When Joseph Nye, Jr., first used the phrase soft power in 1990 in his book Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, China did not factor much into his calculus of world order: It had relatively little military and economic power, and none of the softer “persuasive” or “attractive” abilities that Nye saw as key features of the global domination of the United States.
Today, we live in a different world, and though China is achieving remarkable military might and economic dominance, Nye would argue that China has only made stumbling progress in becoming a more attractive brand to most other nations.
What are the continuing roadblocks to China’s progress in building soft power? How is Donald Trump affecting the balance of such power between the U.S. and China? Are both countries headed toward an inevitable great power conflict — also known as the Thucydides Trap — in which an established power’s fear of a rising power escalates toward war? And has the meaning of the term soft power changed in the last 25 years, between 1990 and 2015, when Nye published his most recent book, Is the American Century Over?
Jeremy and Kaiser spoke with Nye, a University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University, at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was formerly the dean.
Recommendations:
Jeremy: “Imagining Re-Engineered Muslims in Northwest China,” a largely visual article by Darren Byler on Chinese propaganda about Muslims in Xinjiang Province.
Joe: Is the American Century Over?, his most recent book, which contains a chapter that specifically compares the U.S. and China in soft power. Plus, an upcoming (planned for a mid-September 2017 release) Ken Burns film on the Vietnam War, which should be of interest to anyone interested in Asia, the U.S., or history in general.
Kaiser: The collection of Renaissance oil paintings at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University.
Suing for clean air and studying for the bar exam: Rachel Stern on China's legal system
Lines of fracture in Chinese public opinion: A conversation with Ma Tianjie
Mei Fong on the one-child policy, its consequences and what's next for China's demographics
Michael Manning: Behind bars in Beijing
Fan Yang on fakes, pirates and shanzhai culture
Frank H. Wu on Chinese-Americans and China
Andrew Ng on artificial intelligence and startup culture from Beijing to Silicon Valley
Filmmaker Daniel Whelan on Yiwu, a city at the core of cheap Chinese goods
What is cultural about the Cultural Revolution? Paul Clark on creativity amid destruction
It's all connected: Silk Roads old and new
A discussion with Cheng Li: Where is Chinese politics going?
Clay Shirky on tech and the internet in China
Calming the waters of the South China Sea and beyond
Whose century is it, anyway?
The Kaiser Kuo exit interview
Understanding China through a vibrant Shanghai street
Why do so many Chinese people admire Donald Trump?
Patrolling China's cyberspace
Arthur Kroeber vs. The Conventional Wisdom
50 years of work on U.S.-China relations
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