Media and Politics:

Discourses, Cultures,
and Practices

Edited by

Bettina Mottura, Letizia Osti

and Giorgia Riboni
Media and Politics: Discourses, Cultures, and Practices

Edited by Bettina Mottura, Letizia Osti and Giorgia Riboni

This book first published 2017

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2017 by Bettina Mottura, Letizia Osti, Giorgia Riboni

and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-0022-5

ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0022-8

The book is part of a research project on the language of the Media based
at the University of Milan’s Department of Language Mediation and
Intercultural Communication and Contemporary Asia Research Centre
(CARC). It is published with the support of the Department of Language
Mediation and Intercultural Communication.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables, Figures and Illustrations ..................................................... ix

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Bettina Mottura, Letizia Osti, Giorgia Riboni

Section One: News Production and Reproduction

Chapter One ............................................................................................... 16

Social Media or Traditional Media: Who Is the Real Agenda Setter?
Stefano Iacus, Andrea Ceron, Luigi Curini

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 35

“Tu n’as pas de place pour un petit Somalie?” Language, Proximity
and Impact in the Globalized Political Mediascape
Geert Jacobs

Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 52

Re-Writing and Translation in the News Production Process:
News Agency Wires
Giuliana Garzone, Chiara Degano

Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 94

Reporting on Chinese Politics: A Genre-based Analysis of Xinhua
News Agency Dispatches
Bettina Mottura

Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 112

A Critical Discourse Analysis on the Written English Version
and the Persian Version of BBC News
Faramarz Shadloo

Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 127

Wo shi Zhali ma? The Representation of the Charlie Hebdo Case
in Chinese Press Commentaries and Editorials
Emma Lupano
vi Table of Contents

Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 146

The Domestic Uses of Prestige in China: The People’s Daily
and the 2014 APEC Summit in Beijing
Simone Dossi

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 163

The Discourse of Disability Policies: Focus on the Convention
for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UN-Enable
Website News Section
Francesca Santulli

Section Two: Political Communication

Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 184

American Presidential Inaugural Addresses: Exploring a Genre
Cristina Arizzi

Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 208

Symbolization and Discursive Construction in Chairman Mao’s Political
Communication (with the Great Leap Forward Movement as Case Study)
Jing Xu, Alice Giusto

Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 225

Putting into Practice “Core Confucian Values”: Intertextuality
and Ideology in Xi Jinping’s May 4th 2014 Speech
Paolo Magagnin

Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 241

Soft Power Narrative in Contemporary China: Official Discourse
and the Media
Natalia Riva

Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 264

Constructing Syriza: The Greek Elections in British Online Newspapers
and Blogs
Giorgia Riboni

Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 289

Female Politicians in Serbian Print Media during the 2014 Parliamentary
Election Campaign
Dijana Subotički Miletić
 Media and Politics: Discourses, Cultures, and Practices vii

Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 310

Politically (In)Correct Numbers: The Abuse of Official Statistics
in Political Communication
Mirko Benedetti

Section Three: Narratives and Counter-Narratives

Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 330

Measuring Transnational Memory? Discovering the Potential
of the Corpus-Linguistic Analysis of Historical References
in Debates on Current Conflict
Eric Sangar

Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 356

Building a Collective Memory on Individual Lives: Obituary as a New
Genre in 21st-Century China
Paola Paderni

Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 373

Re-Framing the Battle and Enemy in the Media Discourse of 1990s
Turkey
Aysun Kıran

Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 392

Narratives Travelling from the Local to the Global
Antonella Ceccagno

Chapter Twenty ....................................................................................... 410

The Commodification of Loss: Advertising and the Rhetorical
Exploitation of Post-Industrial Narratives as Myth-Reinforcing
Symbols in Crisis-Ridden America
Paola Catenaccio, Roberta Garruccio

Chapter Twenty One................................................................................ 436

Discursive Pitfalls of the “Smart City” Concept
Maria Cristina Paganoni

Chapter Twenty Two ............................................................................... 454

Alternative Media: Cairo’s Graffiti and Street Art in the Jan. 25th
Revolution
Elisa Pierandrei
viii Table of Contents

Chapter Twenty Three ............................................................................. 473

Satire and Dialect in the Egyptian Press in the 2000s: Bilāl Faḍl
Cristina Dozio

Afterword ................................................................................................ 491

All Entangled in the Web: A Short Reflection on the Condition
of Culture and Politics in the Network Society
Gianni Turchetta
 CHAPTER TWELVE

SOFT POWER NARRATIVE

IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA:
OFFICIAL DISCOURSE AND THE MEDIA

NATALIA RIVA1

1. Introduction
In recent years the topic of China’s soft power has been widely debated by
both Chinese and foreign observers.2 In the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) the discussion started in the early 1990s when the theory, originally
put forward by the American scholar Joseph S. Nye, Jr., made its first
appearance in intellectual circles and gradually penetrated the policy-
making and leadership levels. In 2007, reference to China’s soft power in
the report to the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) marked the theory’s official inclusion within the country’s national
strategy, formally incorporating the wording wenhua ruan shili 文 软实
力 (cultural soft power) into the PRC’s political and media jargon. This
chapter, which is based on the doctoral thesis “From Soft Power to
‘wenhua ruan shili’: Theory and Practice in the Chinese Discourse on Soft

1
Natalia Riva holds a PhD in History, Institutions, and International Relations of
Modern and Contemporary Asia and Africa from the University of Cagliari. She is
a Chinese language and culture teacher within the Department of Language
Mediation and Intercultural Communication at the University of Milan and a
translator. ORCID: 0000-0002-1132-8357.
2
While it is not feasible to compile here an exhaustive record of all of the existing
Chinese literature on soft power, the present account offers an insight into its most
relevant and recent sources. In the English-speaking world, it is impossible not to
mention the volumes by Kurlantzick (2007), one of the earliest attempts to
describe China’s soft power in a comprehensive manner, Ding Sheng (2008), Li
Mingjiang (2009a), and Lai Hongyi and Lu Yiyi (2012).
242 Chapter Twelve

Power” discussed by the present author in March 2016 at the University of

Cagliari (Italy),3 focuses on three areas of analysis: the main features of
China’s soft power strategy in terms of its fundamental elements,
connotations, and narrative but also purposes and targets; the Chinese
official discourse on soft power in terms of the leadership’s commitment
to actively promoting a national discussion on identity and culture-
building, while at the same time implementing a practice that requires a
collective effort involving society as a whole; the participation of state
media outlets in popularizing the mainstream narrative on cultural soft
power, embodying its contents and projecting its force at home and
abroad.

