J OF CHIN POLIT SCI (2011) 16:69–89

DOI 10.1007/s11366-010-9130-2
R E S E A R C H A RT I C L E

Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise

Xin Li & Verner Worm

Published online: 24 November 2010

# Journal of Chinese Political Science/Association of Chinese Political Studies 2010

Abstract With its rapid economic growth and deepening integration into the global
system, Chinese leaders see the first 20 years of the 21st century as an ‘important
period of strategic opportunity’ for China. China under Hu Jintao’s leadership has
chosen a new path of peaceful rise. To facilitate such a peaceful rise, Chinese
Communist Party has gradually adopted a soft power strategy. We see building soft
power as a means as well as the end of China’s peaceful rise. We argue China has a
genuine desire for peace in her rise and China’s peaceful rise may not be impossible.
Based on existing literature, we expand the sources of soft power to six pillars:
cultural attractiveness, political values, development model, international institu-
tions, international image, and economic temptation. We also identify three channels
for wielding soft power: formal, economic, and cultural diplomacies. Putting all the
basics together, we have proposed an integrative model of soft power. Accordingly,
we analyze the sources and limits of China’s soft power and suggest how to improve
it in these six areas.

Keywords Peaceful Rise . Soft Power . China . Development Model . Beijing

Consensus . Culture

China Adopts Soft Power Strategy to Pursue a Peaceful Rise

The Notion of China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’

With its rapid economic growth and deepening integration into the global system,
Chinese leaders see the first 20 years of the 21st century as an ‘important period of

X. Li (*) : V. Worm
Asia Research Centre, Copenhagen Business School, Dalgas Have 15, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
e-mail: [Link]@[Link]
V. Worm
e-mail: [Link]@[Link]
70 X. Li, V. Worm

strategic opportunity’ for China. According to Jiang Zemin’s Report to the 16th
National Congress of Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in this period, China needs
‘to concentrate on building a well-off society of a higher standard in an all-round
way to the benefit of well over one billion people’.1 To be able to do so, China needs
a peaceful and conducive environment (domestic and international), which is well
reflected in one of Hu Jintao’s speeches:
‘the fundamental task and basic goal of China’s diplomatic work at present and
a certain period in the years to come is to maintain the important development
period featured by strategic opportunities and strive for a peaceful and stable
international environment, a good-neighborly and friendly surrounding
environment, and environment for equal and mutually beneficial cooperation,
and an objective and friendly publicity environment so as to build a fairly well-
off society in an all-round way.2
According to Guo [1], the concept of ‘China’s rise’ was first used by Yan
Xuetong in his controversial book International Environment of China’s Rise [2].
After its publication, Chinese government under Jiang’s leadership rejected the
concept and forbade the word ‘rise’ (jueqi) appearing in official documents [1, p. 1].
Right after the 16th National Congress of CCP which made a smooth transition of
power, a new concept of ‘peaceful rise’ was reintroduced by Zheng Bijian first on 9
December 2002 when giving a talk in Washington [3]. Scholars have debated on the
notion of ‘China’s peaceful rise’. Some people suspect China uses this notion
instrumentally while others doubt if a peaceful rise of China under the current
international power structure is possible.
We argue China has a genuine desire for peace in her rise for several reasons.
Firstly, Chinese culture advocates moral strength instead of military power, worships
kingly rule instead of hegemonic rule, and emphasizes persuasion by virtue and
returning good to evil. Therefore, at the individual level, even if there has been a
victim mentality and retaliation sentiment in populace, when promoted to a top
leadership position, Chinese will tend to behave like a benevolent sage, partly
because of the cultural norm and partly he/she may feel good by doing so. On 10
April 1974, Deng Xiaoping delivered a speech at the United Nations General
Assembly in which he declared ‘if one day China should...play the tyrant in the
world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation,
the people of the world should...expose it, oppose it and work together with the
Chinese people to overthrow it’.3 Secondly, at the state level, China’s priority in the
‘important strategic opportunity period’ is still domestic development so that China
would try her best to avoid conflict and seek peace. Thirdly, at the international
level, today’s international system is characterized by economic interdependence and
nuclear weaponry. This reality makes a military or confrontational power-shift/rise
less likely or too costly for China to even consider [4]. Ikenberry [5] argues that
China not only needs continued access to the current global capitalist system but also
1
See, Jiang Zemin’s Report to the 16th Party Congress, November 8, 2002. [Link]
ziliao/2002-11/17/content_693542.htm
2
Source: People’s Daily, August, 30, 2004. [Link]
3
See, Deng Xiaoping’s Speech at the Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly on April 10, 1974.
[Link]
Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise 71

wants to protect the system’s rules and institutions because China has thrived in such
system. We argue even if China desires to reform the current world order which
China perceives imbalanced and unreasonable, China can be patient enough and
adopt a gradualist approach toward that end, just like what China did in its gradual
economic reform and opening up. Last but not least, Chinese history does not
support that kind of prediction that Chine will use non-peaceful means to rise as
well. By reexamining the evidences of diplomacy of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC), Johnston makes a convincing case that China ‘has become more integrated
into and more cooperative within international institutions than ever before’ and
‘behaviorally it does not appear at the moment that China is balancing very
vigorously against American military power or U.S. interests as its leaders have
defined them’ [6].
We also disagree with those arguments based on power transition theory,
according to which, the rise of China will ultimately lead to Chinese power parity
with the US [7], which may cause structure-changing wars under certain circum-
stances. Theoretically, the power transition theory posits that a rising power is likely
turn into a revisionist with two conditions: its capability and willingness (or
dissatisfaction with the status quo). Empirically, history has shown that an
international system with shifting power structure is fueled with conflicts and
militarized disputes [8–10]. Based on this logic, a rising China will change the
international power structure and eventually lead to conflicts. We argue there is a
missing point in such argument, namely, there should be another condition: whether the
rising power is willing to take unilateral and radical action to reduce its dissatisfaction.
Clearly, China appears to be a pragmatic power which prefers modest actions.

