soft power
Public diplomacy practitioners, students and scholars are aware that one of the critical obstacles for public diplomacy is resource deficiency, which includes the lack of funding and personnel. In other words, the scope of influence is a problem. Both Biden and Locke successfully attracted Chinese attention, with which any diplomatic approaches can be magnified.
China relies extensively on its investment and foreign aid apparatus to bolster its soft power on the continent. While Sata's election will not deter the Chinese from further investing in Zambia, it could signal the beginning of a trend in African politics for candidates to run on anti-Chinese platforms.
Today, the USC Center on Public Diplomacy released a Media Monitor Report on "Expo Shanghai 2010 - Flaunting Nations' Beauty through the Practice of Nation Branding".
China continues its 'soft power' diplomatic efforts to expand its influence around the globe with the establishment of ever-more Confucius institutes at universities around the world and, recently, the spread of an offshoot aimed at schools called the Confucius Classroom scheme.
Whether one approaches Turkish sponsorship skeptically or not, the soft power approach of Turkey seems to have won the hearts of the people of the Balkans, who openly expressed the sentiment that without leadership, they would never have come this far.
My answer is best summarized in the words of Joseph Nye... "Even the best advertising cannot sell an unpopular product. Policies that appear as narrowly self-serving or arrogantly presented are likely to prohibit rather than produce soft power."
As China's economy and exchanges with the world see rapid growth, there has been a sharp increase in the demand for Chinese learning...Committed to providing Chinese language and cultural teaching resources and services worldwide, the Confucius Institute goes all out in meeting the demands of foreign learners and contributing to the development of multiculturalism.
As this laundry list of objectives indicates, it appears that the US is approaching terrorism in Africa from many different perspectives. Mirroring America’s foreign policy, however, the TSCTP places too much emphasis on hard rather than soft power.