15% from Palestine have favorable views about America? Now that's truly impressive soft power
Chinese Soft Power and Media Discussion and Updates
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15% from Palestine have favorable views about America? Now that's truly impressive soft power
I would say this is more due to hard power than soft power, back in school I had a friend from the Gaza strip. But he showed absolutely zero interest in politics or patriotism or loyalty to the Palestinian cause or any of that, if anything he hated the idea of being loyal to Palastine, I know this is anecdotal but I saw this way of thinking repeated in other people. There is a minority of people there who due to the hardships they faced under Israeli occupation they simply gave up and they see no point of being loyal to a country and instead just want to get out and enjoy life.
Probably no less than 10% is from Kurds, the remaining 25% are those who just don't care about the country anymore due to massive corruption in the leadership so they look for any exit.
I see the key issues for Chinese soft power as follows.
1. China is still only a middle-income country on average. Whilst coastal China is approaching Korean living standards, the interior is still way behind. Now, low-income and middle-income countries can rationally admire or respect China, but high-income countries will still look down on China.
But that will change as China becomes high-income and also builds global brands.
I'll repost some of the narratives that China could push globally and which are factually accurate.
2. The West (and in particular the US) is threatened by the prospect of a high-income China which would naturally displace the US. This results in lots of negative reporting on China due to ignorance, outdated information or just plain prejudice.
If we're talking about reporting that tries to be accurate or objective, pointing out factual and analytical errors can work. At a minimum, they'll end up strengthening their China expertise which generally means employing staff who are either based in China or are Chinese.
But there is a lot partisan reporting which doesn't care about accuracy (eg. Fox News). But remember Fox News pushes blatantly fake and extremist viewpoints about the Democrats as domestic enemies. If the US system can't stop even this demonisation from happening, I don't see how China can be expected to prevent anti-China reporting. Plus remember that the Republicans and Democrats both agree that China must be stopped, whatever that actually means.
1. China is still only a middle-income country on average. Whilst coastal China is approaching Korean living standards, the interior is still way behind. Now, low-income and middle-income countries can rationally admire or respect China, but high-income countries will still look down on China.
But that will change as China becomes high-income and also builds global brands.
I'll repost some of the narratives that China could push globally and which are factually accurate.
2. The West (and in particular the US) is threatened by the prospect of a high-income China which would naturally displace the US. This results in lots of negative reporting on China due to ignorance, outdated information or just plain prejudice.
If we're talking about reporting that tries to be accurate or objective, pointing out factual and analytical errors can work. At a minimum, they'll end up strengthening their China expertise which generally means employing staff who are either based in China or are Chinese.
But there is a lot partisan reporting which doesn't care about accuracy (eg. Fox News). But remember Fox News pushes blatantly fake and extremist viewpoints about the Democrats as domestic enemies. If the US system can't stop even this demonisation from happening, I don't see how China can be expected to prevent anti-China reporting. Plus remember that the Republicans and Democrats both agree that China must be stopped, whatever that actually means.
If you look at the CGTN channel on Youtube, it looks like an average of 5K views per video.
In comparison, the NEV thread has just linked to a Youtube video where a $120K Chinese supercar (the HiPhi X) is being reviewed in English in Dubai. That single video has 339K views in the space of 3 days.
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So in terms of soft power, I think it's clear that Chinese commercial engagement with the world is far more effective than Chinese government messaging. That also applies to US commercial engagement versus US government messaging.
For example, Tesla cars now come with Chinese battery technology (from BYD and CATL) as standard because they are safer, cheaper and longer-lasting.
We can also see Chinese smartphone brands expanding sales globally. If I do a quick back of the envelope calculation, there are easily a billion Chinese-branded smartphones being used outside of China.
In regards to soft power, I still sternly believe that culture indoctrination has a massive effect on world opinion, looking at the example of Japan and how they utilized their pop culture to slowly change the world's perception of their people, to the point that old vets of WW2 absolutely hated the 'Japs', while the young clamor over new hit animes and memes about how respectful and efficient the Japanese are.
Currently, right wing Japanese politicians enjoy respect and endorsement from the West, the very descendants of the last generation of War criminals. It shows that with powerful enough culture splash and resources deliciated into it , China can potentially enjoy the same level of popularity and become an cultural superpower. It only took ~25 years for the perception of South Korea to go from dictatorship/shit cars to omg kpop stars/mukbang!!!!
In 1980s Japanese cars got smashed and people suspected of being Japanese like Vincent Chin got lynched.
Yet Japan at the time was at peak soft power with anime, karate, car and Jpop exports. It was fast gaining on the US in economic power.
This proves that soft power is something that can be turned off at any time.
Respect? More like tolerance for a dog.
Many who discourage China fighting against Western psychological warfare often use the excuse that hard power gave the West soft power. They claim it is only hard power that allowed the west to infiltrate other nation's media landscape. This is another baseless cope.
Well, why were us regime programs unwelcome? Didn't these people say hard power is the only thing that matters? Why did the us regime need to hide/obfuscate its activities through "private" sources?
This is an easy attack angle. The imperial West relies on deception so they fear being exposed. Has China done anything to expose the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and various "private" funds (eg George Soros' Open Society Foundations) as merely CIA cut outs? That would greatly weaken its ability to infiltrate societies.
Well, why were us regime programs unwelcome? Didn't these people say hard power is the only thing that matters? Why did the us regime need to hide/obfuscate its activities through "private" sources?
This is an easy attack angle. The imperial West relies on deception so they fear being exposed. Has China done anything to expose the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and various "private" funds (eg George Soros' Open Society Foundations) as merely CIA cut outs? That would greatly weaken its ability to infiltrate societies.
At the time, South Korean media was really only popular in Southeast Asia and a little bit in Japan with artists like BoA.
In late 2000's, around 2009 or so, with the 2nd generation of Korean wave with SNSD and EXO, South Korea had GDP per capita of 19k, still around 1/2 that of EU countries at 35k+ and US at 40k+. At this point, South Korean media started spreading to China and more broadly in Japan. But it was still seen as a joke in the west given the ridicule given to PSY's Gangnam Style. While SNSD and EXO were big names in China, Japan and SEA, they were relative unknowns in the west.
It was only with the advent of BTS and TWICE in 2015-2017 that Kpop was seen as attractive by the west. By then South Korean GDP per capita was 28k, firmly at 1/2 that of the US and 75%+ that of developed EU countries.
Conclusion: high GDP per capita is the biggest attraction of all. South Korean media did not become attractive until they were at 75%+ the level of a developed country.
More example: in the Cold War era Soviets always had around 1/2 at best 1/3 at worst the GDP per capita of the west. When Russia started dipping below 1/3-1/4 western GDP/capita, people stopped listening to them.
It looks like the minimum GDP per capita for positive media power in the west is around 1/3-1/4 that of the west. Let's say that China gets some discounts for economies of scale and hard power. Let's go with a poorer pre-WW2 traditional developed country: Japan. China got around 1/4 Japanese GDP/capita in 2015-2018. So China only had around 4-7 years so far to effectively develop soft power among developed countries.
Basically, you can't be attractive while a homeless street bum. You can be attractive as a dangerous bad boy (dissident media, counterculture, niche fandoms) when you have at least an apartment and motorbike. But you still need the apartment and motorbike first.