(3/60) Eight ways China is changing the world using soft power this month (Mar’21).
{March Report was delayed due to Easter}
Every month, until Dec 2025, we highlight 8 Chinese soft power actions of the past month, in order to: i) Show the importance of soft power to sustain China’s growth overseas. ii) Capture the acceleration towards a more multipolar world. iii) Strengthen East-West and South-South understanding.
This is based on tertiary sources and in-country local accounts.
MARCH 2021 (3 of 60).
1) Global Soft Power Index: US falls hard, China usurped a bit: https://brandirectory.com/globalsoftpower/.
There are several bodies, firms, groups and institutes which monitor soft power with specific metrics. Brand Finance is the most telling as it’s based on accounts from 75,000 people in half of the world’s countries (mostly not in the global South however.) Still, its fieldwork and focus on a country as a brand (which is a lens which China also analyzes) is impressive. This month, several of them have moved China higher, and notably, the US lower (it had the steepest decline of any country, from 1st to 6th). China fell across its Reputation and International Relations pillars due to the Western media’s overwhelming focus on Wuhan as the origin and the firm COVID-19 response, yet the education and science pillar rose (due to the vaccines, space exploration, and increased international exchanges.) Despite these metrics, China still has a distance to go in countries of global influence, which, according to Pew Research, 14 countries have shown China to have a far less favourable impression than it did only few years ago. With Western media rallying against China with issues primarily of political and economic nature, China’s soft power is more important than ever to bridge understanding.
2) Suez blockages’ effect on Chinese positioning (BRI and Arctic). The 10 day blockage of the Suez canal was an intense litmus for trade, and a boost to the BRI’s positioning as a critical alternative land (and maritime) route. Despite only 10% of the Suez’s trade being Chinese (5 of the average 50 ships are Chinese daily), there was an immediate spike in orders and a shift from ships to “steel camels” with train orders from Yiwu, Xuzhou and Yiwu to Europe, and also, notably, a spike in orders for the Arctic route (per Russian accounts) which is 5,000 km shorter than the Suez. The Arctic remains a key body where China continues to press for soft power influence via its permanent observer status on the Arctic Council, and the Suez Blockage reminded all Arctic navigators and northern soft power watchers of the importance of the Arctic’s route… and the ironic trade-off between increasing trade diversification and climate change. The train traffic continues to rise 96% year on year (now at 209,000 containers) since the beginning of the pandemic, with the suez crisis triggering a further injection of orders. Since last May, 1000 trains have been dispatched each month for 10 consecutive months, and more new routes are now fixed and active twice monthly (ie: Istanbul–Xian; Hamburg-Xuzhou, in additional to longstanding Yiwu-London and others through Russia.) Beyond the economic significance, the sheer volume of Chinese-origin trains going along the tracks is a driver of soft power in terms of visibility and progress of China’s outward reach. And, for those travelers in interested in the technological progress of rail, China has announced the development of the first high speed train for passengers which can convert its track mode in minutes to adapt to all 4 global train tracks (from 1,067 mm, to 1,676mm). Having global tourism in 400 km per hour trains, with China as the Eurasian and South-East Asian hub, will be a soft power watershed moment with unbounded cultural, economic, and social ramifications.
3) Soft Power vacuum: Denmark loses more Chinese culture. Scandinavia is the world’s region with the least amount of Chinese soft power engagement (aside from Central America), and in Denmark particularly, this is increasing. This past month, one of the few remaining China-centric institutions, Fuhan (hosted by Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen), has left across the sea to Oslo’a UiO. In the past 5 years, Denmark has lost all Confucius institutes (the only country by our knowledge to have lost the Institutes), a Chinese business Masters Degree (hosted by University of Southern Denmark) has been cancelled, and there is only one Masters Degree in the country with any form of Chinese focus, and it is not possible to study Mandarin with any formal accreditation. Denmark is the most arid of lands for any Sinophiles. The lone bright spot is that a cultural center purchased by the Chinese ministry of Culture in 2012 (!) is expected to open. Still, Denmark seems to be the country of most cultural resistance to China despite some healthy economic relations (pork, dairy, renewables) and Denmark’s Minister of Foreign Affairs proclaiming the US as their closest ally. Denmark is a soft power desert, ripe for analysis — and opportunity.