China’s Embrace of Soft Power Strategy

The concept of soft power was first coined by Nye [11]. Although the first Chinese
article on soft power was published in 1993 by Wang [12], it is only until recent
years that Chinese discourse has paid attention to soft power and its relevance to
China’s foreign strategy [13]. There is a clear surging popularity of the term ‘soft
power’ among Chinese politicians and scholars [13]. The Socialist China has
gradually adopted a soft power strategy in her pursuit of a peaceful rise. Jiang Zemin
points out that culture plays an ever more prominent role in today’s global
competition for comprehensive national power.4 Hu Jintao made clear that the
increase in China’s international status and influence will have to be demonstrated in
hard power as well as in soft power and that how to improve China’s soft power
through cultural development is one major practical issue facing the country [14].
Although soft power concept only entered into PRC’s official discourse recently,
the idea of soft power is not new to Chinese leaders and populace. As [15]
comments that the idea of soft power had been consistently advocated and
comprehensively utilized by ancient Chinese for more than two millennia. CCP’s
promotion of a harmonious world5 is therefore its re-embracing China’s traditional

4
See, Jiang Zemin’s Report to the 16th Party Congress
5
Hu Jintao first announced the idea of building a harmonious world in his speech to the Summit on UN’s
60th anniversary on September 16, 2005. [Link]
72 X. Li, V. Worm

culture, and China’s desired world order is therefore rather a soft-power-based than
hard-power-based one.6
However, indicated from the official discourse, Chinese officials seem to lack of a
thorough understanding of the soft power concept. They have placed disproportion-
ate emphasis on Chinese culture when talking about China’s soft power. However,
soft power is not just about culture and some scholars even argue culture may not be
the most important source of soft power. In the following sections, drawing on
existing literature, we first propose an integrative model of soft power and then make
a detailed analysis on how to build China’s soft power in six different areas.

Redefining Chinese Soft Power: An Integrative Model

Sources of Chinese Soft Power

According to Nye, soft power is the ability to obtain what you want through co-
option and attraction rather than the hard power of coercion and payment. While
most researches on soft power adopt this definition, some Chinese scholars have
broadened the meaning of soft power and applied the concept not only to nations but
also regions, organizations and even individuals [16]. Yan [17] provides his own
definition of soft power as the ability of a country to mobilize its resources of
material power. Although we see the value of the broader definitions, such as talking
about government’s soft power over the people at home, we adopt Nye’s original
definition here since the focus of the present paper centers on China’s international
influence.
In Nye’s conceptualization,7 there are three (re)sources of soft power of a country:
culture (in places where it is attractive to others), political values (when it lives up to
them at home and abroad), and foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate
and having moral authority). Most researchers follow this three-source model while
some others have tried to broaden the sources of soft power, e.g., when analyzing
Chinese soft power, Men [18] adds two extra sources: economic development model
and international image. We notice that Nye8 has acknowledged ‘a successful
economy is an important source of attraction’ which he actually means economic
development model [19] and Nye [20] also sees promoting international image is
one important task when it comes to developing China’s soft power. Therefore, we
accept this broader five-pillar conception of soft power.
In addition, we identify another neglected source of soft power—economic
temptation—namely, if country A offers country B many opportunities for economic
gains, then country B would be reluctant to provoke country A on non-economic
issues. Therefore country A has a soft power over country B in pressuring country B
to make policies in favor of country A. Nye9 also agrees that ‘economic strength can
be converted into hard or soft power: You can coerce countries with sanctions or
6
This is not to deny the protective role of a military force which Joseph Nye also regards relevant. See
Nye [4, p. 160].
7
Nye, Joseph. S. 2006. ‘Think again: Soft power’.
8
Nye, J. S. 2006. ‘Think again: Soft power’.
9
Nye, Joseph. S. 2006. ‘Think again: Soft power’.
Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise 73

woo them with wealth’. Economic temptation of country A to country B, as a

perception of country B that there are huge opportunities for benefiting from
economic tie with country A and big losses from harming such relationship with
country A, is neither a form of coercion nor any payment of country A to country B,
instead, an invisible force of attraction for country B to voluntarily change its
behaviors, therefore, a form of soft power of country A over country B.
In the case of China, due to the vast Chinese market and business potential, China
offers the world opportunities for trade and investment therefore wealth generation.
Few countries would not be lured to such an economic temptation. Therefore, China
has a strong soft power in this sense.10 For example, in the context of global
financial crisis in which China’s economic growth offers hope for the world, Obama
administration has pragmatically adjusted its policy on China outlined in his speech
in Shanghai in 2009. A positive change is that Obama admitted ‘each country...has
its own culture...history and...traditions...it’s very important for the United States not
to assume that what is good for us is automatically good for somebody else’ and
made it clear ‘the United States does not seek to contain China’ and ‘welcome
China’s efforts to play a greater role on the world stage’.
We argue these six sources of soft power are generalizable while there might be
some country-specific soft power resources. For instance, Japanese management
system was very influential in the West in 1980s and 1990s. Because Japanese
management philosophy and practice are unique and very different from the
Western, they give Japan a unique source of soft power. Another example is ancient
Chinese military philosophy crystallized in The Art of War which is still very
influential in the world.
Chinese scholars have debated which resource of soft power is the most
important, for example, Gao [21] argues that culture is the core of soft power,
while Yan [17] treats political value the fundamental source. Without engaging in
this debate as it is not our main purpose here, we nevertheless argue that all the six
pillars are very important and indispensible in building China’s soft power. At the
moment, we argue, Chinese culture, Chinese development model, and China’s
economic temptation are the three strongest resources that China should better utilize
them to improve its soft power, while domestic political value, role playing in
international institutions and international image are the three weak areas that China
urgently needs to improve.

Channels for Chinese Soft Power Wielding

Huang and Ding [22, p. 25] point out that Nye’s theory fails to provide ‘a causal
mechanism to explain how states convert potential soft power resources to realized
power or the changed preference/behavior of others’. They offered such a
mechanism:
‘Country A may have various combinations of soft power resources to tap
into...These soft power resources can have their impact felt by political elites,
interest groups, and the general public (“policy actors”) in country B.