2. From Soft Power to wenhua ruan shili

According to Hong Xiaonan et al. (2013: 10, 96-97), one of the most
recent Chinese volumes on the topic of China’s cultural soft power, the
wording ruan shili 软实力 (soft power) is a “catchword” (liuxingyu 流行
语), while the phrase guojia wenhua ruan shili 家文 软实力 (national
cultural soft power) has become a “hot expression” (remen de ciyu 热门的
词语) in recent years, representing not only the centre of attention in
academic circles but also a “core concept” (hexin gainian 核心概念)
within national “political tactics” (zhengzhi celüe 政 治 策 略 ) and
“development strategies” (fazhan zhanlüe 发展战略) and entering into
“the grand blueprint for the country’s future development” (guojia weilai
fazhan de hongwei lantu 家未来发展的宏 蓝 ). Similarly, while
Guo Jiemin (2012: 17), a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social
Sciences, defines ruan shili as a “high-frequency word” (gaopin ci 高频词)
in the Chinese press and media, widely seen in the spheres of “national
strategy” (guojia zhanlüe 家 战 略 ) and “culture-building” (wenhua
jianshe 文 建设), among other domains, Marxism expert Liu Deding
(2013, 2) points out, in a seminal work, that the expression wenhua ruan
shili has appeared constantly in the cultural sphere and in news reports
since the 17th National Congress of the CCP, increasingly arousing the
interest of theoretical, political and government circles. To reach this
degree of popularity, the concept of soft power has had to mature in the
Chinese context for over two decades. Indeed, there is widespread

3
Italian research on China’s soft power is indebted to pioneering writing by
Lavagnino (2011) and Lupano (2011), as well as more recent studies by Zappone
(2014, 2016).
 Soft Power Narrative in Contemporary China 243

consensus among scholars in identifying influential political theorist and

top CCP figure Wang Huning as the first Chinese intellectual to have
written an article about soft power in China when he contributed, in 1993,
to the Journal of Fudan University with an essay entitled “Zuowei guojia
shili de wenhua: ruan quanli 作 家实力的文 ：软权力” (Culture as
national power: soft power).4 Only a few years after political scientist and
Harvard Professor Joseph Nye introduced the theory of soft power into the
analysis of power relations among countries within the field of
contemporary world politics, China’s domestic research on soft power was
initiated and, as the title of Wang Huning’s essay indicates, the role of
culture as a type of power was emphasized, being equated with soft power.
Alongside the intellectual debate, the Chinese leadership’s approach to
the soft power theory has been evolving since this early stage. Before
identifying the elements which, as main theoretical features and practical
content, have become part of the Party-State’s official discourse and,
consequently, the PRC’s overall vision of soft power, the analysis must
thus take its lead from a brief description of the soft power theory as

4
It must be noted that, today, intellectuals and CCP leaders alike opt, by and large,
for the term ruan shili among a variety of translations employed to convey the
meaning of the English term “soft power” in the Chinese language, which also
include the expressions ruan liliang 软力量, ruan quanli 软权力 (employed in
Wang Huning’s writing), and ruan guoli 软国力. In this regard, Zappone (2014,
416) observes that the primary translation proposed by Chinese online
encyclopaedias and dictionaries, such as Baidu 百度 and ICIBA, is precisely ruan
shili. In the aforementioned translations, the adjective ruan 软 corresponds to the
English meaning of “soft” or “flexible,” while, analysing the various combinations
of this adjective with the transpositions for “power,” the translation of the word
shili 实力 in Chinese-English dictionaries is “actual strength” or “strength;” the
first meaning of the word liliang 力量 is “physical strength;” quanli 权力 is
translated as “power” or “authority;” and guoli 国力 as “national power” (or
“strength,” “might”). See: Yao 2010, s.v. guoli 国力, liliang 力量, quanli 权力,
ruan 软, and shili 实力. The prevailing presence of the expression ruan shili as a
translation of the English “soft power” and the reasons behind the choice, in this
field or in other domains, between shili and any of the other Chinese equivalents
for “power” are topics extensively researched by Zappone (2014) in the only study
published in Italy, to the best of the present writer’s knowledge, which aims to
examine the ideological differences between the Western and Chinese perspectives
on the soft power theory from a terminological point of view, highlighting the
intention on the part of Chinese scholars to put forward a scientific elaboration that
is original and yet in line with the leadership’s orientation. With regard to
terminological aspects in the study of Chinese soft power see also Guo Jiemin
(2009, 2012) and Gu Junwei 古俊伟 (2011).
244 Chapter Twelve

