On The Roles Of Overseas Chinese And Chinese Diasporas In Enhancing China’s Soft Powers Since1978

In the past34years, China has made tremendous achievements since the reformand opening up of China (1978), especially the achievement in China’s economy.China has become the second largest economic body. With the continuousenhancement of China’s economic, military and other hard powers, China’sinternational status has been gradually improved and China’s global influence hasbeen expanding. The “China model” is attractive to many other countries incontemporary world, in particular, for developing countries. However, the westerncountries, especially the USA, are unwilling to see China’s rise. These countries havetaken advantaged of their powerful and influential mass media to concoct all kinds oftheories, such as “China-threat theory”、“Tough China theory”、“China-collapsetheory” and “Chinese-invasion of Africa theory” and the alike, to discredit China’snational image and to support a variety of separatist forces in and out of China, suchas “Taiwan Independence Force”、“Tibet Independence Force” and “XinjiangIndependence Force” to split and contain China’s peaceful rise. In order to achieve thecomplete reunification of our country and to change these distorted wrong speeches,and then to create a favorable international atmosphere for China’s peaceful rise,China needs to enhance its “hard power”. More importantly, China needs to focus onthe construction of its “soft powers”, using any beneficial resources at hand toenhance China’s soft powers in the international community.Among these abundant soft power resources, nearly50million overseas Chineseand Chinese Diasporas distributing over160countries are a significant resource inenhancing China’s soft powers. China’s Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao,have summarized the significant roles of the resource as “Unique OpportunityTheory”、“Resource Theory”and “Reunification Theory” respectively. Although vastmajority of overseas Chinese and Chinese Diasporas have joined their local countries’nationalities in legal and political senses, they still regard China as their motherland in cultural and ethnic senses. While living abroad, they always pay great attention to thedevelopment of various undertakings in China, since the status and fate of overseasChinese and Chinese Diasporas are closely related to China’s status and fate in theinternational community. From the Revolution of1911to China’s Reform andOpening-up, to Sichuan Wenchuan catastrophic earthquake, to Beijing OlympicGames, to the60th anniversary of the establishment of People’s Republic ofChina,…Overseas Chinese and Chinese Diasporas have actively participated in thedevelopment of various undertakings in China and they have contributed a lot toChina’s development. Overseas Chinese and Chinese Diasporas have playedsignificant roles in enhancing Chin’s soft powers in the international community,despite not decisive roles. The thesis mainly discusses the roles of overseas Chineseand Chinese Diasporas in enhancing China’s soft powers in the internationalcommunity.Apart from the preface and the conclusion, the thesis is composed of three parts.The first part illustrates the relationship between soft power and a country’sinternational status including the concept of soft power、the mutual relationshipbetween soft power and hard power、and the mutual relationship between a country’ssoft powers and a country’s international status. Beginning with China’scontemporary soft powers and China’s present problems, the second part analyzes thereasons why overseas Chinese and Chinese Diasporas can play significant roles inboosting China’s soft powers in the international community, from the point of thesepeople’s subjective advantages and the objective factors in China’s domestic settingsand the international settings. The third part discusses the positive roles of nearly50million overseas Chinese and Chinese Diasporas in enhancing China’s cultural softpower、China’s diplomatic soft power and the charm of China’s national image in the international community.