10
This is clearly reflected in Huang et al. [22].
74 X. Li, V. Worm

Assuming the international context favors A’s projection of soft power (e.g.,
lack of viable competition from other countries), country A’s reputation, image
and influence would be viewed in a positive manner in country B, which, in
turn, would prompt policy actors in B to be in tune with A’s views, approaches,
and values in the decision making process. A is said to be able to achieve
desired policy outcomes if this policy resonance leads B to directly support A’s
foreign policy, implement policies that are in A’s interests, or look to A for
leadership and guidance. Ultimately, the foreign policy success of country A
will be translated into extra soft power resources for future use’.
In this causal mechanism, we see a feedback loop where country B’s policy
outcome as a signal is sent back to country A for it to respond accordingly, namely,
if the outcome of country B’s policy making is in country A’s favor, such a foreign
policy success of country A will be translated into country A’s extra soft power
resources for future use; on the other hand, if country B’s policy outcome is not in
country A’s favor, country A will need to improve its soft power resources and
strengthen the diplomatic relationship with country B.
In addition to this feedback loop, we identify another positive feedback
mechanism, namely, country B’s perception of country A’s soft power may be
self-reinforced, especially when country B perceives a sudden increase in country
A’s soft power. For instance, in recent years there is a steady increase of Chinese
influence in the US, and with the burst of the global financial crisis, there is a sudden
increase of China’s importance in American eyes. Although China has not changed
much over the past few months, the American perception of China’s soft power has
been strengthened largely due to the self-reinforcing mechanism, which is clearly
shown by an article titled ‘Fearing China’11 stating ‘Beijing’s flurry of activity is
starting to make Americans jittery’.
Kurlantzick [23] argues that soft power can be ‘high’, targeted at political elites,
or ‘low’, targeted at the broader public. These two parts of soft power are different
for two reasons. One is that high soft power is more direct than low soft power
because political elites can exert more immediate impact on policy making than
general public can. Normally, general public can impact policy making through
public opinion, protest, and referendum. Another reason is the fact that soft power
over high level political elites does not directly translate into soft power over low
level general public, an example being the contrast that while the White House sends
goodwill gestures to China the US congress expresses hostility [24].
In connection with Huang and Ding [22], we add a middle level of soft power,
targeted at the interest groups whose impact on a country’s policy-making is more
direct than the low level general public but less direct than the high level political
elites. Interest groups include business associations, ethnic groups, trade unions,
non-governmental organizations, and others. We argue there are accordingly three
basic channels through which a country can wield its soft power to influence another
country: formal diplomacy targeting the political elites, economic and public
diplomacy targeting interest groups, and public diplomacy targeting the general
public of another country.

11
See Drezner [47].
Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise 75

To put all the basics abovementioned together, we present an integrative model of

soft power in Fig. 1.

How to Build China’s Soft Power

Accordingly, China can build its soft power in the six areas—culture, political
values, development model, international institutions, international image, and
economic temptation—and wield through three diplomatic channels: formal,
economic and public diplomacies.

Culture

Although scholars are still debating whether one country’s culture has such power to
alter the behaviors of another country, we argue culture is very important to
influence foreign people in a subtle way. For example, US popular culture is very
attractive throughout the world. McDonald, Coco-Cola and Disney seen as symbols
of the American way of life are liked by people at each corner of the world. In this
sense, we say the US has a huge cultural soft power over foreign people outside its
soil. Therefore, for China to build its soft power, it does not matter if Chinese culture
can have an immediate influence on foreign people’s behaviors, because forward-
looking Chinese leaders understand culture influences people through osmosis as
Wuthnow [19, p. 10] explains that culture ‘lays a foundation of respect and tolerance
by foreign actors, who, over time, may help to shape an international environment
conducive to China’s growth’.
China has huge potential in cultural soft power. In terms of cultural attractiveness,
China has enormous competitive cultural resources. According to an international
survey in 1999, China was regarded as a nation with a unique culture and tradition
[25]. Nurtured by its 5,000 year history, China now owns many unique and attractive
cultural resources, e.g., Chinese language (characters and calligraphy), Chinese
philosophy, Chinese music, movies, arts, architecture, Chinese food, Chinese
medicine, Chinese martial arts, and China towns in major cities all over the world.

Fig. 1 An integrative model of soft power

76 X. Li, V. Worm

In recent years China has paid much more attention on promoting Chinese culture
overseas. For instance, Until October 2008, China has established 326 Confucius
Institute in 81 countries and regions12 to promote Chinese language and culture. In
addition, China undertakes over 1,300 cultural exchanges a year, such as sponsoring
‘Year of Chinese culture’, ‘Chinese cultural festival’ and Chinese New Year
celebrations [25, p. 2].
However, in spite of such rich resources and great efforts, China still lags far
behind the US, UK, and Japan in terms of cultural influence overseas. According to
statistics from China’s Ministry of Commerce, US accounts for 42.6% of global
cultural market while China only has 1.5% market share.13 The US is still thought of
the world’s centre for popular culture production [26]. In the UK, cultural industry is
the second largest only next to financial industry. In Japan, its audio-video products
export is predicted to account for 10% of Japan’s total export volume in 2010.
We argue there are two major reasons for China’s underdevelopment of its
cultural soft power: (1) China lacked of an overall strategy for culture, especially for
traditional culture represented by Confucianism; and (2) Chinese cultural industry is
small and lacks of international competitiveness due partly to the low efficiency of
the existing cultural supervisory system and partly the difficulties for exporting
China-specific cultural products.
Confucianism-based culture had dominated Chinese society for more than two
millennia before the New Culture Movement in 1915 which called for abandoning
the old Chinese culture and learning the new Western culture. Mao’s Cultural
Revolution once again tried to dismantle Confucianism altogether. Soon after Deng
reassumed leadership, reviving traditional culture was promoted first by intellectuals
and later by officials. Meanwhile, cultural reform was put on the agenda in 1979.
However, economic reform is a very complex task and a long process. In addition,
culture and art were treated as a function of politics in China’s planned economy era.
Still today, cultural organizations in China are categorized as public service units
which is different from either governmental organizations or private enterprises.
After 30 years of reform, the old cultural supervisory system under the planned
economy has been broken while a new system suitable for market economy is still
under construction. So, currently, there still exists many problems such as (1) there is
still no clear distinction between government and cultural work units therefore
governments often intervene the operations of the latter; (2) regulations on
investment and financing in cultural sector not only discourage private investment
in cultural production and service but also keep those cultural work units operating
under soft budget constraints; and (3) synergy effect is hard to be achieved and
exploited due to the fragmentation of cultural supervisory institutions and cultural
work units [27].
Chinese government has realized this problem and made its first ever National
Five-year Plan for Cultural Development14 in 2006 which stipulates the reform of its
cultural supervisory system and the development and export of its cultural industries