pioneered by Nye in the 1990s. In his seminal Bound to Lead: the

Changing Nature of American Power, as well as in other writings, the
scholar discusses the status of American power after the end of the Cold
War in the context of a new world order without the defining threat of the
Soviet Union (Nye 1990a, 1990b). Nye puts forward the idea of hard
power vs. soft power by stating: “A country may achieve the outcomes it
prefers in world politics because other countries want to follow it or have
agreed to a system that produces such effects.… This aspect of power–that
is, getting others to want what you want–might be called indirect or co-
optive power behaviour. It is in contrast to the active command power
behaviour of getting others to do what you want” (Nye 1990a, 31). He
further argues: “This dimension can be thought of as soft power, in
contrast to the hard command power usually associated with tangible
resources like military and economic strength” (ibid., 32). As testified by
the author’s numerous writings, 5 over the years Nye has continued to
develop his theory, at the basis of which was the realization that with the
beginning of the post-Cold-War era the nature of power in world politics
had begun to change. In his well-known Soft Power: the Means to Success
in World Politics, he elaborates on the intangible resources of soft power:
“The soft power of a country rests primarily on three resources: its culture
(in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives
up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are
seen as legitimate and having moral authority)” (Nye 2004, 11).
Briefly, stemming from the power of attraction and persuasion wielded
to set the agenda and influence the behaviours of other countries towards
the outcomes a country is pursuing, it can be argued that, in the Western
view, soft power is largely conceptualized as a non-coercive foreign policy
tool. Nevertheless, since being incorporated into the Chinese context,
Nye’s original idea appears to have been reinterpreted, modified, and
expanded, as demonstrated by the use of the rather innovative notion of
wenhua ruan shili in both intellectual and political circles. As expressed in
an article published on the Chinese Social Sciences Net, the focal point of
China’s soft power development does not rest upon political values and
foreign policies but rather upon culture, striking a difference with the
American definition (Liu 2014). In China’s vision of soft power, culture
takes on greater significance among the three soft power resources
indicated by Nye, drifting away from the search for hegemony in

5
See, for instance, Nye (2004, 2011a) and, with specific attention to China’s soft
power, Nye (2005, 2011b, 2012, 2015) and Nye and Wang (2009).
 Soft Power Narrative in Contemporary China 245

international relations. This can be seen to be directly related to the

theoretical foundation of Chinese soft power, which draws upon Marxism
rather than neoliberalism,6 as is the case in Nye’s conceptualization, and is
precisely why China talks about wenhua ruan shili rather than just ruan
shili, as is found in successive political reports (Liu 2014). Similarly, in an
essay published in the newspaper Renmin ribao 人民 报, the official
organ of the CCP Central Committee, and retrieved from the website of
the political periodical Qiushi 求实, soft power expert Zhang Guozuo 张
祚 (2015) argues that, in China, autochthonous practice has greatly
enriched the soft power theory, so much so that it manifests “distinct
Chinese characteristics” (xianming de Zhongguo tese 鲜明的中 特色)
and a “unique force” (dute liliang 独特力量). Placing the two characters
for wenhua 文 (culture) in front of soft power, making it the keyword,
signals that “China no longer talks about soft power in a general way,”
since placing culture at the highest level means elevating its role over that
of the other constituents of soft power (Zhang 2015).
Based on these premises, the following pages will elaborate on how,
since the Hu Jintao era, the theory of soft power has been included as a
practical part of China’s national strategy, influencing domestic dynamics
and reflecting, even more assuredly under the current leadership of Xi
Jinping, on the country’s interactions with the outside world.

6
Chinese scholars see today’s official discourse on cultural soft power as the result
of the relevance historically bestowed by the CCP on culture-building, an
inheritance that has been passed on starting from the founding principles of
Marxism and since the foundation of the Party. In Hong Xiaonan et al. (2013, 75-
96), for instance, a “Sinicized Marxist cultural soft power theory” (Zhongguohua
Makesizhuyi wenhua ruan shili lilun 中 马克思 义文 软实力理论) is
proposed. The presence in China’s ancient doctrines of elements comparable to the
meanings conveyed by the contemporary concept of wenhua ruan shili is also cited
as evidence that supports reclaiming a foreign concept progressively “made
Chinese.” Recalling that it is indeed the father of the soft power theory who detects
primordial seeds of soft power in ancient China, specifically in the teachings of
Laozi 老子 (Zhou 周 dynasty, c. XI-221 BC) (Nye 2011a, 81), it is evident that the
theoretical foundations of cultural soft power also reside in China’s traditional
values and system of thought, with autochthonous roots of soft power being found
in China’s doctrines of the past, such as Taoism, Confucianism, and the strategic
thinking of Sunzi 孙子 (544-496 BC). See, among others: Ding (2008); Zhao and
Xiao (2010); Hong et al. (2013); Liu (2013).
246 Chapter Twelve

3. Conceptualizing Culture as a National Strategy

The incorporation into the political and media jargon of not only the
wording ruan shili, but also the innovative concept of wenhua ruan shili
shows that the PRC has been able to renegotiate, and is ready to
communicate, its own unique approach to soft power, one whose core is
represented by the appeal generated by culture, both domestically and
internationally. At the leadership level, the acceptance of this perspective
was sanctioned by the event that, according to a vast array of Chinese and
English literature, represents the official debut of the concept of soft power
in the political discourse of the CCP: the report delivered by former
Chinese President and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao to the 17th
National Congress of the CCP in October 2007. From a terminological
point of view, the wording ruan shili was thereafter incorporated into
China’s political jargon with the term entering China’s official language
(Nye and Wang 2009, 28).7
In addition, according to Cao Qing (2011, 17), Hu Jintao’s keynote
speech, as a “primary policy document,” served to provide guidelines for
soft power development and received a great deal of attention by state
media outlets. Thus, in order to identify which elements form the basis
upon which the trajectory for a cultural soft power development plan was
established, it is useful to pinpoint some highlights of the leader’s 2007

