She's unlikely to feature on many lists of the all-time top British cultural icons.
But Peppa Pig - the UK-made children's cartoon character - is right up there with the best of them, at least in China.
With the series racking up 18 billion online views since its launch here seven years ago, the story of Peppa and her unfeasibly English middle class family is, arguably, doing more for Brand Britain than the Beatles, Manchester United and any of the culinary delights - for which the UK is rightly so renowned - put together…
It is then no surprise that, when a Peppa-shaped opportunity came knocking, the British powers that be seized the moment.
After watching an episode in which the precocious piglet and her friends visit the Queen in Buckingham Palace - and encourage her to join them jumping in muddy puddles - two Chinese twins posted a video message online, addressed to none other than Her Royal Majesty.
They too, like Peppa, wanted to visit her in her palace, they said.
And it worked.
Well, sort of.
The British ambassador to China, Dame Barbara Woodward, posted her own video message in reply.
Ambassador Woodward with Me Ni and Me Ai
"Hello Mi Ni and Mi Ai," she said. "I'm the British ambassador, so I'm the Queen's representative in China.
"I'd like you to come and visit me in my house in Beijing," she went on, "and we can perhaps have tea and scones in a British style."
The post has been viewed more than nine million times in China - a multiple of 10 times more views than anything else Dame Barbara has posted in her entire four years as ambassador.
And so it was that two slightly bewildered five-year-olds found their way to her residence and munched on scones and chocolate cake, and sat colouring in pictures of Peppa Pig, in front of the assembled media.
The whole experience may not have been quite the same as the real deal, but they have also been promised a trip to the UK where they will, at least, get to see Buckingham Palace.
And the British embassy has launched a competition along with Youku - the online channel with the Chinese rights to Peppa Pig - the young winners of which will also join the twins for the trip…
A new Peppa Pig movie - made especially for the Chinese market - is due to be launched this coming Chinese New Year.
It is a collaboration between China's Alibaba Pictures and Canada's Entertainment One; although still made in the UK, Peppa Pig is now owned by the Canadian company.
The viral trailer for the film - which artfully grafts the story of Peppa onto seasonal themes of Chinese family and belonging - has received more than 300 million hits to date…
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China is flexing its muscles. As the second richest economy in the world, its businessmen and politicians are involved just about everywhere in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Now, though, China is taking a big interest in a very different part of the world: the Arctic.
It has started calling itself a "near-Arctic" power, even though Beijing is almost 3,000km (1,800 miles) from the Arctic Circle. It has bought or commissioned several ice-breakers - including nuclear-powered ones - to carve out new routes for its goods through the Arctic ice.
And it is eyeing Greenland as a particularly useful way-station on its polar silk road.
Greenland is self-governing, though still nominally controlled by Denmark.
It is important strategically for the United States, which maintains a vast military base at Thule, in the far north. Both the Danes and the Americans are deeply worried that China should be showing such an interest in Greenland.
You've got to go there to get an idea of how enormous Greenland is.
It's the 12th-largest territory in the world, 10 times bigger than the United Kingdom: two million square kilometres of rock and ice.
Yet its population is miniscule at 56,000 – roughly the size of a town in England.
As a result, Greenland is the least densely populated territory on Earth. About 88% of the people are Inuit; most of the rest are ethnically Danish, many of whose ancestors started colonising it 1,000 years ago. The Inuit arrived several centuries later.
Over the years neither the Americans nor the Danes have put all that much money into Greenland, and Nuuk, the capital, feels pretty poor…
At present you can only fly to Nuuk in small propeller-driven planes. In four years, though, that will change spectacularly.
The Greenlandic government has decided to build three big international airports capable of taking large passenger jets.
China is bidding for the contracts.
There'll be pressure from the Danes and Americans to ensure the Chinese bid doesn't succeed, but that won't stop China's involvement in Greenland.
Interestingly, I found that opinion about the Chinese tended to divide along ethnic lines.
Danish people were worried about it, while Inuits thought it was a good idea.
The Greenlandic prime minister and foreign minister refused to speak to us about their government's attitude to China, but a former prime minister, Kuupik Kleist, told us he thought it would be good for Greenland.