12
[Link]
13
[Link]
14
See, Outline of National Plan for Cultural Development during the Eleventh Five Year Plan Period
(国家十一五时期文化发展规划纲要). [Link]
Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise 77

and products. According to this Plan, China should inherit and carry forward the
splendid traditional Chinese culture and absorb and draw upon fruits of excellent
culture of any country in order to boost indigenous innovation in Chinese culture;
China should further the reform of cultural supervisory system to develop the
commonweal cultural causes on one hand and the competitive cultural industries on
the other; and China should develop the cultural market system and nurture cultural
production and innovation in order to improve its strength and international
competitiveness of Chinese cultural industries. We see this plan very timely and
will surely have a positive impact on Chinese cultural export. In addition, we suggest
Chinese government should further consolidate the coordination of cultural
resources overseas because many of the cultural promotion activities are still
performed on an ad hoc basis which limits their influences. If most of these ad hoc
activities are to be coordinated, synergy effect will help generate much more
influence. We think the Confucius Institute can be such a coordinating agency. This
then demands more financial and human resources to be invested into the Confucius
Institute, which are problematic currently, due to a mismatch between the rapid
expansion of the number of Confucius Institutes and the necessary organizational
capabilities which can only be built over time.

Political Values

There are two aspects of a country’s political values: one domestic, i.e., how the
government rules its own people, and one international, i.e., the principles and
policies when dealing with other nations and international affairs.
Western scholars frequently criticize Chinese domestic political values by
referring to lack of democracy, violating human rights and suppression of freedom;
and some scholars argue this is the underbelly of China’s soft power [22, p. 32, 25,
p. 12]. Admittedly, there exist many problems in today’s China: corruption,
censorship, unequal opportunities, privileged class, and lack of transparence, etc.
After all, many people believe China is still an authoritarian regime.15 We
understand that, as China had more than 2,000 years of feudalist history before the
Republic Revolution of 1911, Chinese people’s overall quality was low with much
of totalitarian and autocratic ideas in their minds. The Communist movement in
China was aimed to liberalize Chinese people oppressed by imperialism,
colonialism, and feudalism. However, due to low national quality and hostile
external environment of the Cold War, CCP soon after it came to power mistakenly
adopted many extreme and autocratic policies in domestic politics. Many political
campaigns were seen as irrational by international society, especially the Cultural
Revolution. We believe that the CCP has to learn from its past and we see it has been
learning and thinking how to transform itself from a revolutionary party to a ruling
party. This is in no way an easy task. Deng tried to push forward a radical political
reform in 1986 but failed due to the resistance of the conservative force within the
Party. It is unimaginable that such a big political organization like the CCP which
has more than 70 million party members can change itself overnight. A big bang
reform of political system can be very dangerous as proven by the Shock-Therapy

15
For example, see Nathan [43].
78 X. Li, V. Worm

reform in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries in 1990s. We
believe it is not ideal to implement the Western style of democracy in a country
where the national quality is still low and there is a lack of consciousness of
democracy within its majority of people. For example, China wrote grassroots
democracy in the villages into its Constitution in 1982 and has been experimenting
village elections since 1987, however, due to the lack of consciousness of
democracy, village elections are sometimes corruptive—candidates want to buy
votes and villagers are willing to sell votes.
On the other hand, we notice that Chinese government is not change-resistant and
actually China has a plan to gradually reform its political system. Ramo [28, p. 13]
points out that ‘the CCP is the source of most of the change in China in the last
20 years’. Yu [29] points out ‘Chinese know how demagogues can destroy countries
in the name of democracy...China has its own reform agenda based on China’s
painful historic experience’. We support Colley’s viewpoint [30] that many people
(especially in the West) tend to see China’s development as a glass half empty or
largely focus on the negative aspects of China’s development. What those people
neglected is the fact that Chinese government has made much progress in terms of
political civilization [31] since the start of reform while its process is a rather
incremental one.16 Started since the end of Cultural Revolution before which the
main political ideology was class struggle, CCP has been continuously reforming its
political system and improving its domestic political values. Many new ideas have
been officially adopted by the CCP government, such as hearing system in 1996,
rule of law in 1997, civil society in 1998, developing political civilization in 2001,
human-oriented in 2003, protection of human rights and protection of private
property written in the national Constitution in 2004, and building a socialist
harmonious society in 2004. Colley [30] argues ‘when Chinese leaders like Wen
Jiabao talk of “putting people first” and developing a “harmonious society”, they
tend to mean it’. We argue China needs and can have more and substantial
improvement in domestic governance because even within the current political
system a one party democracy can still be developed; and in the mean time, China
needs to better communicate with outside world what progress China has made and
what the political reform it plans to proceed.
Internationally, China has consistently followed the principles of peaceful
coexistence and no-interference of other nation’s domestic affairs which reward
China a friendly and peaceful image in many countries. China advocates that all
nations regardless of size and wealth should be treated as equal and their ways of life
should be respected. China maintains that peace and development should be the two
major themes of contemporary world and development should be the priority of
developing nations. China encourages South–South cooperation to promote
economic development of developing world. China claims that all countries should
shoulder common but differentiated obligations to solving global issues such as
climate change and the developed nations should attend to the needs of development
of developing countries when it comes to international obligations like reducing CO2