7
It must be clarified that, although referring to Hu Jintao’s 2007 speech as the
official event that sanctioned the acceptance of soft power strategies within the
political agenda of the CCP, the available literature on Chinese soft power,
especially in Western or English discourse, does not always stress the emphasis the
former leader placed on culture by using the relatively new expression wenhua
ruan shili in place of ruan shili. Generally speaking, talking about cultural soft
power seems to coincide with soft power, with the two terms being used variedly
and with no real distinction or clarification. In a terminological analysis, Gu
Junwei (2011, 67) argues that this could simply be due to the lack of a real
counterpart for the expression wenhua ruan shili, as it has no proper translation in
English terminology, or shares with ruan shili the same “equivalent” (duiyingci 对
应词). By taking the example of the English Wikipedia page on soft power, which
cites Hu Jintao’s report to the 17th National Congress glossing over the use of the
correct wording wenhua ruan shili, the author touches upon the difficulty for
foreign academic circles to comprehend the terminology used by Chinese scholars,
a fact that may impede international dialogue (ibid.). Nevertheless, it must be
noted that the collocation “cultural soft power,” used in the present paper, is
becoming increasingly common in English texts as an accurate translation of the
expression wenhua ruan shili.
 Soft Power Narrative in Contemporary China 247

speech as reported by the state-subordinated Xinhua News Agency

(Xinhua she 新华社). 8 By employing the formulation (tifa 提法) 9 tigao
guojia wenhua ruan shili 提高 家文 软实力 (enhance the country’s
cultural soft power), Hu Jintao calls for a stronger role for culture as part
of China’s soft power and declares that culture has increasingly become
“an important source of national cohesion and creativity” (minzu ningjuli
he chuangzaoli de zhongyao yuanquan 民族凝聚力和 造力的重要源泉
), an important factor in the “competition in overall national strength”
(zonghe guoli jingzheng 综合 力竞争),10 and a means for responding to

8
Hu Jintao’s keynote speech can be found in its entirety on the Xinhua wang 新华
网 news website, in sections specifically dedicated to the 17th National Congress
both in Chinese and English. The extract that contains the leadership’s definition
of how soft power is interpreted in China is part of the section entitled “Tuidong
shehuizhuyi wenhua da fazhan da fanrong 推动社会 义文 大发展大繁荣” –
“Promoting Vigorous Development and Prosperity of Socialist Culture,” the
seventh section of Hu Jintao’s keynote speech (Xinhua She 2007; Xinhua 2007).
Elaborating on how the concept of soft power was officially incorporated into the
CCP’s lexicon, Edney (2012, 907) argues that the soft power discourse becomes
part of the Chinese official ideology in a way that is very much related to the realm
of nation-building and domestic cultural construction, as it is dealt with referring to
the project of developing “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (Zhongguo tese
shehuizhuyi 中 特 色 社 会 义 ) rather than China’s foreign affairs and the
country’s position in the world. Hence the terminological and conceptual choice,
for inclusion within China’s political agenda through Hu Jintao’s words, of the
notion of wenhua ruan shili.
9
In China, the fixation of a specific tifa, a term that can be generally defined as
“the way something is put,” a “formulation,” or “wording” (Yao 2010, s.v. tifa 提
法 ), in the leadership’s official discourse generally sets the direction for the
development of policies, research, and public debate. With reference to the field of
political propaganda, Brady (2008, 100) defines these formulations as “official
definitions of the correct terminology to be used in public discourse” and states
that in China, since 1949, employing a tifa has been “one of the most powerful
means of thought control.” A similar view is expressed by Schoenhals (1992), who
examines formalized language as a form of power, maintaining that in
contemporary Chinese politics things are done with words. The high level of
formalization in the official discourse on soft power has played, and still plays, a
guiding role in the definition of the direction towards which the analysis of this
topic in the Chinese context has been carried out by policy-makers, experts,
scholars, pundits, the media and the general public, as well as in the actions of
policy-implementers.
10
Together with the interest in soft power, although in different situations, the
concept of zonghe guoli 综 合 力 (comprehensive national power, CNP, or
overall national strength) also gained the spotlight in the course of the 1990s and
248 Chapter Twelve

the Chinese people’s growing demand for a “rich spiritual and cultural
life” (fengfu jingshen wenhua shenghuo 丰富精神文 生活) (Xinhua she
2007). Emphasis on the essential role played by the “thriving and
prosperity of Chinese culture” (Zhonghua wenhua fanrong xingsheng 中
华文 繁荣 盛) in achieving the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese
nation” (Zhonghua minzu weida fuxing 中华民族 大复 ) concludes
this section of the speech, which urges the audience to “keep to the onward
orientation of advanced socialist culture” (jianchi shehuizhuyi xianjin
wenhua qianjin fangxiang 坚持社会 义 进文 前进方向) (Xinhua
she 2007).
Encapsulating a multi-layered national soft power strategy, the three
interrelated coordinates listed above guide the overall trajectory for the
achievement of greater cultural strength sketched by the leadership’s
official discourse. Moreover, the use of formalized language in such a
central political event falls within the domain of what Cao Qing (2011, 10-
14) describes as “the hierarchical structure of China’s communication
system” in which “top leaders’ speeches carry explicit political validity for
a national project” which will then be translated into practice. The Chinese
conception of soft power can thus be described as being both a “culture-
based” vision and a set of “communicative values” eliciting a “cultural
campaign,” as it envisages a series of policies, under the umbrella of
culture, which pursue goals directed both internally and externally but
giving priority to reinforcing China’s national and cultural identity as the
basis for the country’s soft power (Cao 2011). Similarly, Glaser and
Murphy (2009, 16) see Hu Jintao’s political report as the “leadership’s
official sanction of soft power” and the acceptance of the mainstream view
that “the core of soft power is culture,” while Aukia (2014, 76) highlights
the impact that the CCP had on the expansion of soft power research in
China, with the dramatic increase in soft power-related publications
following the 17th National Congress bearing witness to the fact that

came to constitute a fundamental element in the theoretical framework in which

the study of soft power in China is generally placed. Ding Sheng (2008, 28), for
instance, describes CNP as “an original Chinese political concept with no roots in
Western political theories” which, consisting in the combination of indices
measuring a country’s power in terms of economic, military, political and cultural
factors, merges hard and soft power and reflects the realization among the PRC’s
intellectual and political elites that, in order to obtain the status of global power in
the 21st century, the country needs to increasingly rely on intangible resources.
 Soft Power Narrative in Contemporary China 249

