China’s soft-power play: what will it take to get it just right and hit the Goldilocks zone?
- Nicholas Ross Smith and Tracey Fallon say after years of trying to win friends and gain influence through its outreach programmes, Beijing has run into a wall
- The reason is twofold: China must improve its art of persuasion, and the West it seeks to impress must be willing to come to the party
Thus, like the bears’ porridge in the children’s story Goldilocks, China’s soft-power efforts have proven either too hot or too cold for some, whereas for others it is “just right”. Finding that “Goldilocks zone” of a “just right” soft-power strategy in the West is arguably one of China’s greatest foreign policy challenges for 2019 and beyond.
The essence of soft power is that one state can get another state to do what it wants through co-option, not coercion. And this is perhaps where China’s soft-power efforts have come unstuck so far in the West: far from relying on persuasion, China’s soft-power strategies have arguably been adopted with something of a hard-power logic, a phenomenon which Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig have termed “sharp power”.
Whether it stems from an ingrained Sinophobia or perhaps fear emanating from the uncertainty of China’s rise, there does seem to be an overreaction in the West to China’s capabilities.
It is probably a stretch to characterise China as having magic weapons because, as Pei rightly points out, Western democracies have some useful safeguards – such as democratic transparency – against China’s influence.
Still, as China continues to rise, its foreign policies are naturally going to become more assertive and involve the use of an array of power capabilities, including a greater focus on using soft power.
However, in the 14 years the Confucius Institutes have been operating, the soft-power cultivation has arguably taken a back seat to more sinister allegations of Communist Party propagandising (especially over issues like Tibet and now Xinjiang), meddling in university politics, the monitoring of students and dissidents, and even state-led espionage.
However, it is unwise to see China’s soft-power strategies as monolithic or static and China as incapable of taking feedback on board. The Confucius Institutes demonstrate this well. Hanban has changed tack when it has misstepped. For instance, the institutes select their own teaching materials and although Hanban still provides textbooks, there is no requirement to use them.
Furthermore, painting China as a crude sharp power does something of a disservice to some of China’s diplomatic successes in developing countries, particularly in Central Asia and Africa.
For example, in 2017, China achieved its goal of becoming the No 1 destination for study in Asia, with an increase in students from Belt and Road nations. Uganda, mindful of China’s global and domestic presence, has even made study of the Chinese language compulsory at some secondary schools.
This is a difficult hurdle for Beijing to overcome because finding the Goldilocks zone requires collaborative relationships with target states based on, according to public diplomacy experts, “concrete and typically easily identified goals and outcomes that provide a basis to form more lasting relationships”.
Thus, for a collaborative relationship to succeed, not only does China have to improve the way it cultivates and uses its soft power, but Western states will also have to come to the party.
And while such an outcome appears overly optimistic in the current setting, it is imperative to the future of international affairs that all sides remain open to dialogue and compromise, or we are likely to creep ever closer to the emergence of a Sino-West cold war.
Nicholas Ross Smith is an assistant professor of international studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, where Tracey Fallon is an assistant professor of China studies