16
Yu, Keping. 2008. Democracy and political progress in China (摘录于原载于北京日报的俞可平文‘思
想解放与政治进步’, excerpts from Yu Keping’s article published in Beijing Daily, September 17). http://
[Link]/english/congress/[Link]
Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise 79

remission. China pursues common security through dialogue and cooperation17 and
insists the UN Security Council should be the core mechanism of international
security. China proposes that political and diplomatic solutions should be the
primary means to international disputes. China is devoted to improving the current
unbalanced and unjust international order in pursuit of a harmonious world.
According to Wang and Lu [16], in the reform era, China has adopted an
independent foreign policy, i.e., resistant to outside pressure, free from alignment,
non-ideological, and non-confrontational, which together with its good neighbor
policy have made China appealing. China has been sensitive to being seen as a
responsible stakeholder and behaving accordingly. For instance, in 1997 Asian
financial crisis, Chinese government resisted the pressure for RMB devaluation
which helped East Asia recover at China’s own expense of detrimental economic
consequences in short run. In dealing with North Korean nuclear crisis, China
abandoned the ideological approach it had used in Mao’s time and played an active
mediating role in the Six-Party Talk. In order to promote peace, China has also made
unprecedented concessions in solving the territorial disputes with its neighboring
countries [32]. We see China’s foreign policies and principles of international
relations as a strong source of China’s soft power. Although some scholars argue
China’s practice of non-interference might jeopardize some western countries’
efforts to pressure some dictatorship regimes to democratize their domestic
governances, we argue China should not compromise on this non-interference
principle. The normal practices of Western powers is to use economic sanction and
arms embargo to force changes in domestic governance, which can be argued to
have little and even negative impact on solving the very problems. Simply, many
sanctioned countries are those in urgent need of economic development and
economic sanction may bring humanitarian disasters to those countries. Having said
this, we nevertheless suggest China to be more flexible to work more closely with
international organizations and relevant western powers to find alternative ways to
solve those problems.

Development Model

So far, China’s economic growth has been impressive and successful, which gives
China another very strong source of soft power [16, p. 429]. This is evident when
countries, authoritarian or liberal, like Vietnam, Russia, Kazakhstan, India, Iran, and
Brazil, have shown their interest in the so-called ‘Beijing Consensus’ [22, p. 29],
coined by Ramo as an alternative development model to the withering Washington
Consensus. Some scholars like Kennedy [33] have criticized Ramo’s original
configuration of the three theorems of Beijing Consensus incorrect and unparallel to
the ten principles of John Williamson’s original Washington Consensus [34]. Some
scholars even suggest rejecting the notion of Beijing Consensus altogether by
arguing there might not be such a consensus in Beijing. We argue China as the

17
Pursuing common security through dialogue and cooperation is the essence of China’s New Security
Concept stated in ‘China’s Position Paper on the New Security Concept’, an official document submitted
by the Chinese delegation On 31 July 2002 to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). [Link]
cn/eng/wjb/zzjg/gjs/gjzzyhy/2612/2614/[Link]
80 X. Li, V. Worm

largest developing country in the world has made a huge success in its economic
development since 1979 while many other developing countries are still struggling
to figure out the right approach to development, so, there must be some good
experiences we can learn from China, no matter we call them the Chinese model or
Beijing Consensus.
Li, Brødsgaard, and Jacobsen [35] have made effort to redefining the Beijing
Consensus concept by summarizing ten general principles of economic development
that Beijing seems to have had a consensus. These ten principles are: (1) localization
of best practices borrowed; (2) combination of market and plan; (3) flexible means to
a common end (gradualism); (4) policy rights (similar to Ramo’s theorem of self-
determination); (5) stable political environment; (6) self-reliance (plus opening up to
attract foreign capital, technology and management techniques); (7) constantly
upgrading industries; (8) indigenous innovation (similar to Ramo’s theorem of
innovation-based development); (9) prudent financial liberalization; and (10)
economic growth for social harmony.
Meanwhile, some scholars, from China and abroad, argue against the Chinese
economic development model as it has some serious problems, such as corruption,
pollution, environment degradation, high consumption with low efficiency of use of
energy and resources, rural–urban gap, regional disparity and income disparity, etc.
Admittedly, these are serious challenges facing China, but we see them as problems
of the development process. No country can grow without problems. It is not easy to
have made such a progress in such a short period for a huge country like China with
a 1.3bn population and starting from a very poor basis. Moreover, Chinese leaders
have been aware of these problems and have decided to switch to a better
development strategy—the so-called ‘scientific development view’—which aims to
build a more sustainable and harmonious society. According to this new strategy,
China aims to reduce the gaps between urban and rural areas, between rich and poor,
as well as between coastal east and inland west; China is to transform the central and
local governments into clean and efficient service-type governments; and China
strives to upgrade its economic structure by strengthening high-value-added
industries and making obsolete those of high energy consumption, high pollution
and low-efficiency productions. So, it is critical for China to make these changes
happen. The success of the new strategy will not only benefit Chinese people but
also contribute to the development economic thinking globally. Some scholars
would like to argue it is not sure if China can really make this transformation
achieved. In contrast, we are more optimistic about China’s ability of self-improvement.
Few people could imagine China would be able to achieve what they have done today
30 years ago. In our view, many people in the West tend to underestimate the potential
of China. What they tend to neglect is the fact that Chinese people are very intelligent,
diligent and motivated so that they can wholeheartedly pursue a better life with
unimaginable energy.18
In addition to its domestic success, Chinese development model has another
dimension of attraction: it offers the developing country ‘opportunities not available
under established structures of power’ [36]. In the 1990s, many developing countries
had to implement Washington Consensus-based reform agenda because there was no

18
There is an interesting recent article to read. See Powell [48].
Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise 81

