variables commonly found in empirical models of trade flows. The empirical evidence suggests that CIs are indeed an effective instrument for increasing China's soft power but that this soft power is not motivated solely (if at all) by resource seeking.

Public Attitudes toward an Emerging China in Latin America

In the past two decades, China has substantially increased its economic presence in Latin America. The impressive rate of economic growth in China has resulted in a voracious appetite for Latin American commodities and energy sources. China has also become a major investor in the region, and has loaned billions of dollars to Latin American countries. This paper evaluates how aware Latin American citizens are of this increased economic presence of China, and also studies citizens’ attitudes toward the rising influence of China in Latin America. Public attitudes toward the Chinese economic and political model, and evaluations of the Chinese popular culture are also presented and discussed. The evidence suggests that the image of China is improving in Latin America as a result of its new economic role in the region. However, Chinese soft power faces several limitations in the region. The Chinese political and economic models, and the Chinese popular culture are still not very attractive in Latin America.

China Public Diplomacy in Asia Pacific

Since 1990, for more than sixteen years, Beijing has been attempting to shape the diplomatic and strategic environment in maritime Asia, projecting an image of itself as an innately trustworthy great power. As a part of this public relations campaign, Chinese leaders have retailed the story of Zheng He, the former Ming Dynasty eunuch admiral who voyaged to destinations throughout Asia continent, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean six centuries ago. They have touted the feats of Zheng He, who sojourned in maritime Asia without attempting military conquest, as a metaphor for China’s current peaceful ascent in the regional maritime domain. In doing so, Beijing hopes to convince regional leaders in Southeast Asia and South Asia that it remains Pacific in outlook. Thus can be counted on not to abuse the sea power it is amassing. An attractive vision of China, they hope, will avert the tendency of regional states to band together to balance Chinese power. Still Chinese diplomats have had the luxury to tell story how they wanted; since deployments of China naval forces beyond East Asia remained abstract. Beijing neither saw the need nor boasted the capacity to maintain strong forces far from Chinese shores. However, the headline-grabbing dispatch of two destroyers and a combat logistics ship to the Gulf of Aden on counter-piracy duty in late 2008 has put China squarely in international spotlight. By depicting itself as an inherently defensive power, China has set a high standard for its behavior at sea. Fellow Asian countries will hold Beijing to this lofty benchmark, and measuring its actions against the manipulated Chinese leaders story that developed around Zheng He’s voyages for centuries. Beijing’s anti-piracy mission offers an ideal opportunity to explore empirically the efficacy of Chinese Soft Power. To conclude, this paper examines how the Zheng He narratives motivates and assesses the substance messages that Chinese leaders are attempting to convey to Asian capitals. This study then elaborate to some extent that China’s unprecedented naval presence in the Indian Ocean has dovetailed with Zheng He legendary history followed by the expansive larger strategy of easing regional misgivings about Chinese maritime power. The paper also analyzes how India as a target audience respond to China’s global and regional ambitions, drawing several preliminary conclusions about the effectiveness and the prospects of Chinese public diplomacy as the element of power in international politics.

Chinese Soft Power and Immigration Reform: Can Beijing’s Approach to Pursuing Global Talent and Maintaining Domestic Stability Succeed?

During the past few years, the Chinese government has enacted laws and issued regulations to attract foreign talent, facilitate the return of skilled Chinese nationals and better regulate the entry, residence and employment of foreigners. China is quickly becoming a “new immigration country,” with all the political, economic, and social challenges that entails. This article examines the strategic and policy approaches of China’s recent immigration reform within the context of Chinese soft power. It reviews China’s new immigration laws, policies and practices, and analyzes how immigration reform fits into the new generation of Chinese leaders’ agenda of deepening and broadening China’s post-Mao reform. The article also explicates how key changes in China’s new immigration laws and regulations demonstrate that China is entering the global competition for talent while at the same time that its authoritarian government is attempting to maintain domestic stability by improving immigration-related social management.

Chinese Soft Power and Green Energy Investment in the Greater Middle East

Green energy investment is one avenue through with the Chinese government is beginning to create a new relationship with the Middle East. Chinese solar panel firms have research and production advantages in the world market, but face rising labor costs at home. The Communist Party under Xi Jinping has pursued two major policies, “Go out!” and “One Road, One Belt.” The first refers to Chinese firms creating factories abroad to benefit from cheap labor and from local low-tariff trade blocs. China will therefore set up solar panel factories in the United Arab Emirates and in Morocco. Both countries have strong national commitments to renewable energy, but also have access to a wide range of export markets. This sort of investment changes China’s relationship to the region from being one of buying hydrocarbons to a much more intensive set of interactions, including acting as employer for local labor.

Opening Ceremonies of International Sports Events: The Other Face of Chinese Soft Power

This paper analyzes the relationship between the opening ceremonies of international sports events and the building of a positive image of China. To do so, we draw on the concept of soft power, which establishes that one way in which states seek to achieve their goals in the international arena is through attraction rather than coercion. From this perspective, the construction of promedia images is one of the privileged means to deploy soft power. Thus, this paper examines the favourable projection of China’s image at inaugural ceremonies of international sports events. These images show China as a country heir to a millenary past and brilliant civilization, which aims to assist in the construction of a better future. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of these events in the construction of a collective imaginary about what government elites establish regarding what China is and should be on the international stage.

