The following is an account of an article by He Zengke, a scholar of politics, director of the World Developmental Strategy Research Department at the Central Editorial and Translation Office (中央编译局世界发展战略研究部主任), and deputy director at the Beijing University Governmental Innovation Research Center (北京大学中国政府创新研究中心副主任) – see here for further details. It was published by ChinaReform (中国改革论坛网), on December 23 this year.
He Zengke’s original footnotes are in [square brackets]; mine are in (round brackets). He Zengke’s footnotes are added at the end of every blockquote translation, or within my indirect account of his paragraphs respectively.
Joseph Nye was the first to suggest the term “soft power” in the studies of international relations. Domestically, the general term currently is “ruǎn shílì”, but it should actually be translated “ruǎn quánlì”. It indicates the legitimacy or legality of the values, political strategies, institutional organization initiated or pursued by a country, which earn it the other countries’ willingness to identify with these, and which constitute a country’s ability to win other countries’ support in international affairs, without issuing orders or forcing others. Nye suggests that soft power is a kind of assimilating power (co-optive power), in stark contrast to commanding others according to its own wishes, or issuing orders based on hard power, and is in fact a supple kind of international influence. Nye believes that soft assimilating power and hard commanding power are equally important, in defending and promoting ones own country’s interests. The former kind of power obviously meets with less resistance, and comes at lower transaction costs.1) Nye then suggests that the resources which constitute a country’s soft power are the country’s cultural and ideological appeal, the number of its multi-national companies and their strength, and the degree to which it leads in shaping international bodies’ policies and resources, etc.
 Zheng Yongnian has thoroughly researched the limits and insufficiencies of these two methods of soft and hard power. Interested readers may refer to Zheng Yongnian and Zhang Chi, ‘Guoji Zhengzhi zhong de Ruan Liliang Yiji Dui Zhongguo Ruan Liliang de Guancha’, (‘Soft Power in International Politics and an Observation of China’s Soft Power’), chief editor Zai Yutang, Renmin Ribao Publishing House, 2009
 See also: Joseph Nye, translated by Men Hong, “Hard Power and Soft Power” (“硬权力与软权力”), Beijing University Publishing House, 2005 (北京大学出版社). This book’s fifth chapter (ruǎn quánlì) centrally reflects his idea of soft power.
Nye’s concept had many international repercussions, writes He, including China’s academia, among which the views of a certain Yu Xintian (俞新天) deserved particular attention.2). Yu divided soft power into three components:
- ideas, concepts, and principles;
- national and international institutions;
- strategies, policies, development patterns, national image, into which factors such as informational and inter-dependence could be included.
He goes on to say that the core of soft power is culture, and that what matters most are the ideas or concepts, thoughts, and principles the core cultural values, institutions, strategies, and institutions this core depended upon, and that the latter [three] therefore not only constituted power in terms of resources (“资源性实力”), but also operational [or procedural] power or strength (“操作性实力”). With a third footnote , He refers to an article by Yu Xintian: “ruǎn shílì jiànshè yǔ zhōngguó duìwài zhànlüè” (Soft Power and China’s Foreign Strategy), “guójì wèntí yánjiū” (International Studies), second issue 2008, pp 15 to 20.
Cultural soft power is treated as a sub-concept (子概念) of cultural power in general here, winning over recipients at home and abroad by generating culture, by cultural exchanges, cultural education and communication, by guidance and operation of cultural ideals. The core of cultural soft power is based on core-values thoughts, concepts and principles, cultural products are its carriers, cultural exchange activities, cultural education and dissemination media. Cultural soft power is a kind of relational power, and a country earns influence on other countries by thoughts, knowledge, and values which are worshiped and generally acknowledged in those other countries. The country’s own ideology, concepts and principles reflect and safeguard its own interests, and earn the international community’s general recognition and acceptance, thus influencing other countries’ conduct in international affairs, diminishes resistance or obstruction it may otherwise face, and therefore helps a country to achieve its strategic goals in its international relationships, and enhances its national interest. It is because of this direct relationship between a country’s strong or weak cultural soft power with a country’s international competitiveness and its ability to safeguard the realization of its own national interest and to achieve its strategic goals that the international community in general attaches great importance to create some good methods and practice in increasing the cultural soft power of their respective countries. This deserves to be conscientiously summarized.
