Under this definition, then everything is hard power.
Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
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China just needs to make sure its business people/tourists/students remind the world of the genocide of the american people at the hands of colonizers over the past 400 years. Please note that I referred to the original inhabitants as the "american people" because they are. Also it makes sense to help the american people during their protests and armed struggles against the colonizers. China has a moral obligation to tell the truth about the treatment of the american people by the colonizers, especially to more receptive audiences in the arab world, africa, and latin america. China should always encourage other people to take back assets that were taken by them from colonizers. Rawanda and South Africa are shining examples that must one day be repeated across North America.
Soft power matters a lot, no one can deny it.
The geopolitical realities have changed dramatically and China cannot afford to live in a cocoon. Chinese companies are starting to capture global markets and China’s Belt and Road Initiative encompasses projects in 130 countries. All these grand plans are dependent on China’s soft power. When people like your country, they eagerly buy your products, visit your country and spend money, learn your language and culture, defend your country, and treat your fellow citizens nice when the latter travel or live abroad. Politicians around the world will also line up to meet with your leader and make deals. Basically, life is a lot easier when you’re popular and loved.
Consider how many people of Chinese heritage in Hong Kong are brainwashed to hate China. Obviously, the Chinese leadership didn’t bother to look at what the heck Hong Kong’s youth were learning in schools and the media. Similarly, if China had good PR skills, a majority of people in Taiwan would want to unite with China.
This is the beauty of soft power.
The smart thing for China would be to modify its “Made in China 2025” strategy to include the urgent development of soft power and positive image.
Chinese corporations are also too passive Huawei and Tik Tok being two noticeable examples.
Many times the west publishes libelous articles about Huawei stealing IP in 2004 and causing the death of Nortel (the telecom giant from Canada), Huawei never responds. Huawei could easily debunk this myth by pointing out that Nortel crumbled in 2001 during the dot-com bust; and by 2003, Nortel had laid off 2/3rd of its workforce and its CEO had been fired for manipulating sales numbers.
Similarly, ByteDance never challenges Trump’s ridiculous concerns about data mining, as if the entire Internet isn’t based on the paradigm that “data is the new oil.” ByteDance could also point out that Apple, PayPal, American Express and countless number of American corporations operate in China and gather far more valuable information about Chinese people than TikTok could collect about goofy Americans.
All Chinese corporations on America’s “entity list” should be pointing out to the omnipresent CIA/NSA spying and the incredible hypocrisy.
Litany of other accusations about China stealing IP, China not being open for western corporations, trade deficit being China’s fault, Chinese people being oppressed, blah blah blah go completely unanswered, causing massive damage to China’s reputation.
If the U.S. has a Ph.D. in media and public relations, China is still in high school. Chinese media make numerous rookie mistakes and I could write an entire blog post about it. But…
Chinese state media like CGTN, Xinhua News, China Daily and Global Times have gotten better in the last two years. They are hiring talented TV journalists, making lots of short and informative videos, being active on Twitter etc. Female TV anchor Liu Xin brings intellect, fact-based journalism, and social media savviness; and JingJing Li‘s bubbly personality and smartness appeal to younger audience. However, China needs hundred more such influencers.
Chinese media are also starting to leverage new foreign voices such as Daniel Dumbrill, Jerry-the-cyclist, and Cyrus Janssen. This is extremely important, since positive opinions from non-Chinese are more impactful (just like in personal relations if you want to impress a girl, the best way is to have someone else tell her how awesome you are). Another excellent example is Kishore Mahbubani an author and diplomat from Singapore who has done more for China’s image than anyone else over the years. China should cultivate the goodwill of hundreds, if not thousands, of such people.
Chinese foreign ministry officials like Hua Chunying and ambassadors have started fighting back on Twitter in the last few months. We can see that they are being effective, since western journalists are whining about China’s new “wolf warrior diplomacy.”
In the next phase, China must develop journalists, analysts, authors, artists, photographers and moviemakers who focus on other countries and cultures as well as neutral topics that would have global appeal like BBC’s documentaries, for example.
There are 400+ billionaires and 5 million millionaires in China. They could establish a massive private fund to start journalism & film schools, establish think tanks, hire journalists, and pay bloggers and social media influencers around the world. If that sounds crazy, guess what, that’s exactly what the west does.
Chinese government and corporations should be willing to spend significant amount of efforts, money and time on the soft power campaign. Chinese netizens should also be far more active on social media. Perhaps due to political history and cultural factors, there may be resistance to embrace, learn, and invest in this extroverted art of information war. But there’s no choice it’s time for China to evolve and adapt.
That's why I'm not totally against lifting the "great firewall", if hundreds of millions of Chinese could "invade" twitter, reddit, youtube, it would really be a game changer and it would help change narrative.
The geopolitical realities have changed dramatically and China cannot afford to live in a cocoon. Chinese companies are starting to capture global markets and China’s Belt and Road Initiative encompasses projects in 130 countries. All these grand plans are dependent on China’s soft power. When people like your country, they eagerly buy your products, visit your country and spend money, learn your language and culture, defend your country, and treat your fellow citizens nice when the latter travel or live abroad. Politicians around the world will also line up to meet with your leader and make deals. Basically, life is a lot easier when you’re popular and loved.
Consider how many people of Chinese heritage in Hong Kong are brainwashed to hate China. Obviously, the Chinese leadership didn’t bother to look at what the heck Hong Kong’s youth were learning in schools and the media. Similarly, if China had good PR skills, a majority of people in Taiwan would want to unite with China.
This is the beauty of soft power.
