The disrespected state: China’s struggle for recognition through ‘soft power’

This study examines the Western-originated International Relations (IR) concept of Soft Power in the context of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In order to bring more nuance to the particular localised phenomena, the thesis presents three different approaches to the study of soft power: qualitative rhetorical analysis, media analysis and automated sentiment analysis. The results show that soft power is envisioned within the PRC as a political tool for international and domestic use, that the economy is where China has the most soft power potential in Western media, and that the PRC soft power policies are driven by emotions rather than rational calculation, guided by perception of disrespect. The contribution of the study is thus divided into three parts. Firstly, a discourse analysis of relevant Chinese academic journal articles published on the Mainland in Chinese 2000-2015 (n=31) shows that soft power rhetoric aims at national identity formation using such category arguments as ‘Anti-Westernisation’ and ‘cultural security’. In essence, the analysed soft power rhetoric formulates Chinese culture as being under threat from globalisation and Westernisation. Secondly, the study applies media analysis to interpret popular culture produced by the PRC public diplomacy bureaucracy. The results find negative dispositions vis-à-vis ‘self’ and ‘other’, as well as in-group/out-group symbolism in the analysed popular culture texts. Thirdly, to quantify China’s Western media image as part of its soft power push, the study applies an automated dictionary method to analyse two Reuters news article corpora covering the years 1996–1997 and 2008–2009 (n=1,400,000). Using automated content classification, the data is first geocoded into China-, Japan-, South Korea-, Taiwan-, and Hong Kong-related coverage and then further categorised into cultural, political, and economic topics. An automated sentiment analysis is applied to each category to quantify the tendency of the articles. The results emphasise the importance of economy in China related coverage, whereby the assumption of Chinese public diplomacy is not supported: no categorical negative Western media slant against China in comparison to other East Asian regions is found. The study demonstrates that the phenomenon referred to as soft power within the PRC tackles the challenges of modernisation and progress by placing emphasis on cultural safety and national image construction amid the perceived threats of globalisation and Westernisation. This is seen as an answer for the Chinese state in search of national identity, legitimacy and communal acceptance, still struggling with a collective perception of disrespect stemming from historical Western hegemony

China’s Push for Greater Influence in the Popular Culture Arena: The Ip Man Saga

This article offers a critical analysis of four kung fu films that were co-produced by Hong Kong and Mainland China and depict the legend of Ip Man, Bruce Lee’s teacher. It discusses different representations in the Ip Man saga, and argues that while othering Japan and the West, the Chinese self is depicted in the saga as a benevolent but powerful actor. The texts of the films are thus found to echo past and present Mainland identity narratives and to be connected to the Mainland’s push for soft power. The article links popular culture to politics by showing how political narratives are made attractive at an everyday level, thus contributing to the literature on identity and soft power.</p

Struggling for Recognition? Strategic Disrespectin China’s Pursuit of Soft Power

This paper addresses the Chinese policy community’s interpretations of identities,which potentially shape the soft power policies of China. It couples soft power toidentity through a discourse analysis of the language used by the Chinese state inrelation to soft power. It builds on a number of earlier theorizations that associate softpower with identity as a discursive phenomenon. The results highlight the use ofstrategic disrespect in China’s soft power discourse. In the context of global culturalcompetition, and in particular the South-South cooperation framework, it is argued thatthe practitioners of the Chinese discourse present China’s‘Self’as a soft power and theWestern‘Other’as a hard power.</p

Kiina Goes Pop

Kansainvälistä politiikkaa seuraavilla on hyvin tiedossa, miten Hollywood-elokuvat välittävät amerikkalaisia arvoja maailmalle. On ehkä vähemmän tunnettua, miten Pekingin identiteettipolitiikka heijastuu kiinalaisiin toimintaelokuviin. Tarkastelen tässä kirjoituksessa kiinalaista taistelulajigenreä kolmen valtionrahoittaman elokuvan kautta. Populaarikulttuurin tulkitseminen ”poliittisina teksteinä” paljastaa uusia poliittisen viestinnän näkökulmia.</p

The Cultural Soft Power of China: A Tool for Dualistic National Security

Research on the soft power of China has proliferated to the point where little coherence can be detected. This paper attempts to bring together the various forms of analyses in both international and Chinese literature. A division in the non-Chinese research is drawn between those who recognize the international and domestic dimension in the Chinese soft power discourse and those who do not. It is concluded that Chinese academia envisages cultural soft power as a tool for tackling the challenges of modernization for the PRC state in search of itself in a dualistic manner using both the international and domestic arenas. In essence, the soft power discourse of China has long since outgrown the narrow definition used in the West more in the direction of national security

The Cultural Soft Power of China – A Tool for Dualistic National Security

Research on the soft power of China has proliferated to the point where little coherence can be detected. This paper attempts to bring together the various forms of analyses in both international and Chinese literature. A division in the non-Chinese research is drawn between those who recognize the international and domestic dimension in the Chinese soft power discourse and those who do not. It is concluded that Chinese academia envisages cultural soft power as a tool for tackling the challenges of modernization for the PRC state in search of itself in a dualistic manner using both the international and domestic arenas. In essence, the soft power discourse of China has long since outgrown the narrow definition used in the West more in the direction of national security.</p

Lapset olkoot ihmisiksi. Suomen talonpoikaiskotien hiljainen kasvatus

Siirretty Doriast

Kiina goes pop: Toimintaelokuvat poliittisen viestinnän välineenä

Kansainvälistä politiikkaa seuraavilla on hyvin tiedossa, miten Hollywood-elokuvat välittävät amerikkalaisia arvoja maailmalle. On ehkä vähemmän tunnettua, miten Pekingin identiteettipolitiikka heijastuu kiinalaisiin toimintaelokuviin. Tarkastelen tässä kirjoituksessa kiinalaista taistelulajigenreä kolmen valtionrahoittaman elokuvan kautta. Populaarikulttuurin tulkitseminen ”poliittisina teksteinä” paljastaa uusia poliittisen viestinnän näkökulmia

China as a hybrid influencer: Non-state actors as state proxies

Along with other authoritarian states engaged in hybrid threat activities, China’s strategic rationale is to undermine democratic norms. In creating hybrid threats, the use of non-armed non-state actors (NSAs) is a key element. Thus, an understanding of China’s NSA-related behaviour and the identification of NSA-related activity is vital for democratic states in countering hybrid threats. This Hybrid CoE Research Report provides an overview of the main NSAs associated with the Chinese state, and discusses the use of proxy NSAs by the Chinese state from the political system and strategic culture points of view. The report concludes by discussing democratic responses to China’s NSA-related hybrid activity.</p