China’s study of soft power was greatly affected by the 2007 “famous
report” outlining “national soft power goals and strategy.”
The relation between official terminology and the orientation of the
Chinese discourse on soft power clearly emerges, together with the
significant political and ideological role that the leadership plays in
dictating China’s theoretical foundations and concrete strategies for soft
power. Hu Jintao’s 2007 speech thus stands as a milestone in the
formalization of a national strategy that sees soft power as a response to
the many challenges China is facing in its 21st-century ascent to the
position of a great power. In this regard, Zheng Biao (2010, 108)
comments on the introduction of the expression tigao guojia wenhua ruan
shili into the political report to the 17th National Congress stating that, to
realize the great undertaking of China’s rejuvenation, it is necessary to
have robust hard power foundations, but even more so the formidable
support of soft power. As was the case for the aforementioned works by
Liu Jia (2014) and Zhang Guozuo (2015), this narrative also emerges
through the views expressed by experts and scholars in the numerous
examples of intellectual writings that nowadays reach the general public
thanks to the media output of the PRC’s official Party-State organs,
especially on the Internet. For instance, an article which focused on the
relations between cultural soft power and China’s system of values,
written in 2014 by Shanghai Party School Professor Huang Lizhi for the
journal Mao Zedong Deng Xiaoping lilun yanjiu 毛泽东邓小 理论研究
(Studies on Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping Theories), appeared in the
same year on the website of the Central Compilation and Translation
Bureau (Zhonggong Zhongyang Bianyi Ju 中共中央编译局). Huang Lizhi
(2014) states that the ratification of the formula “enhance (tigao 提高) – or
strengthen (zengqiang 增 强 ) – the country’s cultural soft power” in
successive Party political reports from the 17th National Congress of the
CCP to the 18th in 2012 signifies that building cultural soft power has
become part of China’s national strategy and highlights a newfound
awareness of the potential of this endeavour, for which the country has
formidable resources, due to the core role China’s “outstanding traditional
culture” (youxiu chuantong wenhua 秀 统文 ) plays in it.
In November 2012, five years after sanctioning the debut of the
concept of wenhua ruan shili in the Party’s political discourse, Hu Jintao
once again inserted the call to enhance China’s cultural soft power among
the topics of his keynote speech to the 18th National Congress of the CCP.
Paraphrasing his words, the blueprint suggested to increase effectiveness
in this field emerges fairly clearly: for China to achieve the goal of
250 Chapter Twelve

becoming a “socialist cultural great power” (shehuizhuyi wenhua qiangguo

社会 义文 强 ), the key lies in a formula that sums up a “system of
socialist core values” (shehuizhuyi hexin jiazhi tixi 社会 义核心价值体
系) as the basis for upgrading the character of the nation, in terms of civil,
moral, and ethical standards, a thriving domestic cultural environment as a
prerequisite for making culture a “pillar industry of the economy” (jingji
zhizhuxing chanye 经济支柱性产业) and an upgrade in the level of appeal
and influence that Chinese culture can exercise in the global arena (Xinhua
she 2012). How to make these domestic and foreign policy components
work together is explained in greater detail in the sixth section of the
report,11 which forms the core of Hu Jintao’s guidelines regarding culture-
building. A key element in the paragraphs gravitating around the
formulation tigao guojia wenhua ruan shili in both the speeches
considered here is indeed the reference to topics such as: developing
“advanced socialist culture” (shehuizhuyi xianjin wenhua 社会 义 进
文 ); “building” (jianshe 建设) and “reinforcing” (jiaqiang 加强) the
system of socialist core values; erecting a “spiritual home” (jingshen
jiayuan 精神家园) for the Chinese nation; taking pride in the “national
spirit” (minzu jingshen 民 族 精 神 ); cultivating people’s individual
qualities, morals, and ethics, as well as common ideals derived from
socialism with Chinese characteristics; reinvigorating and adapting
China’s traditional culture and values and virtues inherited from the past to
modern times, whilst carrying forward cultural undertakings in order to
develop the cultural industry and boost its competitiveness, also enriching
the people’s spiritual and cultural lives (Xinhua she 2007, 2012).
Nevertheless, the words spoken on the occasion are pervaded by a sense of
ever-growing faith in the potential of China’s cultural soft power, with
culture being concretely described as the “lifeblood of a nation” (minzu de
xuemai 民族的血脉), while one of the ultimate targets indicated by the
guidelines is that of “establishing a high level of awareness of and
confidence in culture” (shuli gaodu de wenhua zijue he wenhua zixin 树立
高度的文 自觉和文 自信) (Xinhua she 2012).
Briefly, China constructs what can be defined as a binary vision of soft
power displaying an interplay of domestic and international dynamics
reflected not only in the type of narratives and strategies employed but

11
The analysis of Hu Jintao’s keynote speech to the 18th National Congress
focuses on this section, entitled “Zhashi tuijin shehuizhuyi wenhua qiangguo
jianshe 扎实推进社会 义文 强 建设” – “Developing a Strong Socialist
Culture in China,” as well as the third section (Xinhuashe 2012; Xinhua 2012).
 Soft Power Narrative in Contemporary China 251

also in the type of audience such discourse targets. The recipient of

China’s soft power messages, increasingly made available to the Chinese
and international public through the tools of mass communication, is a
multiple audience that Sayama (2016, 7-8) identifies as “the wider world,”
“the people of China,” and “the Chinese diaspora.” How China narrates
cultural soft power will be further described in the following pages, taking
into account the multiple roles played by the state media in targeting
audiences inside and outside of China. If, as argued by Cao Qing (2011,
12), “enhancing communication infrastructures” is one of the central
components of official Chinese discourse on soft power, it can be implied
that the media, which fall into this category, are important cogs in the
dissemination of the narrative described so far, the construction of its
meanings and the implementation, at home and abroad, of the national
project it symbolizes.