But the foreign affairs spokesman of the main Venstre party in the Danish coalition government, Michael Aastrup Jensen, was forthright about Chinese involvement in Greenland.
"We don't want a communist dictatorship in our own backyard," he said.
China's sales technique in other countries where its companies operate is to offer the kind of infrastructure they badly need: airports, roads, clean water.
The Western powers that once colonised many of them haven't usually stepped in to help, and most of these governments are only too grateful for Chinese aid.
But it comes at a price.
China gets access to each country's raw materials - minerals, metals, wood, fuel, foodstuffs. Still, this doesn't usually mean long-term jobs for local people. Large numbers of Chinese are usually brought in to do the work.
China gets access to each country's raw materials - minerals, metals, wood, fuel, foodstuffs. Still, this doesn't usually mean long-term jobs for local people. Large numbers of Chinese are usually brought in to do the work.
Country after country has discovered that Chinese investment helps China's economy a great deal more than it helps them. And in some places - South Africa is one of them - there are complaints that China's involvement tends to bring greater corruption.
But in Nuuk it's hard to get people to focus on arguments like these.
What counts in this vast, empty, impoverished territory is the thought that big money could be on its way. Kuupik Kleist put the argument at its simplest.
"We need it, you see," he said.
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In Kenya, China is everywhere. And with Mandarin
schools and massive infrastructure projects, China's trying to grow its
"soft power" throughout Africa. But can China convince Africans to love
it?
Facebook revealed this post to be the work of an Iranian-backed campaign aimed at Britain, the first known influence campaign with a target outside the United States.
The picture was just like many of the other Facebook posts criticizing Britain’s decision to leave the European Union: a fake commemorative stamp showing a person preparing to shoot himself in the foot.
But on Tuesday, Facebook revealed that the unremarkable post was anything but. It originated from an Iranian-backed group aimed at Britain, in what the company said was the first known instance of a foreign influence campaign aimed at people outside the United States.
Facebook has spent the past two years trying to block foreign propaganda in the United States. But its disclosure of hundreds of fake accounts and pages, including the one tied to the Iranian-backed group, revealed that the foreign manipulation of elections through Facebook extends across the globe. Tactics used by Russia-linked groups ahead of the 2016 presidential election are being applied in Britain, the Middle East and Latin America.
Europe, where Facebook has more users than in the United States, is particularly worried. The company’s announcement exacerbated concerns that the region will be a regular target of foreign propaganda efforts — including ahead of next year’s European Parliament elections, which will help set the policy direction in Brussels for the next five years.
The discovery immediately added momentum in Europe to pass new laws to clamp down on social media platforms, including rules to remove terrorist content and to restrict how voters are targeted with political messages online…
“Facebook can be used for evil, that’s a fact,” said Claude Moraes, a British member of the European Parliament who leads a panel that has been investigating Facebook’s role in elections. “Facebook can be used to manipulate elections, that’s a fact.”
Russia has long viewed the European Union as an adversary, and influencing the parliamentary campaigns is a way to diminish its clout, said Mr. Moraes, who organized a recent series of hearings that featured testimony from Facebook executives.
“I have no doubt that Facebook will be a critical component” of Russia’s efforts to undermine the European Union, he said…
But unlike those targeted at Americans, the posts made public on Tuesday have a more international bent, including some written in Arabic and Farsi. And in identifying Iran for the first time, Facebook acknowledged that countries other than Russia… are now trying to manipulate its platform to intensify political divisions abroad…
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After travelling 16 days and covering a distance of 11,000 km, the first China-Belgium freight train from China's Tangshan port has arrived in the Belgian port of Antwerp.
The train with 41 containers which left Tangshan on April 26, was officially welcomed on Saturday in Antwerp. The direct railway link between China and Belgium is part of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative…
Luc Arnouts, Director International Networks, Antwerp Port Authority, said at the welcoming ceremony that "This direct train link puts our port on the BRI (the Belt and Road Initiative) map and will further strengthen our ties with China. We have long been working on this project, which represents an important milestone in our trade relations with China."
In his speech, Guo Jianjun, economic counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in Belgium, pointed out that given the ongoing escalation of trade friction threats in major global economies, it is even more necessary for all parties to strengthen cooperation…
"The arrival of the first China-Europe freight train sent by Tangshan to Antwerp today is historic and will have a profound and positive impact on China-Belgium cooperation", Guo concluded.
