Will China be “soft”?

Daryl Morey, souce: Business Insider

“FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, STAND WITH HONG KONG,” as Daryl Morey, General Manager of Houston Rockets, twittered on Oct. 5 2019, the team suffered criticism from China public for “violating” the territorial integrity of China and the country’s sovereignty over her homeland.

Things got worse when Adam Silver, Commissioner of the NBA, announced the league would not punish Morey, fans in China got mad, Rockets’ business contracts were stopped, and Chinese Foreign Ministry stressed that “Go to see what people saying! If having no idea about public thoughts, it would make no sense to communicate with China.”

The ripple effect continues to ferment with Rockets losing 25 million dollars. However, the league insists on its values. As Silver mentioned, “values of equality, respect and freedom of expression have long defined the NBA”, also the culture of America. Then what values have defined China making it so “hard” on these issues?

What makes China “hard”?

Values of a nation can be reflected in its soft power, the ability to produce outcomes through persuasion and attraction rather than brute force or payment.

Put forward by the American political scientist Joseph Nye in his 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, “soft power” is presented in culture, political values, and foreign policies, contributing to a nation’s global status and role in international rule-setting.

Instead of being “soft”, China’s less tolerance to Morey case indicates the habit of government control and propaganda, a way to “stable” society and domination by reducing negative voices. It’s also a reflection on China’s collectivistic culture that group interest is beyond individual’s.

However, these operations gain mixed reviews for China. According to Pew Research Center’s latest Global Attitudes survey, most developed countries hold unfavorable attitude toward China, like Canada, the U.S and China’s neighbors Japan, South Korea; majority of countries having over 50% positive opinion of China are economically supported by the nation.

Do the global views of China reflect the country’s lack of soft power? Is China willing to become “soft”?

Does “Greater China” left behind?

China is the second largest economic system globally, however, its soft power far behind its neighbors Japan and South Korean. According to The 2019 Soft Power 30 informed by Portland, a strategic communications consultancy, Japan’s soft power ranks eight in the world, South Korea is No.19, while China is in place 27. The difference can be felt in daily life. Cosmetic and TV dramas from Japan and South Korea show more attraction to Chinese young generation.

What makes China left behind? A lack of soft power implies a deficiency of cultural intelligence, the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with people of other cultures. Generally, there must be something wrong with its core components as knowledge, empathy, self-confidence and cultural identity, which are required in an intercultural communication process.

Firstly, the environment to encourage cultural confidence is important. Japan valued cultural influence since 1980. After the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs established, Japanese television series like Oshin, and animation like Miyazaki Hayao’s were well perceived and improved Japan international image. Then the country introduced “Cool Japan”, adopted by the government as well as trade bodies, to exploit the commercial capital of its culture industry.

Similar in South Korea, as its pillar economic source, cultural industry especially pop cultures through music, television series, and movies has long been greatly supported by government and consortiums. According to Kim Jae-won, the former director of the Korean Culture and Information Service, the development of national branding is focused on the foreigner’s perspective of Korea, and aims to present South Korea as a unique nation.

Secondly, tags and spirits to build cultural identity make great sense. No matter food or design, Japanese works are always related to “Shokunin Kishitsu” or “Craftmanship”, the skill in a particular craft, indicating a spirit of keeping improve and caring for quality and details.

South Korea’s pop culture, known as hallyu or Korean Wave, also makes the nation special. The style of food, language, literature, and aesthetic standards have spread globally since 1990s. K-POP singers like Psy, idol bands like Girls’ Generation, Exo, TV dramas like Man Who Came from the Stars, are popular around the world.

The romantic drama Man Who Came from the Stars received much positive reviews in domestic even across Asia. It was a love story between a 400-year-old alien and a top actress in the modern era. The story line was creative to others; the main male character was shaped so perfect and charming appealed to female audiences; the clothing, make-up, chicken & beer lifestyle exposed in the opera presented a fashion favored by young Asians. All these elements are cool enough to attract much audiences because Asians can be a lot of things, but not so cool.

In this case, we can see it understand well of Asian cultures at the same time displaying a charming self-confidence, which is what Chinese dramas seldom have.

Nowadays, Japan’s unique soft power extends in Miyazaki Hayao and AKB48, sushi and sake, as well as Muji, Uniqlo and Marie Kondo. Hosting high-profile international events like The 2019 Rugby World Cup and G20 Summit also proved to be a blessing to Japan.

As for South Korea, though the continuously suicide of celebrities happened recently challenged the system and reputation of its pop industry, its far-reaching influence on Asian pop culture still make great sense.

Unlike the two countries, China’s cultural works have shown less attraction to other countries. Though the country ever promoted its international image in achievements like the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the opening ceremony of 2008 Olympic Games, and 2010 Shanghai World Expo, its soft power increases slow.

Showing less empathy and self-confidence, China’s cultural industry has been well-known for its strict supervision and prohibitions. Although guidelines exist, as President Xi said in 2014, “We should increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s message to the world”, the top-down policy has been proved inefficient in intercultural communication.

One could really be a powerhouse, but he can never make a girl fall into him by coercion.

Why China get worse on cultural influence than ancient times?

Though, that’s not always the case. Four great inventions, poetry and literatures, cultural icons like poet Li Bai and philosopher Confucius, China didn’t lack of soft power in certain ancient times. The Tang Dynasty’s designs were the basis of Japanese architectural aesthetics, and elements of Confucian teachings became core tenets of the Korean social order. It seems that the traditional culture is so influential that the nation has less to offer nowadays.

Why ancient China had so much cultural influence and today’s China has so little?

As mentioned before, unlike its ancestors, the country has made too many rules and restrictions on the cultural industry especially after the Great Cultural Revolution.

On the one side, there is a gap between policy leaders who have experienced that period and the young generation who grow up in information and globalization era. Governments have difficulties in controlling the degree of freedom of cultural expression. On the other side, the public has long been educated to be an obedient citizen that few of them are brave enough to do something out of frame. After a long period of “practice”, people become less creative and funny enough to stimulate the nation’s soft power.

Will China be “soft”?

China could improve its soft power in many ways.

For example, be more open-minded. Less sensitive and less prohibitions on cultural subjects like movies, music, artistic works, etc. At the same time, put more attention and investments on cultural communication projects as economic projects does.

If one is willing to become better and make practical efforts, it will never be too late to make progress.

References:

Cary Huang, Chinese soft power is a carrot being undermined by a stick, SCMP, 2019

Joshua Walker, Japan is a soft power superpower, the japantimes, 2019

Donya Saberi, The Rise of South Korea’s Soft Power in the Middle East, THE DIPLOMAT, 2018

George Gao, Why Is China So…Uncool, FP, 2017