Soft Power: The Means To Success In International Competition

Soft power is the ability to get desired outcomes through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It derives from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideologies, and policies. The magic of soft power lies in that it is slower, more diffuse, and more cumbersome to wield than hard power. Yet once a nation's objectives are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, it does not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in its direction. Promotion of soft power is therefore bound to become a central element of practice. The global community continues to focus efforts on the fundamental challenges of optimizing soft power. For countries like the United States, the use of soft power continues as it has for decades. China, however, has abundant soft power potential which has been virtually untapped. The issue of soft power and its importance on the world stage is increasingly evident. Understanding soft power and the strategies to wield it are the basic concerns and primary motive of this thesis.In addition to an introduction and conclusion, the main body of the thesis falls into four chapters. Chapter One focuses on the definitions and interplay between soft power and hard power. The basic understanding of these definitions, as well as the relationship that exists between them, lays the foundation for overall comprehension.Chapter Two examines the three essential aspects that are required for improving soft power. First, hard power advantage is the requisite; Soft power is only "soft" power without strong hard power support. Furthermore, education is the foundation for promoting soft power. In essence, soft power concerns influencing and equipping individuals and their minds, which are basic fundamentals to all education. In addition, cultural heritage serves as propeller for soft power enhancement, for cultural heritage is attractive power itself. The key is to wield the influence of our cultural heritage onto others as part of wielding soft power.In Chapter Three, popular culture and China's status quo is discussed. Popular culture also makes great contributions to soft power promotion. Not only can popular culture result in intangible influence such as shaping values and promoting images, but it can also generate huge profits which contribute to economic development. As to China's status quo, despite the wealth of potential soft power resources, they do not promise China's increase in influence or global economic dominance. The statues quo for China is not optimistic. It certainly has a long way togo.Chapter Four is devoted to presenting and addressing opposing views questioning that whether values and ideas can really be used as an instrument of power. These opposing opinions, however, simply rush to the negation of soft power without seeing that such power is a double-edged sword.Every nation which focuses on influencing others faces unprecedented challenges of how to improve and wield soft power. The concluding chapter summarizes why it is so essential that countries have a conceptual understanding of soft power before its application.