Opportunities for Chinese soft power

I might be labeled as a hawk from now on, but I don't believe that soft power alone will get anyone anywhere. It's NOT that I don't believe in soft power all together. It's just that the soft power will only work with a big stick waving behind it.

Let's face it, we human are competitive (to say it nicely), or violent (to say it bluntly). We will only respect someone unless they beat us fair and square. This is true in everyday life, in sports, as well as in international politics. No one will give a damn if you simply say it nicely and present a logical solution. The US had been an economic powerhouse since the late 1800's, but no one in Europe gave a damn to what the US wanted to say until the US won WWII and showed them how big of a stick they could wield. The same was also true to every superpower in the history of the world.

There is an old Chinese saying that a leader has to know how to balance "En" and "Wei". "En" mean reward while "Wei" mean punishment and marshal prowse. You have to demonstrate loud and clear that you possess the capability to hurt before you can be nice. You have to show that you are being nice because you want to be nice, NOT because you are afraid and only begging to get what you want. Respect is won this way. And all soft power comes from the hard power. The soft power, or the reward, will only carry more significance when they know that you don't have to be nice. If you want, you can get what you want in any way you prefer. However, you choose to be nice and fair. They will appreciate your niceness much more that way. And your soft power will be more meaningful that way.

If you use soft power alone, people will interpret in as you are weak and you have no choice but to act nice. And they will consider it as doing you a favor like giving a few coins to a beggar. You will not get the respect.

Soft power is one of those things where it always existed but somone gave it a name so they can control what it is. The promotion of soft power only exists because of China. It's been manipulated to mean that it comes from seeking acceptance from others. They're trying to manipulate China into thinking that seeking acceptance equates to power. The thing is China has plenty of soft power. It's just the kind they don't control and that by its nature is the true meaning of soft power because they have no say and it's definitely not the kind where they have the real power by deciding what China has or does is acceptable to them. They're worried about unchecked Chinese influence around the world. Can they justify starting a war with China over it? Can they militarily strike China as punishment without looking universally evil? No, and that's Chinese soft power at work. They don't like what China is doing because it's not under their control. Does anyone actually believe they're trying to help China get power?

Before the Wen Ho Lee scandal, you would hear people say if China ever got nuclear weapons, they would use them to get what they want or else. It was only a decade ago when China's military modernization started critics were worried that China would use their military and not diplomacy to get what it wants. Well China has had nukes since 1964 so it only shows China has beeen responsible by their own dire account. Today they worry over China's diplomacy not China's military campaign around the world. Can they rally the world against this Chinese aggression of diplomacy? No, because diplomacy is about cooperation. Are there any takers on going up against China? Certainly not in the places where they're worried about China's diplomacy in the first place. The only ones that are worried are the people who had a monopoly and the countries that are in their favor aka US soft power that controls them.

AssassinsMace said:

Soft power is one of those things where it always existed but somone gave it a name so they can control what it is. The promotion of soft power only exists because of China. It's been manipulated to mean that it comes from seeking acceptance from others. They're trying to manipulate China into thinking that seeking acceptance equates to power. The thing is China has plenty of soft power. It's just the kind they don't control and that by its nature is the true meaning of soft power because they have no say and it's definitely not the kind where they have the real power by deciding what China has or does is acceptable to them. They're worried about unchecked Chinese influence around the world. Can they justify starting a war with China over it? Can they militarily strike China as punishment without looking universally evil? No, and that's Chinese soft power at work. They don't like what China is doing because it's not under their control. Does anyone actually believe they're trying to help China get power?

Before the Wen Ho Lee scandal, you would hear people say if China ever got nuclear weapons, they would use them to get what they want or else. It was only a decade ago when China's military modernization started critics were worried that China would use their military and not diplomacy to get what it wants. Well China has had nukes since 1964 so it only shows China has beeen responsible by their own dire account. Today they worry over China's diplomacy not China's military campaign around the world. Can they rally the world against this Chinese aggression of diplomacy? No, because diplomacy is about cooperation. Are there any takers on going up against China? Certainly not in the places where they're worried about China's diplomacy in the first place. The only ones that are worried are the people who had a monopoly and the countries that are in their favor aka US soft power that controls them.

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Each side is playing its own game. The up and coming side wants to match and eventually better the existing power while the existing one wants to stay on top and to prevent the up and coming one from becoming better. Offense vs. defense. Someone sometimes play dirty. In fact, everyone plays dirty. It's just that someone gets caught and someone gets away with it. And most of the time, the existing stars get away with it because of the star treatment. The most used tactics involves trash talks, like how Kevin Garnet played Carmelo Anthony. To me, it is only natural that this happens. Everybody is trying their best to get the other side off its game. A tug of war of some sort. May the best win! It would worry me a lot more if the US becomes all supportive of whatever China does. It suggests much darker plans...

t_co said:

Er, I don't think there is an ethnic group that controls Western banking/law/media. However, China certainly has formed a tete a tete with banking, legal, and media interests in the West, insofar as China has made them plenty of money and influence.

