Seeking Power, Softly

Mao Zedong taught the Chinese people that power comesout of the barrel of a gun. Military strength was his priority. Deng Xiao-pingtaught the Chinese people that power actually comes out of the wallet. Militarystrength without economic power would have only limited value. Economic strengthbecame his priority. The present Chinese leadership headed by President HuJintao believes that military and economic power alone would not enable China toemerge as a major power aspiring to be on par with the US without the soft powerof cultural and intellectual influence over the rest of the world.

The term soft power was first coined by Joseph Nye, aHarvard Professor, who had served as an Assistant  Secretary of Defenceunder President Bill Clinton. Nye was quoted more frequently than any otherAmerican analyst during the session of the Chinese National People's Congress (NPC),which was held at  Beijing from March 5 to 16, 2007. The importance ofChina strengthening its soft power was repeatedly stressed by different speakersat various sessions dealing with China's economic development, militarymodernisation, the working of its Foreign Ministry and the various institutionsdealing with the development and propagation of the Chinese language andculture.

There were references to the importance ofstrengthening China's soft power even at the sessions devoted to discussing thepreparations for the Olympic Games of next year, which are to be held in China.Many Chinese athletes--men and women-- who had participated in the past OlympicGames, spoke about the opportunity that would be provided by the forthcomingOlympics to project a soft, lovable image of China to the world through thethousands of participants and journalists from all over the world who would becoming to China for the Games.

This is not the first time that the importance of softpower has received such attention. Since 2004, many analysts had been drawingattention to the various steps being taken by China to develop and increase itssoft power to promote its national interests and to make its influence feltacross the world  through means other than coercion. But this was the firsttime that this subject received such concentrated articulation.

Among the various characteristics of the American softpower highlighted by Nye were its ability to create in the people of the rest ofthe world a desire to emulate the US and the Americans and to carry the Americanmessage directly to the people of the world in their drawing rooms over theheads of their rulers. The value of soft power arises from its ability toinfluence others unobtrusively and unconsciously.

The state plays an important role in the creation ofthe hard power consisting of military and economic strength. However, the statehas very little role in the creation of  soft power. It grows spontaneouslyout of the cultural milieu of a society. The state encourages it and uses it,but it cannot create it. It is created by its people. If the state can createsoft power, the erstwhile USSR should have been able to create it and use it tokeep the Communist world together.

As one reads the statements and writings coming out ofChina on the importance of soft power, one is struck by the almost totalpreoccupation of the Chinese with the American model of  soft power. Therewas not a single reference to the Indian model, showing how little the Chineseknow and understand India. Indian soft power-- its music, its dance, its otherart forms, its culture, its literature, its print and electronic media, its filmindustry, its writers in Indian languages and English-- is  far, far aheadof China's though India lags behind China in military modernisation and economicdevelopment.

India's soft power was not created by the state. Itgrew out of its cultural past and was kept nourished not only by its people, butalso by the Indian diaspora abroad. The growth of India's Information Technology(IT) industry  was an Indian miracle of the past decade. The growth,influence and reach of its electronic media and publishing industry would be anIndian miracle of the coming decade. When this happens, India's soft power wouldbe further enhanced.

Everybody, who spoke in the NPC session, repeatedparrot-like the line on the importance of soft power, which had apparently beenlaid down for them by the Communist Party. Nobody tried to analyse why softpower has been the defining characteristic of only the Western countries and India and  not of the rest of the world. Why the communist world wasnot able to develop the soft power? Why the dictatorial countries, despite theirrich culture, have not been able to develop the soft power? Whymilitary-dominated Pakistan, which shares hundreds of years of history andculture with India, has not been able to develop its soft power in the samemanner and to the same extent as India?

If they had examined these questions, the Chinesespeakers would have realised that a vibrant democracy is the basic condition forthe growth of a strong soft power. The growth of soft power gets stunted in theabsence of a genuine democracy. The Chinese rightly emphasised the importance ofdiplomatic skills and the propagation of the Chinese language and culture acrossthe world in order to strengthen China's soft power. An increase of 37.3 percent in the budget of the Foreign Ministry and 23.9 per cent in the budge of theMinistry responsible for cultural development was announced. In recent years, ithas already established 130 Confucius Institutes (CI) in 50 countries topropagate the Chinese language and culture.

The importance of improving personal behaviour was alsostressed for improving the image of the Chinese in the eyes of the world. TheNPC stressed five "don'ts" in this connection-- don't spit, don'tsmoke. don't swear at people, don't break queues and don't kill and eatwildlife.

"We should never underestimate the importance ofbuilding soft power as economic miracle is only one side of China's rising inthe world arena," said NPC deputy Peng Fuchun, a philosophy professor atWuhan University in central Hubei Province. He added: "In the light ofthis, China is striving to achieve the other side, namely exerting moreinternational influence through diplomacy and national image lifting."

Has China changed? Is China changing? One has to waitand see.  Many are convinced it has changed and continues to changeremarkably. But there are still many skeptics. As one blogger remarks: "Not all Chinese have the same understanding of soft power. For some Chinese,soft power means the art of establishing their hegemony softly and not crudelyas in the past. Their objective has not changed, but only they are tryingdifferent means of achieving the same objective." 

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), CabinetSecretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute ForTopical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre ForChinese Studies.