soft power

December 13, 2016

As the Trump administration assumes leadership of American foreign policy, questions prevail about how it perceives the United States’ role in the world and how it will exercise that role.  The appearance of a potentially unconventional U.S. president amidst a world in flux highlights the enormous uncertainties and the potential risks to U.S. stability and prosperity that are now confronting us.

Abu Dhabi, by Tobias Brockow

China is borrowing heavily from U.S.-style diplomacy in the Middle East.

There is still time for China to reroute its current trajectory from strengthening its hard power to loosening its soft power nerves. A great number of people wish to learn more and understand the Chinese culture. However, at the same time, they also wish for a China that is welcoming and does not feel victimized by foreign powers, because, the end of the day, all that we ever want is to experience A Bite of China.

December 9, 2016

PD New headlines on the ways China promotes its culture abroad.

Tourism Australia Managing Director John O'Sullivan received the prospect positively that the show will boost Australia's tourism industry. "Our impossibly cute kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, wombats, echidnas, and quokkas already do a wonderful job of luring international travelers, but we're delighted to receive a bit of additional animal advocacy from Peppa Pig and her family," he added.

As Hollywood comes to China in desperate search of new, lucrative audiences, China is desperate to harness something of the elusive magic. If it can build its own film industry, the argument goes, it can use it to develop its so-called "soft power", in the same way US movies have carried American values and norms around the world for a century or more.

Celebrated Pakistani movies drew packed houses on Saturday, the first day of Pakistan Film Festival’s triumphant debut in New York City. [...] Earlier, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi declared open the two-day festival, saying it is a part of the continuing efforts to promote cultural diplomacy and to project the country’s soft power.

[W]hen Mr. Zhao, a Chinese tourist, arrived with his wife in September, they spent their first day wandering the humdrum suburban office parks that Facebook and Google call home. Joining a guided bus tour with a dozen other Chinese visitors, the two became part of the steady flow of Chinese tourists to Silicon Valley that represents — despite pervasive censorship and outright hostility from the Chinese government — the tremendous influence Silicon Valley wields in China.

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