Peaceful integration of Chinese power into global structures is for the benefit of all. Unfortunately, folks like Andy Marshall at the Pentagon's Office of Threat Inflation, and Japanese right-wingers with lots to lose (e.g. Ishihara) seem hell-bent on keeping that from happening.

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That's just so wrong on so many levels as you don't know the makeup of the top 1% of this world. If the Chinese were anywhere as united as the Jews, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

What's the percentage of IB managing directors or senior law firm partners of Jewish descent do you see on Wall Street? More like half...

Remember Murdoch's tweet?

cn_habs said:

That's just so wrong on so many levels as you don't know the makeup of the top 1% of this world. If the Chinese were anywhere as united as the Jews, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

What's the percentage of IB managing directors or senior law firm partners of Jewish descent do you see on Wall Street? More like half...

Remember Murdoch's tweet?

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Oh my god... are you really looking to get this thread closed by advocating conspiracy theories of a Jewish illuminati?

I'm shocked I have to even type this.. but t_co is correct re: no ethnic group controlling Western banking/media/law.

icbeodragon said:

Oh my god... are you really looking to get this thread closed by advocating conspiracy theories of a Jewish illuminati?

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What conspiracy? I don't know what line of work you are actually in but in the media/entertainment, law and banking I pointed out my own observation that I have seen with my own eyes in Canada and the US. Around half of the senior law firm partners and managing directors on Bay Street have Jewish surnames period let alone those with more Anglicized names.

If the very few people who own the Western media suddenly takes a less critical stance vs China, that'd already be a good start in improving China's global image. If you want learn how to play this game then learn from the very best.

airsuperiority said:

Or perhaps China should engage in humanitarian efforts and acts and do what it thinks right without the consideration of what the Western media would say? Since it's damned if you will, damned if you don't, then might as well let those gossiping trashmouths play their game while China does its own actions?

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While that is an noble sentiment, I do not think China can afford to behave that way just yet because it is neoy strong enough to do as it please without needing to worry about what the rest of the world might make of it. Perhaps one day, when China is the world's dominant power, but as of now, it needs the goodwill and support of the majority of the world to achieve that goal.

I have stressed throughout that it is no use trying to pander to the western media, because their main problem with China has little if anything to do with the slogans they keep repeating like 'democracy' or 'human rights', but rather because China poses a real challenge to the west's dominance of the world and presents an alternative model of development and governance to what these people consider to the the only acceptable route ordained by God, sometimes literally.

However, I think the team 'west' should be refined somewhat to apply chiefly to the US and its loyal lapdog the UK, mainland Europe seems far less irrationally hostile towards China, and it is these people, as well as the people's of the developing world that China should be aiming its message at.

In this regards, I think Chinese leaders and officials should pay careful attention to the British and American press, and use their unwavering hostility towards China to China's advantage.

China should send subtle signals and hints that get the China bashing juicies flowing in the newsrooms of the hardcore China haters, but which seems perfectly innocuous to everyone else, wait till they publish then immediately do the opposite and noble deed, so that the bias and hostility the usual suspects display towards China is plain for all to see, yet China's reaction is so quick that they cannot plausibly try to take credit by suggesting that it was their critical coverage that got China to change its mind at the last minute.

Do this enough times and these news outfits, would either need to foundamentally change their tune, or become increasingly irrelevant as their readers and followers get fed up of them constantly being wrong in their analysis and projections.

The best way to combat spin and bias is not to try to outspin or out bias them, but rather to highlight that spin and bias, and if you can also make the spin and bias be completely wrong, so much the better.

Just to clarify, I am not suggesting that China conduct foreign policy just to show up a few newspapers or channels, but rather that in pursuing it's foreign policy objectives, China could and should be a lot more media savvy about how and when information is release and how it is packaged. The first and most important thing that China should do in this regard is to allocate at least one seat on the Standing Committee to someone from the Foreign Ministry. The fact that there is not one from the FM at the highest level of Chinese government, is, IMHO, one of the main, if not the biggest contributing factor to China's bad foreign image which China can control.

All too often, it seems important decisions are made without enough consideration about how they might be perceived abroad, and often the Chinese Foreign Ministry does not get enough advanced notice about important foreign policy decisions or domestic policy decisions that have international impact, so do not have enough time to come up with a proper response when quizzed about if by foreign media, so they just say the Chinese government has no comment and then say whatever the hell they want about it, which usually puts the worst possible spin on the stories. And that version becomes the only version of the story since China is not putting it's own version of events forward, or that it takes them so long to get a statement out that the story has either dropped off the news cycle so very few hears about it, or the negative spin has been repeated so many times most people have already made up their minds about it.