The train has travelled through Kazakhstan,Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany to reach its final destination, Antwerp. It is the first ever direct train service from China to Antwerp.
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Huajian Group, a company that made shoes for Ivanka Trump and stands accused of serious labour violations plays an unexpected role in a blockbuster propaganda film about China’s renaissance under President Xi Jinping.
Huajian factory in Ethiopia
The state-backed documentary Amazing China portrays the Huajian Group as a beneficent force spreading Chinese influence and prosperity – in this case, by hiring thousands of Ethiopians at wages a fraction of what they would have to pay in China. But in Ethiopia, Huajian workers told Associated Press they work without safety equipment for pay so low they can barely make ends meet…
With epic cinematography, Amazing China articulates a message of how China would like to be seen as it pursues President Xi Jinping’s vision of a globally resurgent nation, against a reality that doesn’t always measure up…
The film’s director, Wei Tie, said he was not aware of the controversy surrounding Huajian… That is not surprising given the years of positive coverage Huajian has enjoyed in China’s Communist Party-controlled media…
Wei said he featured the company because it is “introducing China’s experience of prosperity to Africa”.
The film celebrates Huajian as a model of the inclusiveness at the heart of a much larger project – Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, a plan to spread Chinese infrastructure and influence across dozens of countries…
Although President Hassan Rouhani said few days ago while marking Iran’s Army Day that Iran wants brotherly and strong relations with neighboring countries and rejects interfering in other countries’ internal affairs and noted that “dialogue is the only means towards peace in the region,” the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has contradicted him by stating that it will not commit to staying within Iran’s borders.
… Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy, said the Revolutionary Guards’ activities “are not limited to Iran,” noting that the guards’ forces are currently fighting thousands of kilometers away from Iranian borders.
Fadavi added that this military apparatus’ actual name is the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” refusing the appendage “Iranian.”
Commenting on why the Revolutionary Guards’ forces are present in other countries specifically in Syria and Iraq, Fadavi said: “Guarding the Islamic revolution does not only mean guarding one country and one government…
Fadavi commended the presence of Iranian forces in Syria and Iraq and Tehran’s support of militias in Yemen and Lebanon and said this is “necessary” to defend the Islamic revolution…
On April 18 while marking Army’s Day, Rouhani commended the army for not interfering in political affairs. Commentators said Rouhani was thus indirectly criticizing the Revolutionary Guards for interfering in the country’s domestic and foreign political affairs.
“Although the army understands politics well, it was not dragged into the political game and it remained committed to the imam’s will. We do not see the name of any army commander in corruption cases, and this confirms the purity of the Islamic Republic’s army,” Rouhani said. The Revolutionary Guards responded to Rouhani and said his remarks “destroyed unity, (incited) divisions and conveyed ingratitude.”
Fadavi concluded his interview by saying: “During the sacred (Iranian-Iraqi) war, we were fighting the enemy in the city of Khorramshahr and in the midst of our homes but today we are fighting the enemy thousands of kilometers away from our borders.”
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Shortly after the turmoil surrounding President Trump’s repeatedly rescheduled visit to Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May embarked on a trip to Beijing where she celebrated a new “golden era” and was cheered by the Chinese news media for not bringing up pesky human rights issues.
When it was President Emmanuel Macron’s turn earlier in January, the French leader similarly announced his “determination to get the Europe-China partnership into the 21st century.”…
Two new studies, however, suggest that Europe’s embrace of China, even as it warns against Russian meddling, might benefit from a certain degree of wariness. When it comes to Beijing, they argue, European leaders appear to too willing to overlook China’s authoritarian ambitions…
[R]esearchers examined a number of covert and more public means the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is believed to be using to influence European politics, such as infrastructure investments in eastern and southern Europe in cash-strapped countries such as Greece. Improved Chinese-Norwegian trade ties have coincided with a Norwegian effort to drop some of its human rights criticism of Beijing. China has also pushed its narrative in advertisements taken out in leading media outlets across the continent…
[R]esearchers explain, “By comparison, the CCP leadership’s buildup of influence across Europe is reinforced by China’s emerging status as a successful socioeconomic model. . . . It is China that is set to be the bigger long-term challenge to Europe’s values and interests.”…
“China senses that a window of opportunity to pursue its goals has opened, with the Trump administration seen as withdrawing from the role as guardian of the liberal international order that the U.S. has long played,” the authors write.