Chinese Soft Power in Africa: Case of Senegal

Beijing political system in Africa has ostensibly made China a major leader throughout this continent. The different elements that link Africa to China have traditionally been embedded in the discourse of cooperation, mutual benefit and political equality. Then, we can notice that China is building a positive image throughout Africa. Let’s take the example of Senegal where, between 2006 and 2011, approximately 26 Chinese official development finance projects are identified. These projects are estimated around 100 millions USD financed by China’s Exim Bank [1] This endeavor not only spotlights how China is creating a favorable international environment but also it’s close to the concept of soft power. However, soft power is about dynamic relationships between an agent and the subject of attraction. China’s foreign policy and strategy is highly influential, because China’s main target is to lead the world in all fields. Two important issues within this are whether the relationship between the two parts of the world is symmetrical or asymmetrical and the exact role of soft power in this constellation. This paper is going to focus on these arguments and proposes that prominent economies on the African continent such as Senegal have an inescapable role to play in ensuring a symmetrical relationship between China and Africa.

Soft Power: A Comparison of Discourse and Practice in Russia and China

This article compares soft power as a normative and operational construct in the Russian and Chinese political context. I examine Russian and Chinese discourse on soft power as well as the efforts of the Kremlin and Beijing to devise programmes for its implementation. I then compare and evaluate the similarities and differences in Russian and Chinese soft power strategy. The similarities between the two states indicate their joint status as authoritarian regimes with a Marxist–Leninist heritage. The differences can be attributed to their vastly disparate economic circumstances, but also to historical, social, and political factors that influence soft power policies.

China's “soft power” and its influence on editorial agendas in South Africa

In recent years, China's increased economic activity in Africa has elicited much scholarly and journalistic attention. The debates about China's presence in Africa have assumed the now familiar contours of asking whether China is a friend or foe, imperialist or ally, in addition to the meaning of these developments for the old powers of the USA and Europe. While the media has often facilitated these debates, in recent years China's activity in the African media sphere has also come under scrutiny. For the past several years, China has increased noticeably its influence on the African media space. Several state-owned Chinese media houses have established offices on the continent, especially in Kenya and South Africa. These media include the news agency Xinhua, the newspaper China Daily, China Central Television, and China Radio International. In South Africa, flows and contraflows of private media capital have also included investments both in and by China.Drawing on an exploratory survey of South African journalists across various platforms, the following aspects are investigated:• Coverage: Journalists' views on the China–South Africa relationship in general within the context of the wider BRICS grouping and their views on the media coverage of this relationship.• Norms and practices: Journalists' views on the meaning of China's media push on the continent and its involvement in the South African media landscape might mean for current norms (e.g., press freedom) and journalistic practices.• Media as vehicle for soft power: Journalists' views on the usefulness of the Chinese media as a source in their own work and the influence of such media on their conceptions of the China–Africa relationshipThe article concludes with some preliminary observations about the challenges that Chinese soft power faces in South Africa.

The disjunction of image and word in US and Chinese soft power projection

This article compares US and Chinese national soft power strategies, using the cases of the US Shared Values Initiative for the Middle East in the aftermath of 9–11 and the present operation of Chinese Confucius Institutes in the US. Comparing these two national programs, I describe a consistent disjunction between visual image and spoken word for each. Regardless of variations in national approaches to soft power, this disconnect between seeing and talking is a limitation of soft power as a cultural tool of diplomatic communication. First, public diplomats’ unexamined folk theories about culture’s instrumental role in messaging emphasize spectacle in ways inimical to reciprocal engagement. Second, as a cultural policy of display, soft power image projection discourages opportunities for inter-cultural dialogue. Third, government-sponsored national image management and branding are often controversial elsewhere, in the process touching off boundary-patrolling public debates instead of helping to build international relationships.

Engaging Diaspora via Charm Offensive and Indigenised Communication: An Analysis of China's Diaspora Engagement Policies in the Xi Era

As China's national image is haunted by its poor human rights records and increasingly assertive foreign policies, the Chinese diaspora has become an important platform for the country's public diplomacy. Since Xi Jinping came to power, the Chinese government has made great efforts to launch soft power campaigns in order to better engage the 50 million overseas Chinese and communicate China's ideas to the outside world. The Xi administration's diaspora engagement policies focus on: (1) indigenising international communication to improve China's national image; (2) jump-starting immigration reform to win the minds and hearts of overseas Chinese; and (3) strengthening education exchanges to shape the diasporic identity of overseas Chinese. Through historical comparisons and policy analyses, this article argues that China's current diaspora engagement policies are based on the Chinese leaders' new vision of public diplomacy, which is approached with soft power strategy. However, due to the limits of Chinese soft power – particularly the lack of political reform and rule of law – the Chinese government will face an uphill battle to attain its long-lasting appeal of soft power and implement its diaspora engagement policies effectively.