alternative while ‘the international pressures were too great to do otherwise, and the
capacity of international financial institutions to compel obedience too large’.19 And
often times, western aid donors attach stringent conditionality when giving
developing countries international aid. The conspicuous lack of success of such
Washington Consensus-based reform efforts in the 1990s [37] has given the Chinese
model of independent development and no-strings-attached aid a warm welcome in
the Global South. In Wen Jiabao’s words [38], China can offer the developing world
‘a new model for South–South cooperation’ which is based on ‘peaceful
coexistence, equality, and respect for the social systems, sovereignty, and
independence of [other nations]’ and China’s willingness ‘to provide assistance
without any political strings attached’ [36, p. 23].
As Wang and Lu [16, p. 440] point out Chinese government has shunned the
more provocative phrase of ‘Beijing Consensus’ but Chinese officials have not been
shy to speak of the Chinese development model. This is partly because China does
not want to raise a different banner that competes with the Washington Consensus
[39] while Chinese officials see the Socialism with Chinese characteristics as a
viable alternative to the western theory of modernization. Apparently, China has
learned the lessons of its zealous effort to export its revolutionary model under
Mao’s leadership, so Chinese government is quite prudent in promotion its
development model nowadays. In our view, the Beijing Consensus is actually the
most important source of Chinese soft power, simply, many countries in the
developing world find China attractive because of the Chinese experience of
development and China’s no-conditions-attached aid, rather than the other aspects
such as Chinese culture, although we do not mean the others are not important. As
Ramo [28] contends ‘China is marking a path for other nations around the world
who are trying to figure out not simply how to develop their countries, but also how
to fit into the international order in a way that allows them to be truly independent,
to protect their way of life and political choices in a world with a single massively
powerful centre of gravity’. Therefore, we suggest China to find a flexible way to
communicate its development model to strengthen its soft power for ‘the
demonstration effect of the Chinese model as part of China’s political and moral
power’ [16, p. 440]. One option is China can sponsor academic conferences focusing
on the Chinese model or the Beijing Consensus in order to spread such ideas of
Beijing Consensus around the world.

International Institutions

Wang and Lu [16, p. 425] point out a country’s ability to frame the international
agenda and set the rules of the game is an important type of soft power.
As Men [18] explains, since China was forced to enter the world system by
Western Colonialist powers with ships and guns in mid-19th century, the relationship
between China and international institutions have been full of twists and turns, from
rejection to recognition and then from passively standing by to actively participation.
In 1919, China attended the Paris Peace Conference. However, as a victory country
in the First World War, China not only was not allowed to partake in the design of

19
Cited in Wesley-Smith [36, p. 21].
82 X. Li, V. Worm

after-war international order, but also was betrayed by the major big powers of its
legitimate national interests. That was Chinese earliest understanding of the nature of
the international institutions. In 1931 Japan invaded Northeastern China and set up
the puppet Manchurian regime. China, as a member of the League of Nations,
expected the international institute to protect China against Japanese invasion. But,
China once again was disappointed by the inability of the League of Nations on
solving international disputes. After the Second World War, Chinese Communist
Party defeated the Nationalist Party and founded the PRC in 1949. However, the
major Western powers refused to recognize the newly created regime representing
the vast majority of Chinese people and adopted a foreign policy of isolating and
encircling Communist China. China was denied to join many international
organizations such as the World Meteorological Organization, the International
Civil Aviation Organization, the International Labor Organization, International
Monetary Fund, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development,
etc. [29, p. 5]. Not surprisingly, China responded to lean one-sidedly toward the
Soviet bloc and behaved as an outsider and challenger of international institutions. In
1971 PRC was restored its seat in the United Nations as the only legitimate
government of China. But in Mao’s era, China was still passive in terms of
participating in international institutions.
This situation has gradually changed since China’s reform and opening up in
1979. Huang and Ding [22, p. 30] observe there has been a dramatic increase of
China’s participation in international institutions and organizations in the post-Mao
era. According to the Union of International Association’s 1994/1995 Yearbook of
International Organization, China’s membership numbers exceeded 1,000. The
watershed in China’s policy toward international organizations and global
governance is China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) with huge
compromises in 2001 which indicates ‘China is moving towards preparing to
surrender a certain proportion of sovereignty in exchange for world peace and
prosperity, as well as its own long-term interest’ [29, p. 6]. For instance, on 3
September 2002, China voluntarily ratified the Kyoto Protocol though China was not
a signatory country of this treaty. Obviously, China desires to join international
institutions for two reasons: one is that China needs to create a peaceful and
conducive external environment in order to concentrate on domestic economic
development [29, p. 4]; and the other one is China expects to partake in the design of
international order in order to uphold its national interest on one hand and to reform
the international order toward more balanced and just on the other. This is evident in
China’s active engagement in regional multilateralism. For example, China has been
active participating in ASEAN-China dialogue, ASEAN Plus Three (i.e., ASEAN
plus China, Japan, and Republic of Korea), ASEAN Regional Forum, APEC
(Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation), East Asia Summit, Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, Asia Europe Meeting, China-Pacific Island Countries Economic
Development and Cooperation Forum, and China-Africa Cooperation Forum.
China is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council with
veto power, which gives China a very strong position in international security. China
advocates the principle of collective security and respects the Security Council as the
core mechanism for global security. As of 20 November 2009, China is the largest
contributor of peace-keeping personnel among the five permanent members of the
Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise 83

Security Council.20 On international economic order, China’s influence was very

limited before the outbreak of global financial crisis in 2008. China has been
members of the World Bank and the IMF yet with little voting rights. China joined
the World Trade Organization in 2001 after substantial compromises but China does
not obtained the status of market economy. The current global financial crisis gives
China a unique opportunity to gain more influence in reorganizing the international
financial order. On the G-20 Pittsburgh Summit in September 2009, world leaders
have reached a consensus that the voting rights of emerging economies in IMF must
be increased and China will have the biggest share of such increase.21 With a strong
growing economy and the world largest foreign exchange reserve before the
outbreak of the global financial crisis, China has been seen by many people as a
savior who is able to rescue the world. American think tank Peterson Institute for
International Economics coined the G2 notion which was later supported by the
World Bank’s president and chief economist [40].
In the meantime, Huang and Ding [22, p. 30] also reveal China’s compliance with
international normative regimes is mixed and varies from poor to fair (in human
rights) to fair (nonproliferation and national self-determination) and to good or
excellent (free trade and sovereignty). Therefore, we suggest China should make
substantial improvements in those areas with poor compliance scores. In addition,
China should closely cooperate with other developing countries as well as developed
countries of the G20 in particular and the whole world in general in addressing
global issues. In so doing, China will become more active and gain more support
from a wider range of countries and therefore China can win a stronger position for
pushing for a gradual reform of the current international order toward a more
balanced and just one.

