As the flags are lowered over the 2008 Olympic games, China is basking in the achievement of a major objective -- an increase of its soft power. Not only in terms of gold medals won by Chinese athletes, but by the successful staging of the games, China hopes to have advanced its prestige and attraction to other countries.
Power is the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes you want. One can affect their behavior in three main ways: threats of coercion ("sticks"); inducements or payments ("carrots") and attraction that makes others want what you want. A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. "Soft power" has now entered China's official language. In his keynote speech to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on October 15, 2007, Hu Jintao stated that the CPC must "enhance culture as part of the soft power of our country to better guarantee the people's basic cultural rights and interests."
China has always had an attractive traditional culture, but now it is entering the realm of global popular culture as well. Yao Ming, the Chinese star of the National Basketball Association's Houston Rockets, could become another Michael Jordan, and while China lost to the U.S. in basketball, Yao was one of the stars of the Beijing Olympics. The enrollment of foreign students in China has tripled from 36,000 to 110,000 over the past decade, and the number of foreign tourists has also increased dramatically to 17 million per year even before the Olympics. In addition, China has created some 200 Confucius Institutes around the world to teach its language and culture, and while the Voice of America's was cutting its Chinese broadcasts from 19 to 14 hours a day, China Radio International was increasing its broadcasts in English to 24 hours a day.
But just as China's economic and military power does not yet match that of the United States, China's soft power still has a long way to go. China does not have cultural industries like Hollywood, and its universities are not yet the equal of America's. It lacks the many non-governmental organizations that generate much of America's soft power. Politically, China suffers from corruption, inequality, and a lack of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. While that may make Beijing attractive in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian developing countries, it undercuts China's soft power in the West. Given the domestic problems that China must still overcome, there are limits to China's ability to attract others, but one would be foolish to ignore the gains it is making. The Beijing Olympics were an important part of China's strategy to increase its soft power.
However, the Chinese government did not achieve all its objectives. It did not live up to its promises to allow peaceful demonstrations and free internet access, and the world press attending the Olympic games caught glimpses of the limits on freedom that undercut Chinese soft power. Even though polls show an increase in the attractiveness of China in recent years, it will take more than a successful Olympics to overcome the self imposed limits on Chinese soft power. For example, a recent Pew poll shows that despite China's efforts to increase its soft power, the United States remains dominant in all soft power categories. The Chinese may have excelled in gold medals, but the 2008 Olympic games did not turn the tables on the United States in the realm of soft power. One hopes that China's leaders will learn the importance of free expression to creating soft power.
Read more HuffPost coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
| 1 | United States | 46 | 29 | 29 |
| 2 | China | 38 | 27 | 23 |
| 3 | Russia | 24 | 26 | 32 |
| 4 | Great Britain | 29 | 17 | 19 |
| 5 | Germany | 11 | 19 | 14 |
| 6 | Japan | 7 | 14 | 17 |
The Chinese will face the same dilemma as long as the people of China, Taiwan, Tibet, and Hong Kong yearn for freedom and the right to determine their own lives. Which will be till the end of time. It is a necessary requisite for modern life and for a life of dignity and mature independence in any period of human history.
"Politically, China suffers from corruption, inequality, and a lack of democracy, human rights and the rule of law."
I keep reading that assertion - that China lacks the rule of law - over and over again, and I have to say that it is something that I find kind of amusing.
Last time I checked, China has a Byzantine array of laws and a pretty powerful commitment to enforcement of the rule of law, as evidenced by their enforcement of bans on political protest and free expression.
Socialist nation A = B (Socialism);
B (Socialism) = C (Terrorism, Repression, Backwardness etc)
ergo
Socialist nation A = C (Repression etc)
To engineer the predicate, means to create or exacerbate conditions likely to produce, and thus "prove", the asserted premises, 'logic' and conclusions of the syllogism. Since 1949, China was encircled, threatened repeatedly with nuclar annihilation, embargoed, denied critical technologies, cut off from the UN and community of nations, isolated, demonized, internal divisions exacerbated, all of which caused critical diversions of scarce resources from development into defense, the government acting like any government under siege (e.g. Lincoln and suspension of habeus corpus), increased self/imposed-isolation, crises etc. All for daring to build their own kind of socioeconomic system not capitalism and not a captive of imperial forces and interests.
The idea is to assert contrived and tautological definitions (freedom, efficiency, democracy etc) and tests that no one--not even or especially the U.S.--can pass, and then assert the engineered failure to pass the tests as "proof" of the correctness of all the elements of the set-up caricature.
How about if this whole message was written in say Blackfoot language, a test on its content was given, and anyone who could not pass MY test, is thus "proved" backward, stupid, ignorant etc?
One important lesson learnt by Beijing is to place less emphasis on hosting international events where the rules are made by the rich white countries (RWCs). These, like the one on Women’s Equality (?) some years ago, only provide opportunities for RWCs to patronize and insult China. Bilateral relations with the US and the EU countries have stabilized and no grand conference is needed to improve relations. It will be far more rewarding for China to host international events like the 48 country Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2006, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), with ASEAN and so on. The US and EU will not be invited.
The Olympic Flame was only extinguished twenty four hours ago and already we are trying to analyze the political results.
Personally I think the Chinese did a fantastic job supplying a beautiful venue for the athletes to compete in.
Too much emphasis is placed on the political aspects of these games and many commentators love to deride the host country by pointing out all of their human rights deficiencies and ignoring the purpose of the games.
Ultimately the job of the host country is to ensure that the games are played in an atmosphere of calm and tranquility without demonstrators in their face or protesters laying a guilt trip on the athletes for participating in the Olympics, which they claim are being hosted by an imperfect nation.
I think China achieved the goals set by the Olympic committee to host the games in a fair equitable way to allow the athletes the opportunity to compete without interference.
Bravo China, thank you for giving the world such beautiful facilities in which to conduct the games.
Obama/Biden
China's authoritarianism does not undercut its soft power in the West as Nye claims (try getting a sympathetic ear for Taiwan in any western Capital, especially in Europe). The Establishment in the West loves and envies China's authoritarianism. Recently a group of academics and Taiwan specialists went across the EU and Europe to raise Taiwan's profile. In western Europe receptions were indifferent and openly hostile, in Eastern Europe, where memories of Russian expansionism are recent and searing, they received a much warmer welcome.
The fact is that commentators like Nye consistently miss the most important element of China's soft power: its exotic mystique.
Michael
Truth is not absolute; our perceived truth shifts as the level our consciousness changes.