In its quest to gain more international leverage and respect, China has gone far beyond European borders. Beijing is especially active in Africa where it has offered sweeping trade and infrastructure deals to a number of nations and is expanding its network of educational Confucius Institutes as part of a soft power outreach effort. Critics say that those efforts are overshadowed by more covert activities. In January, French newspaper Le Monde claimed China had bugged and systematically hacked the African Union’s headquarters in Ethiopia for years — a building built and financed by the Chinese…
While both Russia and China appear to be keen on exploiting the E.U.’s weaknesses, China has found a way to also make Europe thank it for doing so.
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Last week the American President reminded Latin American countries of the Monroe Doctrine and warned them about Chinese efforts to spread China's influence.
WHILE Donald Trump was in Davos last week trying to persuade the global plutocracy that “America First” does not mean “America alone”, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, was promoting globalisation, free trade and co-operation in Latin America. For his hosts, the contrast was striking. Mr Trump has insulted Mexico, El Salvador and Haiti, discourages investment in the United States’ southern neighbour, and talks trade protectionism. China, in the soothing words of Mr Wang, offers Latin America a “strategy of mutual benefit and shared gain”.
He was speaking at a meeting between China and the Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a talking shop comprising all the region’s 33 countries…
The meeting marked the maturing of a relationship that has developed precociously in this century. Total annual trade between China and Latin America shot up from almost nothing to more than $200bn by 2014… Latin America’s exports to China increased by around 30% last year…
The biggest changes are in Chinese investment and lending. Until recently, these focused on oil, mining and Venezuela. Now they are centred on Brazil and Argentina, and are in more sectors…
China’s interest in Latin America is not matched by other big powers. The Trump administration has no clear strategy… The European Union (EU) remains the largest single source of foreign investment. But the conclusion of a long-awaited trade agreement with Mercosur, which includes Brazil and Argentina, has so far been thwarted… “The EU hasn’t worked out clearly what it wants of Latin America,” concludes a new report by the Elcano Institute, a think-tank in Madrid.
The same applies to Latin America in its embrace of China. This brings undoubted benefits. Apart from money, Latin American governments like—and take at face value—China’s stance on global governance and climate change. But the region is entering into a political entanglement with an external power that has no interest in democracy…
China has announced plans to develop shipping lanes through the Arctic to become a "Polar Silk Route".
Beijing said global warming meant viable shipping routes through the Arctic would become increasingly important for international trade.
It said China would work with Russia and other Arctic countries to develop the polar route.
It is part of an ambitious bigger scheme to transform China's land and sea connections to Europe and beyond.
President Xi Jinping's $1tn (£700bn) Belt and Road Initiative seeks to rebuild much of Eurasia's infrastructure of ports, roads and rails, and put China at its centre…
"China hopes to work with all parties to build a 'Polar Silk Road' through developing the Arctic shipping routes," China said in its first official policy paper on the polar region.
It said every country's "rights to use the Arctic shipping routes should be ensured"…
The north-east passage offers China a faster sea route to many ports than the current routes using, in many cases, the Suez or Panama canals.
The new route could take 20 days off the 48 days it currently takes to get to Rotterdam from China via the Suez Canal, estimates suggest…
The paper does acknowledge China's interests in oil and gas, minerals, fishing and other resources in the region, but it expresses an interest in developing them co-operatively with other nations and Arctic states.
The paper encourages businesses to build infrastructure and conduct commercial trial voyages in the Arctic.
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From the colourful cobbled squares of Stockholm to the snowy enchantment of Holmenkollen hill, Oslo, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s visit to both countries... will deliver myriad photo-ops to saturate local media.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
The royal couple will also deliver, the Foreign Office hopes, a clear message: Britain may be leaving the EU, but we are still part of Europe.
