20100807 The myth of Chinese soft power

The myth of Chinese soft power

By Lin Cho-shui 林濁水
Saturday, Aug 07, 2010, Page 8

Although the financial crisis has seriously undermined economic development around the world, it has done so to differing degrees. It is against this backdrop that China’s economy has attracted a great deal of attention as it has roared ahead and continued to outperformed all others.

Over the last three years, the idea of a “Chinese model” has gained much traction in academic circles and Chinese experts have identified three distinct characteristics of this model.

First, they say a “broader democracy” with far-­reaching government intervention replaces the “birdcage democracy” seen in Western countries. Second, the Confucian view of harmony replaces Western individualism. Third, the traditional concept of a “celestial order” and nonintervention in the internal affairs of other nations replaces the “Westphalian order,” in which all sovereign states are equal under international law, but Western nations routinely interfere in the internal affairs of emerging nations.

While the implications of these three points are hard to grasp, academics firmly believe that this model, strongly supported by China’s economic growth, will be attractive enough to entice emerging nations to embrace China’s “soft power” — international influence created by the attraction of China’s outstanding achievements.

Beijing has been aggressive in promoting the “China model,” setting up Confucius Institutes throughout the world and holding classes in Beijing that are open to government officials and academics from emerging nations.

In addition, to differentiate itself from the hegemonic US and emphasize its “peaceful development,” China relies on trade concessions that in some ways resemble the tribute trade of the old Chinese empire to cement its new “celestial order.”

Two years after the advent of the Chinese model, the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan earlier this year resulted in increased tensions in East Asia and a series of military exercises aimed at different enemies.

In April, the northern, eastern and southern fleets of the Chinese navy conducted large military exercises. In June, Russia mobilized 20,000 troops for large-scale land and sea exercises. Then, early last month, the US conducted its Rim of the Pacific Exercise, and late in the same month, the US and Korea conducted military exercises in the Sea of Japan. As this exercise was being conducted, fighter planes from China’s Shandong Province crisscrossed the skies and guns on shore shot into the sea to show China’s displeasure at the exercises.

What is concerning is that the scale of these military exercises was much larger anything seen in the past.

Even more worrying is that almost all the East Asian nations which these Chinese academics believe to be part of Beijing’s “celestial order” — with the exception of North Korea and Myanmar — mobilized their militaries to take part in US-led Rim of the Pacific Exercise, which deliberately excluded China.

This action enraged China. Pang Zhongying (龐中英), a professor from Renmin University of China in Beijing, said that countries in the Asia-Pacific region, like Australia, South Korea, Japan and other ASEAN member nations have all benefited greatly from China’s economic liberalization, and China is their biggest trading partner. He also observed that despite the money these countries have made from trade with Beijing, conflicts of national interest between them continue to loom large and indeed have increased rather than decreased as a result of trade.

These nations use the profits from their trade with China to pay the US “protection money,” form alliances with the US and support US hegemony, which is on the brink of collapse, Pang said.

Spoken with the conviction of the righteously indignant, these statements also explain that the soft power, so highly praised by Chinese academics, does not stand up to examination. Indeed, any affirmation of China’s soft power is problematic.

After all, is modern Chinese civilization really that attractive to other countries?

A recent opinion poll by the Pew Research Center in the US surveyed 24,000 people in 22 countries. The center found that there has been a large increase in the number of people who hold a negative view of China in the US, Japan, South Korea and Western European countries. The survey also found that those who hold a positive view of China are people from African and Latin American nations, with people from Pakistan, Kenya and Nigeria having the most positive opinions about China.

This survey was something of a surprise. First, it showed that the three nations with the most positive view of China have horrendous human rights records and that they are of the same ilk as China’s two East Asian allies, North Korea and Myanmar.

These nations, including China, all rely on authoritarian and despotic “hard power” to maintain their regimes. The more China is supported by such countries, the more it worries that other nations will find it harder to see the attraction of China’s soft power.

Second, it has recently become popular for China’s wealthy middle class and government officials to emigrate and have their children in the US, which for the moment gains them immediate US citizenship. This is a clear indication that many Chinese themselves fear Beijing’s hard power more than they admire its soft power.

In the end, there is absolutely no chance that the nations of the world will roll over and accept this celestial order.

Regardless of how much China questions the Westphalian order, it is clear that its neighbors accept it and are using it to avoid becoming satellite states of a Chinese celestial order.

Of course, China is growing stronger, but if Beijing does not take a more honest look at its soft power, instability in East Asia will only increase.

Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.