4. Shaping, Disseminating, and Projecting Cultural Soft

Power
The observations made above draw upon a preliminary assessment of the
formalizing role of political reports. In this sense, officially including
wenhua ruan shili in a congress report as a key theme made it clear that
the Party and the State had already made the task of improving cultural
soft power into “a new strategic focus” (xin de zhanlüe zhuoyandian 新的
战略着眼点) in the strengthening of CNP and in the achievement of the
great rejuvenation of the Chinese people (Hong et al. 2013, 97). In
addition, with wenhua ruan shili becoming a popular subject among
policy-makers, it is evident that the Party’s theory of cultural soft power
continues to be developed and refined, against the background of
important “cultural strategic choices” (wenhua zhanlüe jueze 文 战略抉
择) (Hong et al. 2013, 83). From the legitimation that the leadership,
through Hu Jintao’s words, bestows on the core role of culture as a
resource for soft power development, this new strategic perspective
appears to be constituted by a process of domestic culture building, the
versatile potentialities of which can also be wielded to generate a positive
effect in the international arena.
As was described above, all in all, the contents of Hu Jintao’s 2012
speech appear to be following the discourse initiated in 2007. However,
while on both occasions an enhancement of China’s overall cultural
strength and international competitiveness is associated with the
252 Chapter Twelve

development of cultural undertakings and the cultural industry as a whole,

including philosophy and social sciences, the press and publishing, radio,
television, and films, literature and art, in order to provide “correct
guidance” (zhengque daoxiang 正确导向) to the public, create a “culture
of harmony” (hexie wenhua 和 谐 文 ), and boost both social and
economic benefits, in the more recent of the two speeches, attention is also
paid to specific cultural policies, such as the standardization and
promotion of language at the national level as a fundamental need to
upgrade the people’s intellectual and cultural life (Xinhua she 2007, 2012).
An examination of the development of cultural strategies aimed at
boosting China’s cultural soft power can thus highlight the Party-State’s
active role in developing a system of actions pursuing this goal. This
appears to stimulate a collective effort that involves society at large and in
which the media are called to participate on the basis of their all-round
capability in the field of communication.
Overall, at home, the media not only lay the bases that guide the
mainstream debate on soft power, acting as channels through which the
official discourse and intellectual views become a shared narrative, but
also support the construction of cultural soft power resources by creating
consensus and building and disseminating identity and culture-loaded
messages. For instance, on 22 January 2008, Hu Jintao’s discussion with
the participants at the National Propaganda and Ideology Work
Conference linked propaganda work to the enhancement of cultural soft
power as, stressing the need to promote the development and prosperity of
socialist culture even more consciously and actively, the former leader
urged the work on propaganda and ideology to live up to the responsibility
it bears in “unifying ideology” (tongyi sixiang 统一思想) and bringing
into play the “force of aggregation” (ningju liliang 凝聚力量), in order to
implement the blueprint portrayed by the 17th National Congress (Xinhua
wang 2008). Moreover, within the broader scope of cultural policies,
although closely related to China’s language policy and aimed at the
standardization and promotion of putonghua 普通话, the PRC’s official
language, it is also interesting to briefly consider a specific measure which
attempts to regulate language habits within China and, more specifically,
those of the media. In 2014, the State Administration of Press, Publication,
Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT, Guojia Xinwen Chuban
Guangdian Zongju 家新闻出版广电总局) called for advertisements
and broadcasts to stop using plays on words, curbing the possibility of
 Soft Power Narrative in Contemporary China 253

making use of homophones to create humorous meanings, even in

apolitical puns (Chen 2014). 12 The notice issued by the regulatory
administrative agency states: “These methods [non-standard spoken and
written language]… are contrary to the spirit of passing on and promoting
the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation, they can mislead the
social public and especially youth and they must be firmly corrected”
(Guojia Xinwen Chuban Guangdian Zongju 2014). The radio and
television must understand that “the spreading, popularization, and
standardized use of the national common spoken and written language is a
strategic need for… strengthening the country’s cultural soft power” and,
as mass media, they are urged to “bear responsibility to show the way and
be model examples” in the implementation of this concrete measure,
which promotes “cultural self-awareness, cultural self-confidence and
cultural self-improvement” and guarantees “cultural security” (Guojia
Xinwen Chuban Guangdian Zongju 2014). The language habits targeted
by regulations of this kind are thus seen as a potential detriment to the
Chinese people’s awareness of and confidence in culture and ultimately to
the construction of the country’s cultural soft power at home and its
projection abroad. Thus, all sectors of the media are called upon to
actively participate in the standardization and promotion of putonghua,
acting as models for China’s modern society and, consequently, assuming
a leading role in the national identity and culture-building process.
Additionally, the media serve abroad as tools to project a national
image devoid of undesirable foreign bias. According to the website
Xinhua wang (2013), on 30 December 2013 Xi Jinping delivered a speech
at the 12th Group Study Session of the Politburo of the CCP Central
Committee in which he discussed, among the methods listed to increase
China’s cultural soft power, the need to “enhance international discourse
power” (tigao guoji huayuquan 提 高 际 话 语 权 ), together with the
relevance of “shaping” (suzao 塑造) China’s “national image” (guojia
xingxiang 家形象). The projection of China’s cultural power abroad
involves displaying the “charm of Chinese culture” (Zhonghua wenhua