Ever since Henry VIII invited Francis I of France to the jousting and feasting extravaganza at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the so-called “soft power” of the royals has been harnessed as a diplomatic resource…
Royal overseas visits are decided by the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office], with schedules drawn up by the British ambassador to the host country, who accompanies the royal visitor throughout. Since the vote for Brexit the Cambridges have been dispatched to France, Poland and Germany, Prince Harry has travelled to Denmark, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have visited Romania, Italy and Austria, and Kate has undertaken a solo trip to the Netherlands…
An intimate black-tie bash for up to 30 guests in Stockholm, hosted by the British ambassador, will yield photographs of hereditary royalty alongside the Hollywood variety. The Swedish actors Alicia Vikander, star of Testament of Youth, and Stellan Skarsgård, TV’s River whose numerous films include Good Will Hunting and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, are invited…
Superficially, it seem these visits are all about the pictures. “And they are important,” said David McClure, the author of Royal Legacy and the forthcoming The Queen’s True Worth. Soft power, however, is “relational”, he said. It cannot hinge on “two youngish good-looking royals”. Norway and Sweden have their own monarchies…
The business and strategy consultants Brand Finance estimated that the monarchy would bring the UK £42bn in “intangible” economic benefits from tourism, trade, charities and media. “Members of the royal family can also proactively encourage trade by acting as ambassadors for the UK during their international visits,” it reported. Royal patronage or a visit are “extremely helpful to push big deals over the line”, said David Haigh, the CEO of the consultancy.
The former prime minister David Cameron once described the UK as “the soft power superpower”, while the government told a 2014 House of Lords select committee the monarchy was “a unique soft power and diplomatic asset”…
Not all share the FCO’s steadfast belief in royalty’s soft power. “Visits abroad by the royal family may raise the profile locally of the UK,” said Gary Rawnsley, a professor of public diplomacy at Aberystwyth University who has researched soft power. However, research showed that “this does not necessarily convert into affection for the UK – its values or its policies. Neither do such visits change opinion about or behaviour towards the UK, especially when relations at government level are fraught.
“Audiences can have high levels of positive opinion about the royals, but a low opinion of the British government and the way it behaves at home and abroad,” Rawnsley said…
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Edward Wong, recently the Bureau Chief in China for The New York Times, offers an analysis of China's rising empire as a successor to the 20th century American empire.
This is probably too long and too complex for students, but I think it offers teachers opportunities and ideas for lesson planning.
Though unabashedly authoritarian, China was a magnet [in 2008]. I was among many who thought it might forge a confident and more open identity while ushering in a vibrant era of new ideas, values and culture, one befitting its superpower status…
From trade to the internet, from higher education to Hollywood, China is shaping the world in ways that people have only begun to grasp. Yet the emerging imperium is more a result of the Communist Party’s exercise of hard power, including economic coercion, than the product of a gravitational pull of Chinese ideas or contemporary culture.
Of the global powers that dominated the 19th century, China alone is a rejuvenated empire. The Communist Party commands a vast territory that the ethnic-Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty cobbled together through war and diplomacy… Once again, states around the world pay homage to the court, as in 2015 during a huge military parade.
For decades, the United States was a global beacon for those who embraced certain values — the rule of law, free speech, clean government and human rights. Even if policy often fell short of those stated ideals, American “soft power” remained as potent as its armed forces. In the post-Soviet era, political figures and scholars regarded that American way of amassing power through attraction as a central element of forging a modern empire.
China’s rise is a blunt counterpoint. From 2009 onward, Chinese power in domestic and international realms has become synonymous with brute strength, bribery and browbeating — and the Communist Party’s empire is getting stronger.
At home, the party has imprisoned rights lawyers, strangled the internet, compelled companies and universities to install party cells, and planned for a potentially Orwellian “social credit” system. Abroad, it is building military installations… and infiltrating cybernetworks. It pushes the “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure initiative across Eurasia, which will have benefits for other nations but will also allow China to pressure them to do business with Chinese state-owned enterprises…
So far, Chinese soft power plays a minor role. For one thing, the party insists on tight control of cultural production…
President Xi Jinping is the avatar of the new imperium. The 19th Party Congress in October was his victory lap. Party officials enshrined “Xi Jinping Thought” in the party constitution, putting him on par with Mao Zedong…
China’s domestic security budget has exceeded that of its military in recent years, even as both grow rapidly, highlighting the nation’s investment in hard power…
Chinese citizens and the world would benefit if China turns out to be an empire whose power is based as much on ideas, values and culture as on military and economic might. It was more enlightened under its most glorious dynasties. But for now, the Communist Party embraces hard power and coercion, and this could well be what replaces the fading liberal hegemony of the United States on the global stage…
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A group of visiting Chinese scholars in the United States have dissolved a Chinese Communist Party cell they set up at the University of California, Davis, citing fears about violating US laws.