The smart thing for China would be to modify its “Made in China 2025” strategy to include the urgent development of soft power and positive image.
Chinese corporations are also too passive Huawei and Tik Tok being two noticeable examples.
Many times the west publishes libelous articles about Huawei stealing IP in 2004 and causing the death of Nortel (the telecom giant from Canada), Huawei never responds. Huawei could easily debunk this myth by pointing out that Nortel crumbled in 2001 during the dot-com bust; and by 2003, Nortel had laid off 2/3rd of its workforce and its CEO had been fired for manipulating sales numbers.
Similarly, ByteDance never challenges Trump’s ridiculous concerns about data mining, as if the entire Internet isn’t based on the paradigm that “data is the new oil.” ByteDance could also point out that Apple, PayPal, American Express and countless number of American corporations operate in China and gather far more valuable information about Chinese people than TikTok could collect about goofy Americans.
All Chinese corporations on America’s “entity list” should be pointing out to the omnipresent CIA/NSA spying and the incredible hypocrisy.
Litany of other accusations about China stealing IP, China not being open for western corporations, trade deficit being China’s fault, Chinese people being oppressed, blah blah blah go completely unanswered, causing massive damage to China’s reputation.
If the U.S. has a Ph.D. in media and public relations, China is still in high school. Chinese media make numerous rookie mistakes and I could write an entire blog post about it. But…
Chinese state media like CGTN, Xinhua News, China Daily and Global Times have gotten better in the last two years. They are hiring talented TV journalists, making lots of short and informative videos, being active on Twitter etc. Female TV anchor Liu Xin brings intellect, fact-based journalism, and social media savviness; and JingJing Li‘s bubbly personality and smartness appeal to younger audience. However, China needs hundred more such influencers.
Chinese media are also starting to leverage new foreign voices such as Daniel Dumbrill, Jerry-the-cyclist, and Cyrus Janssen. This is extremely important, since positive opinions from non-Chinese are more impactful (just like in personal relations if you want to impress a girl, the best way is to have someone else tell her how awesome you are). Another excellent example is Kishore Mahbubani an author and diplomat from Singapore who has done more for China’s image than anyone else over the years. China should cultivate the goodwill of hundreds, if not thousands, of such people.
Chinese foreign ministry officials like Hua Chunying and ambassadors have started fighting back on Twitter in the last few months. We can see that they are being effective, since western journalists are whining about China’s new “wolf warrior diplomacy.”
In the next phase, China must develop journalists, analysts, authors, artists, photographers and moviemakers who focus on other countries and cultures as well as neutral topics that would have global appeal like BBC’s documentaries, for example.
There are 400+ billionaires and 5 million millionaires in China. They could establish a massive private fund to start journalism & film schools, establish think tanks, hire journalists, and pay bloggers and social media influencers around the world. If that sounds crazy, guess what, that’s exactly what the west does.
Chinese government and corporations should be willing to spend significant amount of efforts, money and time on the soft power campaign. Chinese netizens should also be far more active on social media. Perhaps due to political history and cultural factors, there may be resistance to embrace, learn, and invest in this extroverted art of information war. But there’s no choice it’s time for China to evolve and adapt.
That's why I'm not totally against lifting the "great firewall", if hundreds of millions of Chinese could "invade" twitter, reddit, youtube, it would really be a game changer and it would help change narrative.
India has done a good job in expanding its perception of soft power. While they have natural advantages (such as a façade of democracy and nominally better English) we shouldn't dismiss them outright. There are methods they have that would also work for china. I think creating alternative media networks in Africa and Latin America is a start. I've always been surprised by the power of Al Jazeera, especially when Qatar is in a hostile environment with its neighbors.
Economic success and technological superiority depends on trade, gaining markets, and cooperation in R&D and sharing of technology. The willingness of other countries to trade with you, open their markets to you and to cooperate in R&D and share technology with you depends on soft power. This is especially true for China which still lags in many technology areas, and is still a middle income country, not yet a high income country. And it will take decades to become high income. Therefore, it needs more soft power to ease its path.
The United States even though by your standards has the most hard power in the world, they still try to cultivate their soft power via Hollywood movies, propaganda, talk of 'human rights' and democracy, so on. This is in fact very successful and it even brainwashes many Chinese people in Hong Kong and Taiwan. They go around rioting and waving US flags. You don't see people in Hawaii rioting and waving PRC flags. Because the PRC lags in soft power, and this is a weakness.
A lot of what you wrote as constructive criticisms made sense but this last line is beyond naive... US platforms would never tolerate wholesale the Chinese using these platforms (which by the way were always US tools for US hegemony) against US hegemony... with AI they can effectively censor it all and also kick out any success that does happen on the platform in the name of CHINA BAD.
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Bingo, you get it now
A lot of people here are confusing soft power with hard power. Hong Kong is like this because the British robbed it with hard power and brainwashed the people like any power could do to citizens under its own control.
Not all these politicians and mega companies in China are stupider than you. They know they could debunk everything and poke holes in all of America's lies but doesn't matter because the soft power stage since WWII has been America's stage. Trying hard to win the narrative here is wasting all your energy on a rigged contest. Even Western scientists that say COVID was in Europe long before it was detected in Wuhan can't get their voice out because America doesn't want people to hear it. The only way to get soft power is to build your stage through hard power, make it a larger and more powerful stage than that of your rival, and use that to project your "soft power." Hence, all meaningful soft power is only a projection of hard power.
THIS!!!!!!
Not true, many people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, etc. have very little hard power but lots of soft power and achieved major revolutions. Soft power is completely independent of hard power, it's about propaganda and making people believe you are on the side of justice.