Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 05/2012

China's Soft Power in the Information Age: Think Again

Shanthi Kalathil

May 2011

Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Abstract

In recent years, many have argued that China has been largely successful at using soft power to bolster its rise to great power status. This essay suggests that the Chinese government—and other authoritarian states—have fundamentally misread the nature of the relationship between soft power and the globally networked, information-rich environment, thus misunderstanding how soft power is accumulated. Because of this, their efforts at deploying soft power over the long term are not likely to be as effective as conventional wisdom would make them out to be. China’s “charm offensive” has been widely documented: China has embarked on numerous soft power initiatives over the last decade, many of them targeting not only the developing world but also the West. The conventional wisdom now takes for granted China’s growing sophistication in the nonmilitary arena, giving China credit for expanding its soft power through strategically deploying cultural, media, and economic resources and amplifying these efforts in the global networked information space. Moreover, China’s success in controlling and manipulating information within its borders is well documented, and some believe that its success in shaping and containing attitudes within its own borders will lead to success in wielding soft power in the international sphere.