Conclusions

Abstract

This concluding chapter brings various fragments of China’s soft power dilemma together along different circuits of media and corresponding countries, to encapsulate this book’s main theoretical arguments. It presents how each chapter (1) sheds light on the essentially relational and political nature of transnational soft power expansion (or lack thereof); (2) examines the institutional level of transnational soft power-building in both sending and receiving states; (3) explores the significance of the broader intermediary level—international and interstate media circuit systems—in ineffectively configuring the sending state’s transnational/transborder soft power (and its paradox); (4) highlights the bureaucratic and gatekeeping roles of media professionals in the foreign transborder media system; (5) explores the complicated nature of history and politics, and how the lack of salient televisual subfields impacts consumption of traditional and digital media vis-à-vis television series that might otherwise succeed; and (6) elucidates how not only the sending state but, more importantly, the receiving state internalizes and embraces foreign media. Lastly, it also explains the underlying values and the limitations of this soft power dilemma for global China. The final section explores the significance of the nexus, on the one hand, between capital, transnational media, and globalizing soft power, and that between media and global politics, on the other hand, in terms of China’s continuing rise in the region and on the global stage. This book ends by drawing out implications for the study of globalizing media and soft power—both local and global—more broadly, and how digital platforms shape China’s future with neighbors.