The scholars – six party members and one probationary member – raised eyebrows over the weekend after they were reported to have founded a party branch at the university earlier this month…
“It is because we have later learned that this [establishing a party branch] does not comply with the local laws,” Mu Xingsen, secretary of the party branch, said. “Of course we should respect the local laws when we’re here.”…
The development at UC Davis comes as Beijing has made a more aggressive push for global “soft power” in recent years, ranging from promoting culture to exerting wider political influence abroad…
The branch, which planned to meet every two weeks, had tasked its members with promoting the organisation to their colleagues or neighbours who were coming to the US, it said, and to absorb party members into the organisation…
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This verges on a topic for international relations more than on comparative government and politics. But it could be an example of the use of soft power. It gives new meaning to the idea of a cold war.
The article is probably too long for student use, but it's good teacher background.
After RT and Sputnik gave platforms to politicians behind the British vote to leave the European Union, like Nigel Farage, a committee of the British Parliament released a report warning that foreign governments may have tried to interfere with the referendum. Russia and China, the report argued, had an “understanding of mass psychology and of how to exploit individuals” and practiced a kind of cyberwarfare “reaching beyond the digital to influence public opinion.”…
But all of this paled in comparison with the role that Russian information networks are suspected to have played in the American presidential election of 2016. In early January… American intelligence officials released a declassified version of a report — prepared jointly by the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency — titled “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections.” It detailed what an Obama-era Pentagon intelligence official, Michael Vickers, described in an interview in June with NBC News as “the political equivalent of 9/11.” “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” the authors wrote. “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton and harm her electability and potential presidency.” According to the report, “Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”
The intelligence assessment detailed some cloak-and-dagger activities, like the murky web of Russian (if not directly government-affiliated or -financed) hackers who infiltrated voting systems and stole gigabytes’ worth of email and other documents from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. But most of the assessment concerned machinations that were plainly visible to anyone with a cable subscription or an internet connection: the coordinated activities of the TV and online-media properties and social-media accounts that made up, in the report’s words, “Russia’s state-run propaganda machine.”
The assessment devoted nearly half its pages to a single cable network: RT. The Kremlin started RT — shortened from the original Russia Today — a dozen years ago to improve Russia’s image abroad. It operates in several world capitals and is carried on cable and satellite networks across the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East…
Russia has dismissed the intelligence-community claims as so much Cold War-era Yankee hysteria… Russian officials are remarkably open about the aims of RT and Sputnik: to “break the monopoly of the Anglo-Saxon global information streams,”
Dmitri Peskov, Putin’s press secretary… argued that this was not an information war of Russia’s choosing; it was a “counteraction.” He brought up the “color revolutions” throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which led to the ousters of Russian-friendly governments… But now, Peskov argued, all you might need to shake up the geopolitical order was a Twitter account. “Now you can reach hundreds of millions in a minute,” he said…
One way of looking at the activities of Russia’s information machine is as a resumption of the propaganda fight between the United States and the U.S.S.R. that began immediately following the Second World War…
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The most recent (March 25) issue of The Economist has a great pair of articles. One on China's use of soft power and another on Russia's use of hard power.
IMAGES of China beam out from a giant electronic billboard on Times Square in the heart of New York city: ancient temples, neon-lit skyscrapers and sun-drenched paddy fields. Xinhua, a news service run by the Chinese government, is proclaiming the “new perspective” offered by its English-language television channel. In Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, children play beneath hoardings advertising swanky, Chinese-built apartment complexes in the city. Buyers are promised “a new lifestyle”. Across the world, children study Mandarin in programmes funded by the Chinese state. Some of them in Delaware don traditional Chinese robes and bow to their teachers on Confucius Day.