4) Quad re-emergence: China’s new geopolitical soft power adversary. The Quad was an otherwise dormant group of the US, Australia, Japan and India, which were assembled based on their democratic systems. They have since been meeting, at the request of the US, to support the US’s shift towards a Indo-Pacific policy, instead of their bifurcated Indian Ocean Policy and a separate Pacific policy. It seems, they have now found a common cause: to curtail China’s geographical growth, and using soft power to do so. Of soft power’s various levers, education and health can be used as policy tools, and the Quad is using covid opportunistically. The US and Japan will fund, India will produce, and Australia will distribute. This was agreed at their latest meeting of their “Quad Squad” focussing on the Spirit of the Quad, which can also be viewed as an Indo-Pacific group which will stay. Japan, has even acquiesced and used the term “Taiwan” in a joint communique with the US, for the first time since th8 1960s. Again, the lines are being drawn for the century to come: Quad, (some) EU, and Canada, all openly and critical of China, with very degrees of comfort — and consequence.
5) Vaccine diplomacy: Chinese visas = Chinese vaccines. This is a fascinating, frustrating, and crafty move by the Chinese Gouvernment. To attain a visa for China, one is now strongly recommended to show proof of a Chinese vaccine to facilitate the process. This tacitly calls upon travelers to not only seek Chinese vaccines, but to also raise the issue with their gouvernments to provide access to the Chinese vaccine. This is akin to ‘postcard diplomacy’ where small incidents become a sum of their parts to drive a common interest from within a trusted network. This may not be as unattainable as it appears as China continues to impress in its global focus of external vaccinations first. China has provided 52% of its Chinese made vaccines overseas, whereas the US has provided 0% and the UK has provided 2%. China has now provided vaccines to over 75 countries and are accessible in 35 (though not in US, most of EU, Canada) including every South American country and Covax.
6) China’s digital economy growth. The digital economy of China now accounts for nearly 40% of Chinese GDP, having risen 9% last year (whereas GDP only grew 3%). It was near 0% 15 years ago of China’s commerce. Beyond semiconductors, aviation, health tech, and other highly publicized target sectors within their ‘Made in China 2025’ Industrial plan, having a digital economy is underpinning China’s growth and sustainability in leapfrogging the middle-income trap. This requires a digital economy, and China announced on March 5th they are investing heavily with 9% of investment into R&D including the digital economy as a priority in order to achieve annual 7% growth in their digital economy up until 2025 (the end of their current 5 year plan, Made in China, the touchstone of this 60 part monthly reporting). The financial implications of this are profound, yet its soft power implications of this are more nuanced as it will shape its reputation, appeal global fintech, and along with the e-yuan (EBRC), it will contribute to challenging the US Dollar, and usurping the US’s stranglehold on the soft power of holding the world’s reserve currency. China is committed to shifting global perceptions that it produces low value products (gadgets, etc), and is moving up the value chain. Anyone who is watching this, knows it clearly. This digital economy shift it will ensure everyone will notice.
7) Alaska summit’s subtle soft power gap. This meeting set the tone for the relationship which will be, amongst other things, a relationship of equals, without much space for soft power issues. The US brought up the troika of issues of China’s sovereignty (Kong Kong, Xinjiang, and Taiwan arguably) and some other concerns which triggered the Chinese to shelve their typical taoguang yanghui (keeping low profile) approach. The FA chairman Yang replied “When judged by populations’ scale or world trends, the West does not represent global opinion” and the Chinese wouldn’t swallow the old disease of the US which needs to be cured. Still, there was also some unofficial discussions on areas relevant to China’s soft power, in particular climate change, and also long term engagement with Iran, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. We would like to highlight here, an anecdote which underlines the distance between the two sides in terms of culture, and more importantly, the opportunity that such gaps provide for soft power nuance and strategy. In China, or anywhere the Chinese do business, business is nearly always conducted over meals (and often karaoke, etc), and the US did not to offer a business dinner to their guests, citing “this is strictly business”. To the Chinese however, the meal is a part of the business.
8) China-Iran 25 year agreement: civilizations exchanged. Apparently 3 years in the making, this 25 year agreement between the two countries has ensured China’s long term positioning and focus in the region. It also offers a cultural and soft power kinship between the two ancient civilizations, including increased tourism, media, academia, and various non-governmental cultural institutions. This means that the people of both countries will begin to sew seeds between them, far deeper than just political, telecom, trade, and industrial-military interests. This agreement is a benchmark for the region, and essentially undermines the West’s soft power political-economic efforts for Iran to move into its orbit through sanctions. Expect generational thinking of Chinese language and culture education to be tied to educational and medical investment, akin to China’s approach in Central Asia — in particular Kyrgyzstan where Ministry of Education Support is directly tied to curriculum changes. This agreement is no way a selection of Shia/Sunni sides, which has never been China’s soft power approach to the region, for example, it has invested 83BUSD in all GCC states recently. China considers the region as a collective, yet different from the historic lens: It never refers to the region as the ‘Middle East’ label, but, instead, as Western Asia… a subtle yet profound soft power maneuver, n’est ce pas?