International Image

A country’s international image is shaped by the behaviors and performances of its

government, multinational corporations, products and brand names, and people. A
country’s international image is very important when it comes to soft power.
Obviously, if foreign people perceive a country’s image as backward, poor,
uncivilized or bellicose, then this country have hardly any soft power over foreign
countries. Simply, by definition, soft power is a kind of power based on attraction.
Bad image certainly cannot generate attraction.
As Men [41] explains, after the foundation of the PRC, Chinese government was
concerned about building and maintaining an image of independent great nation;
however, due to the hostile external environment during the Cold War, Communist
China’s international image was bad as many neighboring countries were fear of
dealing with PRC and becoming tributary of China. Apart from the mistrust and lack
of understanding between China and the outside world, there is another important
reason for such a bad international image, namely, China under Mao’s leadership did
not pay much attention to the reaction of the outside world and neglected the
importance of building and maintaining a good international image of China. Since

20
[Link]
21
[Link]
84 X. Li, V. Worm

Deng’s reform and opening up, China has gradually integrated into the international
community. China’s image has been improving. However, during Deng’s time,
China was preoccupied by domestic economic development so that China
deliberately kept a low profile on global stage, especially after the Tiananmen
Incident of 1989, Deng advised his fellow leaders to ‘hide our capacities and bide
our time, remain free of ambition, and never claim leadership’. So China under
Deng’s leadership had a relatively more inward-looking image internationally.
A major shift of China’s international image toward a responsible great nation
took place in the aftermath of 1997 Asian financial crisis when China announced not
to devalue the Chinese currency in order to help stabilize the financial situation in
East Asia and help those crisis-hit victim countries to recover. Many people believe
this decision of China actually helped China gain much soft power in contrast to the
loss of soft power of the US in East Asia. In Jiang’s era, China adopted a foreign
policy emphasizing ‘peace, wealth and safety in good neighbor relationships’
(mulin, fulin, and anlin) and successfully solved the border disputes with all
neighboring countries except India and Bhutan (the latter having no diplomatic
relation with China). Entering into the 21st century, Chinese government under the
leadership of Hu and Wen has embraced the idea of ‘putting people first’ and
‘building harmonious society’ since they took office, which has helped improve its
governmental image largely at home and abroad, for instance, from the quick
response to the SARS epidemic to the efficient rescue action in the Sichuan
earthquake,22 from the success of hosting the Beijing Olympic Games to granting
foreign journalists rights to free interview and report in China.
Encouraged by the ‘go out’ strategy of Chinese government, there are more and
more Chinese big corporations now investing overseas, which can change the
perceptions of foreign people that Chinese companies lack of international
competitiveness. How these companies behave abroad will have a direct impact on
China’s international image because negative presses can cause much damage to a
country’s international image. For instance, some scholars observe some irrespon-
sible conducts of Chinese companies in and the negative impacts on African
countries which have created much tension between Chinese multinationals and the
local people of investing countries. Some people even charge Chinese businesses in
Africa conducting neo-colonialism. Although it can be argued that Chinese
investment in developing countries, especially in Africa, has brought more benefit
than damage to those countries [42], China is still low on the learning curve with
regard to outward foreign direct investments. Meanwhile, Chinese-made products
are now sold all over the world. Normally, Chinese products are seen as cheap and
lower quality than products from OECD countries. The cheap Chinese goods
benefit many rich countries by keeping the inflation rate low and helping consumers
cut living expenses. Chinese made products, if having similar qualities and functions
but being cheaper, will leave foreign consumers a good image of China. So the

22
In contrast, the US government was accused by the People’s Health Movement as being racist, callous
and careless of its own people during the Hurrican Katrina in 2005. See, ‘Hurricane Katrina survivors need
relief, not guns’, [Link] For example, US government officials like
Federal emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown and Secretary of Homeland Security
Michael Chertoff both have blamed the Hurricane victims themselves for not obey the government’s order
of evacuation.
Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise 85

quality of made-in-China products is really important when it comes to building

China’s international image. Noticeably, there are more and more high quality
products made in China and sold on global market, such as Lenovo computers, Haier
refrigerators, Galanz microwave ovens and TCL TV sets, among others. But the
reality is that one negative press can have a huge and irreversible damage on the
overall image of a country. Unfortunately, the quality problems have had a very
negative impact on China’s international image, such as the toxic milk scandal
in 2008.
The images and behaviors of a country’s people are an integrated part of a
country’s international image. With more and more foreign people come to visit
China for study, tourism and business, their impressions and perceptions of
Chinese people in China will gradually spread out over the world. Many people
in the West today still keep their out-dated images of Chinese people they
acquired before 1980s. So, an updated image of Chinese people will be
communicated by those traveling to China recently. In addition, overseas
Chinese, visiting scholars and students studying abroad can also shape China’s
international image. Normally, Chinese people abroad are seen as polite, modest,
quiet and hard-working. Recent years, the number of Chinese students studying
overseas has increased dramatically. More and more young Chinese students
(under 18 years old) are sent abroad. As many of them are over-loved at home,
some youngsters might not hold many traditional Confucian values, such as
respecting elderly people, being modest, hardworking and disciplined, it is likely
that they will behave differently from those mature Chinese fellows, which may
give local people of host countries a very different image about Chinese from
their normally-held impressions.
Although China has made much improvement in its international image,
westerners will still have some negative image about China as it is still being
viewed an authoritarian government [43]. We argue in the West there exist a lack of
understanding and stereotype image of China based on prejudice. Of course, the
Western media has played a very important role in shaping people’s perceptions
about China. To improve China’s international image and remove the misunder-
standing of China, Chinese government has decided to invest CNY 45bn to expand
the reach and impact of its state-run media [44], such as the China Central
Television, Xinhua News Agency, and China Daily. Nevertheless, Chinese
government has to learn how to improve its international image through public
relations. For instance, in 2009 Chinese navy intended to send the world a
message of its willingness to build a ‘harmonious ocean’23 by sending its anti-
pirate fleet to the Gulf of Aden and holding its first national naval parade.
However, an article published by Singapore’s Straits Times on 15 May 2009
pointed out that Chinese navy needs public relations representatives who are adept
at dealing with media and communication.24 We argue, in addition to governmental
efforts, Chinese companies should strictly adopt corporate social responsibility

23
See, Countdown begins for China’s naval parade, People’s Daily, April 14, 2009. [Link]
[Link]/90001/90776/90786/[Link]
24
See, Chinese navy: needs public relations (中国海军: 做得好还要说得好), International Herald Leader
(国际先驱导报), September 22, 2009. [Link]
86 X. Li, V. Worm

principle to self-regulate their business conducts overseas, and Chinese people

should behave nicely home and abroad. Especially, Chinese companies should pay
close attention to product quality and food safety, and Chinese people should
try their best to correct those apparent misunderstandings about China when
communicating with foreigners.

