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Weekly UpdatesBroadly defined, power is the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants. One can affect other individuals' behavior in three main ways: by threatening coercion ("sticks"), by offering inducements or payments ("carrots"), and by by making others want what one wants. A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it. They may display this desire by admiring the country's values, emulating its example, or aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense, it is not only important in world politics to force other countries to change by the threat or use of military or economic weapons, but also to set the agenda and attract others. This "soft power"--getting other countries to want the outcomes that a particular country wants--co-opts people rather than coerces them. In the debate about the rise of Chinese power and how it will affect the United States and global stability, one question that has received increasing attention in both countries is precisely that of China's soft power. After more fully exploring soft power itself, this article explores the various aspects of this kind of power when applied to the Chinese context. To conclude, it considers how China can best use its soft power to be beneficial to the international community.
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Soft Power
Soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others. This type of power does not belong to any one country. Nor does soft power belong solely to countries. At the personal level, individuals know the power of attraction and seduction. Political leaders have long understood the power that comes from setting the agenda and determining the framework of a debate.
While not the same as influence, soft power serves as a source of influence. Influence can also rest on the hard power of threats or payments. And soft power represents more than just persuasion or the ability to move people by argument, though this constitutes a crucial part of this kind of power. Soft power also includes the ability to entice and attract. In behavioral terms, it means attractive power. In terms of resources, soft power resources are the assets that produce such attraction. Some resources can produce both hard and soft power. For example, a strong economy can produce important carrots for paying others, as well as a model of success that attracts others. Whether a particular asset is a soft power resource that produces attraction can be measured by asking people through polls or focus groups whether they like a country. That attraction may in turn produce desired policy outcomes. But the gap between power measured as resources and power judged as the outcomes of behavior is not unique to soft power. A similar disparity occurs with all forms of power. Before the fall of France in 1940, for example, Britain and France had more tanks than Germany, but that advantage in military power resources did not accurately predict the outcome of the battle.
In international politics, the resources that produce soft power arise in large part from the values an organization or country expresses in its culture, in the examples it sets by its internal practices and policies, and in the way it handles its relations with others. Governments sometime find it difficult to control and employ soft power, but that does not diminish its importance. The soft power of a country rests primarily on three resources: its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when the country lives up to these values at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when other nations see the country as a legitimate and moral authority).
China's Soft Power
The dynamics of China's soft power have changed significantly in the recent past, both in composition and in magnitude. China has always had an attractive traditional culture, but now it is entering the realm of global popular culture as well. Chinese novelist Gao Xingjian recently won China's first Nobel prize for literature, and the Chinese film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" became the highest grossing non-English film. Yao Ming, the Chinese star of the National Basketball Association's Houston Rockets, could become another Michael Jordan, and China hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics. The enrollment of foreign students in China has tripled from 36,000 to 110,000 over the past decade, and the number of foreign tourists has increased dramatically to 17 million last year. China has created some 200 Confucius Institutes around the world to teach its language and culture, and while the Voice of America was cutting its Chinese broadcasts from 19 to 14 hours a day, China Radio International was increasing its broadcasts in English to 24 hours a day.
In terms of political values, the era of Maoism is long past. Although China remains authoritarian, the success of its political economy in tripling gross domestic product over the past three decades has made it attractive to many developing countries. In parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the so-called "Beijing consensus" on authoritarian government plus a market economy has become more popular than the previously dominant "Washington consensus" of market economics with democratic government. This has been reinforced by the 2008 financial crisis, and China has reinforced its attraction by economic aid and access to its growing market.
China has also adjusted its diplomacy. A decade ago, it was wary of multilateral arrangements and at cross purposes with many of its neighbors. It has since joined the World Trade Organization, contributed more than 3000 troops to serve in UN peacekeeping operations, become more helpful on non-proliferation diplomacy (including hosting the six power talks on North Korea), settled territorial disputes with neighbors, and joined a variety of regional organizations of which the East Asian summit is only the latest example.
But just as China's economic and military power does not yet match that of the United States, China's soft power still has a long way to go as demonstrated by a Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll. China does not have cultural industries like Hollywood, and its universities are not yet the equal of the United States. It lacks the many non-governmental organizations that generate much of US soft power. Politically, China suffers from corruption, inequality, and a lack of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. While that may make the "Beijing consensus" attractive in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian developing countries, it undercuts China's soft power in the West. Although China's new diplomacy has enhanced its attractiveness to its neighbors in Southeast Asia, the belligerence of its hard power stance toward Taiwan hurt it in Europe when China sought to persuade Europeans to relax their embargo on the sale of arms. Given the domestic problems that China must still overcome, there are limits to China's ability to attract others, but one would be foolish to ignore the gains the country is making.
The "Soft Power" Discourse in China
Rather than ignoring these gains, the Chinese display active interest in the idea of "soft power." Since the early 1990s, dozens, if not more, of soft power-themed essays and scholarly articles have been published in the country. In fact, in late 2006, a Chinese journal entitled Soft Power published its first issue, although the contents of the journal are mostly related to the business world.
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"Soft power" has also entered China's official language. In his keynote speech to the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on October 15, 2007, Hu Jintao stated that the CCP must "enhance culture as part of the soft power of our country to better guarantee the people's basic cultural rights and interests." He recognized in that speech that "culture has become a more and more important source of national cohesion and creativity and a factor of growing significance in the competition in overall national strength." And while there does not seem to be any official effort in China to define the term "soft power," Chinese scholars continue to debate its scope, definition, and application. They do not agree with one another as to how that phrase in English should be better translated into Chinese, since at least three Chinese words--shili, quanli, and liliang--carry meanings similar to "power." Different translations indicates the nuanced and different interpretations of the term "soft power" within the country.
How the Chinese View Their Soft Power
More evidently indicative of these varying interpretations of soft power are the numerous Chinese publications on China's own soft power, which voice divergent views. Some stress that only a rapid growth of hard power can provide China with the premises on which to enhance its soft power, implying that priority should be given to the increase in hard power rather than soft power. For example, Yan Xuetong, a renowned international relations scholar, contends that the wielding of political power, reflected by showing China's determination in strengthening military power and deterring Taiwanese independence by force, is more important than spreading out cultural influences. Most other observers, however, do pay more attention to culture as a necessary ingredient, even a core element, of soft power. Many try to portray China's soft power today by analyzing both its strengths and weaknesses. On the positive side, to many people in the world, China's performance is strikingly admirable in sustaining a high rate of economic growth over the last three decades, which has helped Chinese people get rid of poverty. The economic and social progress would not have been possible if China's political institutions were not strong and resilient. Whether its performance has provided a development model (the so-called Beijing Consensus) for other countries to follow is subject to debate, but the accumulated economic power and social capital have certainly boosted China's confidence, pride, and capacity to project its political power and cultural influences abroad.
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