… [T]he Chinese government has been trying to sell the country itself as a brand—one that has the ability to attract people from other countries in the way that America does with its culture, products and values…
THE black fur hat looked odd on a Libyan warlord. But fur is de rigueur in wintertime Moscow, which has become an essential stop for Middle Eastern leaders like Khalifa Haftar, who visited twice in 2016. This month his rival, Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of Libya’s UN-backed government in Tripoli, dropped by. Jordan’s King Abdullah, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu have all stopped at the Kremlin for audiences with Vladimir Putin this year.
The visitors are a sign of Russia’s growing activity in the Middle East. “The policy is wider than just Syria,” says Andrei Kortunov of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think-tank. Russia’s interests in the region include security, arms sales and oil. But most important, the Middle East offers a platform to reinforce Russia’s status as a global power. “Those who have strong positions there will have strong positions in the world,” says Fyodor Lukyanov of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, a government advisory body.
Serving as a power-broker in Syria has helped Russia to cultivate relationships. It strives to maintain contacts across the Sunni-Shia and Israeli-Arab divides. While fighting alongside Iran in Syria, Mr Putin helped broker an oil-supply pact with Saudi Arabia. He has also developed a rapport with Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, repaired ties with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan after the downing of a Russian jet over Syria, and maintained friendly links with Israel’s Mr Netanyahu, even angling for a more active role in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…
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When I think about a country exercising power beyond its borders, I think of military and economic power. The USA has military bases and 2.5 million "soldiers" all over the world. Russia, China, Finland, Sweden, and Mexico are among the few countries that do not host US military bases. Russian military bases outside of Russia are primarily in former USSR states. China has few military bases outside of China.
Economics is another way of extending the power of a state beyond its borders. We could debate about whether this is coercive power or not, but it's usually just a few steps away from direct military power. China and the USA are the world's largest economies and therefore the biggest projections of power. International organizations like the World Bank and the Chinese-inspired Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank gather like minded countries together to extend economic power even further.
You might also read about "soft power" extensions of countries' influence. This concept describes a country's ability to get voluntary cooperation (co-optation) rather than coercing other countries to support and go along with the more powerful country. Offering foreign aid is often cited as a form of soft power. The USA's Peace Corps is another. China's Confucius Institutes are another form of soft power extensions of a country's influence.
The boundaries between coercive hard power and persuasive soft power are not bright lines. They are, like so many things in comparative politics, blurry, ambiguous boundaries. Is economic power a coercive force? Well, it depends on how it's used, doesn't it? Is the use of military power a coercive force? That might depend too. If the US Navy sends troops to Haiti to rebuild roads and dams destroyed by Hurricane Matthew, is that coercive? If the Confucius Institute at Miami Dade College offers courses and opportunities for travel only if the college alters its curriculum, is it being coercive?
Belt and Road connections
Then there's the Belt and Road Initiative from China. Citing the ancient "Silk Road" that promoted "peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit" for all the countries along its route, the Chinese state wants to create a 21st century effort to promote "peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit." It is obviously a plan to extend China's power and influence to South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa.
The plan includes the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to finance roads, railroads, seaports, and airports. An alliance of universities centered in Xi'an Jiaotong University to do research on commercial law that will promote trade. A Hong Kong-based maritime institute would coordinate logistical policies along the "belt and road" route.
The goals seem to include benefits for all participants. Is the plan cooperative and persuasive or is it coercive?
The issue is still undecided. The plans are still rather ephemeral. As concrete proposals are made, the debate might proceed. Is the "belt and road" initiative a use of soft power? or hard power? or something in between? or both?
Some research and thinking about ways of exercising power would make the basis for a good debate or a complex research paper.
When China first established Confucius Institutes at universities around the world, they were held up as prime examples of soft power (the use of peaceful means to extend the power of a country). Results have been mainly positive and new Confucius Classrooms are planned.
A new Confucius Classroom was inaugurated at the Universidad del Caribe (Unicaribe) by visiting Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong on Sunday in Cancun, in the southeast Mexican state of Quintana Roo.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong
During the inauguration ceremony, Liu said that Mexican students' fluent Chinese and great performances made her feel the charm of cultural exchange, and see the bright future of friendly ties between the two countries.
The bilateral relationship between China and Mexico was upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Mexico in June 2013.