Economic Temptation

Since the opening up in 1979, China has been a magnet which catches the eyes of
the world’s business people due to the vast trade and investment potential an open
China can offer. According to Goldman Sachs [45], the four emerging economies of
Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC as the acronym) together could be larger than
the G6 (US, Japan, UK, Germany, France and Italy) in less than 40 years while
China will become the largest economy in the world by 2041. This means China will
be a good investment outlet for world’s excess capitals. A stead expanding middle
class of China implies that China will be a huge vent for surplus consumer goods
and services the world may produce. In addition, with more disposable income in
pockets, more and more Chinese will go abroad for education and for travel which
will contribute enormously to the education and tourism economies of destination
countries. In short, there is a big potential for China to improve its soft power by
enhancing its economic temptation.
With the rapid development of communicational technology and dramatic
decrease of transportation costs, a big wave of international industrial relocations
has completely changed the global economic structure. China has been the biggest
beneficiary of this wave of economic globalization. Due to its cheap labor, vast
market, and preferential tax policies, many manufacturing activities have been
outsourced or relocated to China so that China today is called the world’s factory.
However, in recent years, due to the increase of wage level, appreciation of Chinese
currency, and changes in Chinese labor law and environmental regulations, China is
losing its cost competitiveness to lower-wage countries like Vietnam and India.
Many foreign investors have relocated their investments from China to other places.
This poses a challenge to China. China should make efforts to maintain and increase
its economic temptation to the world.
To keep foreign investments and attract more FDI is very important to the
Chinese economy. We suggest China to take three solutions to tackle this problem.
One is for China to offer more business and investment opportunities to foreigners in
its inland Midwest where the wage level is much lower than coastal region. China
needs to give foreign investors many incentives, such as favorable tax rates and good
infrastructures while not compromising on the labor law and environmental
regulation. We are sure about the business and investment potential of China’s
Midwest. In 1999, Chinese government proposed the strategy of developing China’s
west. Although there have been much progress in west regions, the gap between the
east and the west has been widening [46]. Attracting FDI to China’s vast Midwest
seems to be an ideal solution to boost regional development on one hand and to
maintain economic temptation to the world on the other. Chinese government
appears to be aware of this. On 16 October 2009, Wen Jiabao announced at the 10th
Western China International Economy and Trade Fair and the Second West China
Building China’s Soft Power for a Peaceful Rise 87

International Cooperation Forum that China would unswervingly stick to the West
Development Strategy25 adopted in 2000.
Second solution is China should open those sectors which are currently restricted
for foreign penetration, such as stock market, banking sector, oil and steel industries,
etc. Understandably, China defines some industries as its strategic industries which
have impact on the national economy and people’s livelihood so that Chin has
exerted tight controls. What we suggest here is not saying China should open them
at once but instead China should gradually remove those restrictions. In so doing,
China will not only create more economic temptation to foreigners but also intensify
competition within those industries therefore force its own enterprises to become
more competitive.
The third one is for China to quickly upgrade its industrial structure to attract
more high-value-adding businesses to invest in China. This is not only important for
China to attract more foreign investment to fill the void left by relocation of some
foreign businesses to other places, but also crucial for China to make its economy
more competitive and sustainable. Since its opening up, China has attracted much of
the world’s low-value-adding manufacturing investments to its coastal East, while
these labor-intensive FDIs help providing employment opportunities for China’s
migrant workers and generating export revenues, they also have caused many
problems such as large consumption of natural resources, environmental pollutions,
and imbalances in Chinese economy, i.e., too export-led growth pattern. As many
scholars have argued that the old model of development may soon reach its limit if
we take into the huge costs of pollutions into consideration. So, it is urgent for China
to seek foreign capital and technologies to invest in the high-value-added activities.
Since China has rich human resources and sufficient financial capacity, we argue, if
China can dedicate its resources into this industrial upgrading on the one hand and
closely collaborate with the advanced countries on the other, we believe China can
not only grow steadily but also offer the world more business and investment
opportunities, hence more economic temptation.
China needs to use more economic diplomacy to promote its business and
investment opportunities overseas. China should send more delegations abroad to
run investment promotion roadshows, hold more conferences on business and
investment in China, and use international forums such as World Economic Forum
annual conference to introduce investment opportunities in China. Another avenue
of economic diplomacy might be the free trade area initiative China can propose to
potential countries to which China aims to create economic temptation. China has
succeeded in this way of soft power projection in South East Asia by initiating its
first ever free trade area negotiation with ASEAN. With the perception of huge
Chinese market for trade and investment and China’s cooperation in the Early
Harvest Plan, ASEAN countries have gradually transformed their attitudes toward a
rising Communist China from a threat to an opportunity. China should also
encourage Chinese people to go abroad as students and as tourists because on the
one hand, allowing Chinese people travelling abroad will ultimately improve their
understanding of the world which is beneficial for strengthening mutual under-
standing between China and the rest of the world and facilitating international

25
[Link]
88 X. Li, V. Worm

cooperation, and on the other, more Chinese tourists travelling abroad will contribute
to the destination countries’ economies, therefore, increase China’s economic
temptation and soft power.

Acknowledgement Xin Li thanks Danish Otto Monsted Fond for its financial support for participating
and presenting an earlier draft of this paper at the conference China’s 30 years of ‘Opening up and
reform’: Continuities and Change, held in University of Nottingham Ningbo China, 16–19 September
2009. He also thanks Danish EAC Foundation for sponsoring his PhD study at Copenhagen Business
School.

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Xin Li is a PhD candidate at Asia Research Centre, Copenhagen Business School. His PhD research
focuses on China’s national competitiveness and its global implications.

Verner Worm is Professor in Chinese Business and Development at Asia Research Centre, Copenhagen
Business School.