He Zengke’s summary contains several – theoretical or practical – guidelines for building / exercising soft power:
- A [soft-power] buildup needs to be included into a country’s security strategy or its national development strategy, and should be coordinated, planned and implemented from a high national strategic level
- Culture needs to be seen as a value-adding asset in creative industries, combine all forces to develop a country’s cultural industries, strengthen the international competitiveness of its cultural industries, and its international influence
- Attention should be paid to ideological, conceptual and principled production and dissemination, support for the country’s humanities (人文) and sociological research (社会科学研究) and development of its relevant ideological think tanks (思想库), and the work to turn the country into an international producer and disseminator of new thoughts, concepts, and principles.
- Bringing a management [or administrational] concept into the reform of the cultural system, carrying out a strategy of decentralization, with members of governments, markets and societal forces making combined efforts to promote their country’s cultural development.
- Implementing a multi-culturalism3) policy, safeguarding cultural civil rights, seeking “unity in diversity” (多样性中的一致性), and strengthening the country’s internal cohesion.
- Actively and voluntarily engage in the development of selling cultural products abroad, in cultural exchange, and information transmission (信息传播), in modelling a good national image (塑造良好的国家形象), and in raising ones own country’s cultural influence within the international community.
Those responsbile at the U.S. Information Agency (美国新闻署, in charge of stations such as VoA or Radio Free Asia (RFA) [The USIA is now defunct and its duties have been referred to the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the State Department - JR] are described as in charge of the strategic development of public diplomacy, thus safeguarding U.S. national security (实施美国对外文化战略开展公众外交以维护美国国家安全), and propagandize American cultural values and foreign policies, to influence public debate in other countries, thus maintaining the long-term interests of American policies. Gong Tieying (龚铁鹰), “A Systematic Analysis of Soft Power” (软权力的系统分析), Tianjin People’s Publishing House, 2008, pp. 157 to 165, is quoted here – He Zengke’s footnote .
America had been the first country that realized how culture and industries could be linked with each other, thus creating a leap to the position of an industrial superpower. After the 1990s, cultural production had become America’s most dynamic industry, with enormous economic benefits. [Statistics there, guideline 2 ("（二）将文化视为一种创造财富增加价值的创造性产业") - JR.] He quotes from Li He (李河), “Developed Countries’ Contemporary Cultural Policies at a Glance” (发达国家当代文化政策一瞥), China Net (中国网) as quoted by a website which apprently no longer provides the source – ; He Zengke’s footnote . An excerpt of Li He
Zengke‘s apparent paper or article can be found here. From his sources, He also reads diversity in terms of investors in and funding of the cultural industry, encouraging migration by outstanding cultural workers into America, market mechanisms, fiscal tools such as tax exemptions and relief, and political and economic support for the position of cultural goods on the international markets – He Zengke’s footnote , Dong Weimin (董为民), “Foreign Cultural Products’ Current Status – Practice and Measures taken for their Development” (国外文化产业现状、发展措施与经验), Review of Economic Research (经济研究参考, published under the Ministry of Finance’s auspices), No. 10, 2004, pp. 19 – 20.
Countries which followed the American example in supporting the cultural industries indirectly had the state act as a facilitator – be it by tax exempts as mentioned by He above, or by special funding, combined with market mechanisms and commercial operations -, thus maintaining the sustainability and creative vitality of cultural development.
Referring back to his guideline 5 – unity in diversity -, He points to the introduction of multi-culturalism as introduced in America, Europe, Canada, Britain and Australia in the 1960s and 1970s, and this pattern’s relevance for China as a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country, in equal development of cultures and educational policies – He’s footnote , Wang Jian (王鉴), “Contemporary Western Countries’ Understandings of Multi-Culturalized Culture and Education” (当代西方国家对多元文化教育的几种认识), Foreign Education Research (外国教育研究), No. 2, 1994, p. 6.
America takes public diplomacy seriously, makes great efforts for cultural education and exchange, applies different strategies when exporting values, depending on the respective recipients, uses cultural carriers for the export of cultural values, and all these are methods to learn from.
 Li Bailing, “Practice and Measures taken by America to Increase its Cultural Soft Power”, Research Sub-Report, 2009
He Zengke’s article doesn’t only seem relevant as a source of how a Chinese – semi-official or official – academic compares China’s (cultural) soft power and policies to raise the country’s “soft power” vis-à-vis America. His review also includes a number of other countries and their soft-power approaches – France and Germany among them. But that should be material for another (much shorter) blogpost.