12
More specifically targeted was the case of the idiom jin shan jin mei 尽善尽美
which, in an advertisement, was transformed into jin shan jin mei 晋善晋美, a play
on words based on the characters jin 尽 (“to the utmost”) and Jin 晋 (the short
name for Shanxi 山西 province), thus changing the meaning of “perfect” or “the
acme of perfection” of the former into “Shanxi is good and beautiful” of the latter
(Yao 2010, s.v. jìn 尽 and Jìn 晋; Chen Te-Ping 2014; Guojia Xinwen Chuban
Guangdian Zongju 2014).
254 Chapter Twelve

meili 中华文 魅力) to the world, a goal for which the support of “mass
communication” (dazhong chuanbo 大 播 ) is also needed; as the
incumbent President and Party General Secretary puts it, it is necessary to
work on “international communication capabilities” (guoji chuanbo nengli
际 播能力), an “external discourse system” (duiwai huayu tixi 对外话
语 体 系 ) and its “creativity, appeal, and credibility” (chuangzaoli 、
ganzhaoli、gongxinli 造力、感召力、 信力) and the “new media”
(xinxing meiti 新 媒体), in order to “tell the stories of China well, spread
the voices of China well, and explain Chinese characteristics well” (jiang
hao Zhongguo gushi, chuanbo hao Zhongguo shengyin, chanshi hao
Zhongguo tese 讲好中 故事， 播好中 声音，阐释好中 特色)
(Xinhua wang 2013).
Enhancing the work of the media abroad, leveraging the mechanisms
of external propaganda and image-building, can thus constitute a powerful
weapon for the PRC to fight what Shambaugh (2015) defines as a
“discourse war” against the West within the larger soft power offensive
carried out under Xi Jinping’s leadership. As argued by the influential
China expert, enhancing soft power in the media, publishing, education,
the arts, and sports, among other domains, is an operation which entails
high costs and massive efforts for the PRC, such as a budget of
approximately US$10 billion for external propaganda and the employment
by the Xinhua News Agency of about 3,000 journalists, 400 of whom are
assigned overseas, as well as visits by Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang
to over 50 countries in 2014, alongside the signing of significant trade and
investment deals and the offer of substantial loans and aid packages
(Shambaugh 2015). Similarly, Lee (2016) examines what he calls China’s
“bid for soft power” under Xi Jinping’s leadership in the light of a shift
towards striving to gain an increase in discursive power on the global stage.
According to the author, international media reporting is an arena in which
the PRC is now increasingly eager to disseminate its own narratives in
order to offset “Western bias” (Lee 2016: 109). Nevertheless, scholars also
seem to agree in detecting rather dangerous weaknesses in China’s
external communication methods and public diplomacy. For instance, Lee
(2016, 108-113) makes the argument that even when storytelling targets
audiences abroad, China’s official state news service – Xinhua News
Agency – utilizes messages that are effective for the domestic audience
and in which narratives favourable to the CCP’s rule are embedded,
“crafting stories with domestic audiences in mind” and making the
communication model “outmoded.” Although this would reflect the
domestic and international functions that Xinhua News Agency has had
 Soft Power Narrative in Contemporary China 255

since its establishment, defined by Shambaugh (2015) as a “dual role” in

reporting news and disseminating CCP propaganda, others argue that, by
continuing to make use of a linguistic practice that fails to innovate, China
is still not able to fully exploit the intangible assets of language persuasion,
as is found by Zappone (2016) in a study which, evaluating the potential of
its international political discourse as a tool for soft power, highlights that
the PRC has yet to master this advantage.

5. Closing Remarks
Overall, this chapter has explored the shaping of the soft power theory into
a national strategy, promoted by the Chinese leadership, popularized
nationwide and implemented through cultural policies in the contemporary
Chinese context. As a national strategy with an international reflection, the
concept of soft power has been understood here as an interpretative
instrument useful for reading the future orientation of the PRC’s domestic
and foreign policies, as a discourse underpinning the country’s current
national and international strategies and as a new narrative endorsed by
Party-State leaders and disseminated in the political and mass
communication spheres. In order to reveal the prominent elements in this
narrative and provide insight into the ever-growing popularity of the soft
power debate, this chapter has referred to a body of literature which, built
on a limited yet indicative sample of Chinese sources, such as academic
writings and scholarly articles, PRC policy documents, and Party-State
guidelines, in addition to theoretical English analyses, pertains in varying
degrees to the domain of the official discourse and is largely made
available through state media outlets. In this sense, it is indicative that
while, as reported by Li Mingjiang (2009b, 24), a search on the China
National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database found 485 papers
with the Chinese term for soft power (translated as ruan shili, ruan liliang,
ruan quanli, and ruan guoli) in their titles for the period 1994 to 2007,
along with 509 articles in the newspaper section for the period 2000 to
2008, at the time of writing, a search solely on the website Renmin wang
人民网, the online counterpart of the CCP’s mouthpiece Renmin ribao,
reveals the presence of over 85 thousand articles with the expression ruan
shili in their texts, almost 19 thousand of which are published in the
section “Zhongguo Gongchandang xinwen 中 共产党新闻” (News of
256 Chapter Twelve