Liu said that China hopes to work together with Mexico to deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields and bring more benefits to the two peoples…
Mexico has established five Confucius Institutes that together have 30,000 registered students, making an important contribution to cultural exchange between the two countries, Liu noted…
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When I began studying Chinese politics, the propaganda that emanated from Beijing was clearly out of touch with the wider world. Today, the propaganda is much more sophisticated and aware of culture and politics outside of the Central Kingdom. This video is a demonstration of that sophistication.
A rap song in English aiming to tell foreigners "the truth" about China has been released by … China's Communist Youth League
It features a mix of traditional Chinese elements against modern rap.
It says China has "terrible problems" but is peace-loving, affluent and at the forefront of scientific research…
It… explains that China is a "developing country and is really hard to manage", and acknowledges the many incidences the country has gone through, such as the 2008 Chinese milk scandal, where dairy products were found tainted with melamine.
However, its chorus concludes that its people still "love the country".
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories, a list of vital concepts, thumbnail descriptions of the AP6, and
a description of the AP exam format. $2.00. Order HERE.
Where the Andean foothills dip into the Amazon jungle, nearly 1,000 Chinese engineers and workers have been pouring concrete for a dam and a 15-mile underground tunnel. The $2.2 billion project will feed river water to eight giant Chinese turbines designed to produce enough electricity to light more than a third of Ecuador…
Ecuador, with just 16 million people, has little presence on the global stage. But China’s rapidly expanding footprint here speaks volumes about the changing world order, as Beijing surges forward and Washington gradually loses ground…
While China has been important to the world economy for decades, the country is now wielding its financial heft with the confidence and purpose of a global superpower…
China’s currency, the renminbi, is expected to be anointed soon as a global reserve currency, putting it in an elite category with the dollar, the euro, the pound and the yen. China’s state-owned development bank has surpassed the World Bank in international lending. And its effort to create an internationally funded institution to finance transportation and other infrastructure has drawn the support of 57 countries, including several of the United States’ closest allies, despite opposition from the Obama administration…
In many cases, China is going where the West is reluctant to tread, either for financial or political reasons — or both. After getting hit with Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, Russia, which is on the verge of a recession, deepened ties with China. The list of borrowers in Africa and the Middle East reads like a who’s who of troubled regimes and economies that may have trouble repaying Chinese loans, including Yemen, Syria, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe…
With its elevated status, China is forcing countries to play by its financial rules, which can be onerous. Many developing countries, in exchange for loans, pay steep interest rates and give up the rights to their natural resources for years. China has a lock on close to 90 percent of Ecuador’s oil exports, which mostly goes to paying off its loans.
“The problem is we are trying to replace American imperialism with Chinese imperialism,” said Alberto Acosta, who served as President Correa’s energy minister during his first term. “The Chinese are shopping across the world, transforming their financial resources into mineral resources and investments. They come with financing, technology and technicians, but also high interest rates.”…
Find out about the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
Every country makes an effort to extend their influence. China has been very purposefully active in trying to extend the reach of their influence through soft power. Maybe it takes more than effort.
HOW many rankings of global power have put Britain at the top and China at the bottom? Not many, at least this century. But on July 14th an index of “soft power”—the ability to coax and persuade—ranked Britain as the mightiest country on Earth. If that was unexpected, there was another surprise in store at the foot of the 30-country index: China, four times as wealthy as Britain, 20 times as populous and 40 times as large, came dead last.
Britain scored highly in its “engagement” with the world, its citizens enjoying visa-free travel to 174 countries—the joint-highest of any nation—and its diplomats staffing the largest number of permanent missions to multilateral organisations… Britain produces more internationally chart-topping music albums than any other country, and the foreign following of its football is in a league of its own… It did well in education, too… because its universities are second only to America’s…
Governance was the category that sank undemocratic China, whose last place was sealed by a section dedicated to digital soft-power—tricky to cultivate in a country that restricts access to the web…
The index will cheer up Britain’s government, which has lately been accused of withdrawing from the world. But many of the assets that pushed Britain to the top of the soft-power table are in play. In the next couple of years the country faces a referendum on its membership of the EU; a slimmer role for the BBC, its prolific public broadcaster; and a continuing squeeze on immigration… Much of Britain’s hard power was long ago given up. Its soft power endures—for now.
St. Edmund Hall, Oxford
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