Abstract
Countries, large and small, are now keenly aware that their image and reputation can be vital strategic resources in world affairs. In this regard, China is no exception. In fact, perhaps nowhere else has the idea of “soft power” been as widely discussed, embraced, and appropriated as in China.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Note
For summaries of the discussions in China, see Bonnie S. Glaser and Melissa E. Murphy, “Soft Power with Chinese Characteristics: The Ongoing Debate,” in Chinese Soft Power and Its Implications for the United States: Competition and Cooperation in the Developing World, ed. Carola McGiffert (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2009), 10–26; Mingjiang Li, ed. Soft Power: China’s Emerging Strategy in International Politics (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books). In China, there have also been rankings of Chinese cities on their “soft power.”
Robert Jervis, The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), 6.
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990)
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004).
David M. Lampton, The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).
Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, “The sources of American legitimacy,” Foreign Affairs 83, no. 6 (2004): 18–32.
Sheng Ding, The Dragon’s Hidden Wings: How China Rises with Its Soft Power (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2008)
Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007)
Mingjiang Li, ed., Soft Power: China’s Emerging Strategy in International Politics (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2009)
Yong Nam Cho and Jong Ho Jeong, “China’s Soft Power” Asia Survey 48, no. 3 (2008): 453–472
Bates Gill and Yanzhong Huang, “Sources and Limits of Chinese “Soft Power,” Survival 48, no. 2 (2006): 17–36
Hongying Wang and Yeh-chungLu, “The Conception of Soft Power and Its Policy Implications: A Comparative Study of China and Taiwan,” Journal of Contemporary China 17 (August 2008): 425–447
Joel Wuthnow, “The Concept of Soft Power in China’s Strategic Discourse,” Issues & Studies 44, no. 2 (2008): 1–28.
Carola McGiffert, ed., Chinese Soft Power and Its Implications for the United States: Competition and Cooperation in the Developing World (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2009)
Thomas Lum, Wayne M. Morrison, and Bruce Vaughn, China’s ‘Soft Power’ in Southeast Asia (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2008)
David Shambaugh, “China’s Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy,” China Journal 57 (2007): 25–58
Yiwei Wang, “Public Diplomacy and the Rise of Chinese Soft Power,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 616 (2008): 257–273
Anne-Marie Brady, “Combating Hostile Forces: China’s Foreign Propaganda Work since 1989,” Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 151–174.
Peter Hays Gries, “Identity and Conflict in Sino-American Relations,” in New Directions in the Study of China’s Foreign Policy, ed. Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 322.
Zhang Yunling and Tang Shiping, “China’s Regional Strategy,” in Power Shift: China and Asia’s New Dynamics, ed. David Shambaugh (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 48.
NJ. Cull, “Public Diplomacy: Taxonomies and Histories,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 616 (2008): 31–54
Etyan Gilboa, “Searching for a Theory of Public Diplomacy,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 616 (2008): 55–77.
Geoffrey Cowan and Amelia Arsenault, “Moving from Monologues to Dialogue to Collaboration: The Three Layers of Public Diplomacy,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 616 (March 2008): 10–30.
Mark Leonard, Public Diplomacy (London, UK: Foreign Policy Center, 2002).
Angus Maddison, Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run: 960–2030 A.D., (Paris: Organization For Economic Co-operation and Development, 2007).
Jin Yongjing, ed., Shuzi Zhongguo (China Figures) (Beijing: People’s Press, 2009), 403–409.
Zheng Bijian, “China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’ to Great-Power Status,” Foreign Affairs 84, no. 5 (September/October 2005).
Susan Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
BBC World Service Poll, “Views of China and Russia Decline in Global Poll,” February 6, 2009. Report available at http://www.bbc.co.uk
Joshua Cooper Ramo, Brand China (London: The Foreign Policy Centre, 2006).
See Serge Michael and Michel Beruet, China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa (New York: Nation Books, 2009).
Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane, “Varieties of Anti-Americanism: A Framework for Analysis,” in Anti-Americanisms in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007), 9–38.
According to some research, the Chinese view of America has also fluctuated. For instance, based on a survey of Beijing residents from 1998 to 2004, there appeared to be a decline of amity toward the United States. See Alastair Ian Johnston and Daniela Stockmann, “Chinese Attitudes toward the United States and Americans,” in Anti-Americanisms in World Politics, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007), 157–195.
For a discussion of the “China threat” theory and how China has reacted to it, see Yong Deng, “Reputation and the Security Dilemma: China Reacts to the China Threat Theory,” in New Directions in the Study of China’s Foreign Policy, ed. Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 186–214.
James Fallows, “Their Own Worst Enemy,” Atlantic Monthly, November 2008, 74.
The concept of “Peaceful Rise” was first pronounced by Zheng Bijiang at the Boao Forum in November 2003, and the Chinese top leaders began to use the term afterward. In April 2004, President Hu Jintao used the phrase “Peaceful Development” instead of “Peaceful Rise.” Hu first propounded the notion of a Harmonious Society at a United Nations speech in 2005. For an overview of these developments, see Bonnie S. Glaser and Evan S. Medeiros, “The Changing Ecology of Foreign Policy-Making in China: The Ascension and Demise of the Theory of ‘Peaceful Rise’,” China Quarterly 190 (June 2007): 291–310.
Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Beijing Consensus (London: The Foreign Policy Centre, 2004). Some in the Chinese media and academia have even been promoting the notion of the “Chinese Dream” (zhongguomeng) (in contrast to the “American Dream”) to suggest that the country is also a construct underscored by certain distinguishing values, ideals, and opportunities. For instance, there have been symposia held in Beijing on the topic of the Chinese Dream. In the U.S. media, Washington Post ran a story titled “Chasing the Chinese Dream” on October 21, 2007 that describes recent emigration to China from places such as Iraq.
See Frank N. Pieke’s argument in his book The Good Communist: Elite Training and State Building in Today’s China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Zhang Hui, “Meilanfang zai hai wai yan chu jiqi qizhi” [Mei Lan-fang’s International Performances and Their Implications], International Communications, no. 6 (2009): 17–19.
Etyan Gilboa, “Searching for a Theory of Public Diplomacy,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 616 (March 2008): 55–77.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2011 Jian Wang
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wang, J. (2011). Introduction: China’s Search of Soft Power. In: Wang, J. (eds) Soft Power in China. Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116375_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116375_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29137-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11637-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)