the CCP). Narrowing down the results, a search for the formulation
wenhua ruan shili produces 32,269 and 9,570 results respectively.13
More specifically, the analysis has described how the theory and
practice encapsulated by the formulation tigao guojia wenhua ruan shili
add a unique voice to the discussion on soft power. For China soft power
has a dual function. Its objectives have been transformed, as argued by
Zhang Guozuo (2015), as it goes far beyond constituting a mere tool for
gaining hegemony and implementing power politics: “Domestically, it
serves the purpose of strengthening the construction of socialist core
values, promoting China’s outstanding traditional culture, cultivating a
noble ideology and ethics, reinforcing the cohesiveness of the Party, the
military and the people; externally, it serves the purpose of disseminating
China’s standpoint and voice, establishing a positive international image,
constructing a favourable international environment and promoting the
construction of a peaceful, harmonious, and cooperative world.” China’s
theory and practice of soft power reflect in this harmonious “duinei 对内”
(internal) – “duiwai 对外” (external) pair and are now both conceptualized
and progressively outlined as having culture, especially traditional culture,
at their core, as well as a predominant focus on China’s internal priorities
of identity and nation-building, over foreign policy goals. With the
boundaries for the definition of what soft power is in the Chinese context
being set by the discourse adopted by the Chinese leadership, which
carries out its function of political authority in guiding the orientation of
mainstream debates and defining the implementation of policies, the
evolution of the concept of ruan shili into that of wenhua ruan shili
demonstrates that the theory of soft power, although coined by the West,
has been progressively adjusted to the characteristics of the Chinese
context based on a specific rationale: placing “culture” in front of “soft
power” has, first and foremost, detached the Chinese discourse from its
Western origins and given rise to a new narrative drawing on the
inheritance of the importance placed on culture-building in China’s
historical tradition. In this regard, Huang Lizhi (2014) cites the words
spoken by Xi Jinping on 19 August 2013 in a speech concerning the topic
of ideological work, as evidence proving that the core role of traditional
culture in the Chinese soft power discourse clearly marks an important

13
The search’s timeframe covers the years 2003-2016 for ruan shili and 2004-
2016 for wenhua ruan shili. On the other hand, Liu Deding (2013, 39) reports that
the first appearance of the expression wenhua ruan shili occurred in 2005 in a
report in the newspaper Guangming ribao 明 报.
 Soft Power Narrative in Contemporary China 257

difference with Nye’s theory14 and its focus on Western values: “China’s
outstanding traditional culture is a prominent advantage for the Chinese
nation and is our most profound cultural soft power” (Zhonghua youxiu
chuantong wenhua shi Zhonghua minzu de tuchu youshi, shi women zui
shenhou de wenhua ruan shili 中华 秀 统文 是中华民族的突出
势，是我们最深厚的文 软实力).
Finally, according to Liu Deding (2013: 38), in China, the concept of
soft power still lacks a completely unanimous theoretical understanding
and explanation for its use in the Chinese context, but it has nevertheless
already been assigned connotations that diverge from its original meaning:
to a certain extent, its deep-rooted relationship to the “theory of power”
(quanli lilun 权力理论) present in the Western vision has been eliminated,
in a process that can be defined as “a rectification of the excessively strong
political pragmatism and clear instrumental nature of the Western concept
of soft power” (dui xifang de ruan shili gainian guoyu nongzhong de
zhengzhi shiyongzhuyi he mingxian de gongjuxing de yi zhong jiaozheng
对西方的软实力概念过于浓重的政治实用 义和明显的工 性的一种
矫正).15 This made-to-measure interpretation goes beyond the scope of an

14
Nye’s conceptualization, developed in the context of the United States, mainly
takes into consideration the merits of American pop culture among other soft
power resources. The observation that civil society is the main source of soft
power and that in a liberal society a government “cannot and should not control the
culture” (Nye 2004, 17) is also relevant as it strikes another difference with the
Chinese soft power discourse.
15
These aspects are also evident through the choice of the Chinese term that, as
previously mentioned, is most commonly used to translate the word “power” in the
context of the soft power debate, that is shili. In this regard, it is relevant to refer
once again, although briefly, to the relationship existing between the terminology
used in the Chinese soft power discourse and the conceptual peculiarities described
in the present text. The analyses carried out by Guo Jiemin (2009, 2012) are
particularly relevant to this end as the author highlights that ruan shili is both
different from the concept coined by Nye and the meaning conveyed by the
expression ruan quanli, used for instance in the first Chinese contribution to the
topic–the previously mentioned essay by Wang Huning (1993); while the latter
would provide a close-fitting transposition for the original meaning intended by
Nye within the framework of international relations theories and global politics, in
analysing the decline of American hegemony and the phenomenon of power
reconstruction; the former gained the spotlight following a deeper understanding of
China’s own soft power construction and reflecting the “Sinicization”
(Zhongguohua 中 ) of the Western theory. The core of a terminological and
translation problem of this kind can be found in the different characteristics
258 Chapter Twelve

aspiring global power’s international tactics as it opens up new spaces,

through its culture-building focus and binary trajectory, for a more
comprehensive use of cultural resources. The ultimate aim of cultural soft
power wielding becomes to create consensus on the urgent need to achieve
an all-around betterment of China’s domestic and international conditions
in the age of China’s rise. Progressively moving from theory to practice,
this process of identity- and culture-building through the enhancement of
cultural soft power appears to be supported by a system of policies and
communication tactics which, in addition to building intangible resources
at home, can take the role of culture as a national strategy a step forward,
leveraging its competitiveness in the projection of China’s renewed image
in the world. The task of building, consolidating, and communicating the
country’s cultural soft power inside and outside China is thus envisaged as
a well-defined, comprehensive, and collective effort which mobilizes the
CCP leadership, government departments, intellectual and political elites,
media channels, and, ultimately, every single individual towards the
celebration of China’s reinvigorated splendour.

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