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The New World Order? China’s Rise Through Soft Power

By Sophie Nepali

The world is changing. The current, generally US-dominated, structure of world order looks as if it is steadily deteriorating, with the Coronavirus pandemic serving only to accelerate the trend. Since the end of the second World War, US hegemony has asserted itself both culturally and economically through multilateral institutions, economic interventions, and cultural values. Though there is speculation as to whether the US will hold onto such power, its historical impact makes the structure hard to shift. However, China’s rise through soft power may potentially be the key to reshaping world order as we know it.


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We can witness China’s increasingly enthusiastic approach to world affairs through the country’s active participation in the United Nations Peace Keeping Operations (UNPKOS). The country is the second largest contributor to UN membership fees and peacekeeping assessment, has the largest number of troops amongst the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and have had their armed forces delivering under UN charter principles over the past 30 years. Additionally, China have deployed 40,000 peacekeepers to 25 UN peacekeeping missions. From China’s perspective, they have paid their dues and in return occupy a seat at the top table.

The layers within a soft power approach

China’s rise through soft power is multifaceted, as it can be viewed from a realist, liberal and historical perspective.

Realists believe that China’s global prominence is a threat to established structural power and global relationships, whereby the world is viewed as an anarchical state of affairs and international relations as a zero-sum game. In contrast, liberalists emphasise the importance of economic and institutional exchange because of the interdependence of states in a globalised world – so rather than China being perceived as a threat, China’s economic rise is adding value to the capitalist world system through economic growth and wealth accumulation. The final view is a neo-Gramscian one where the characteristics (ideas, institutions and material capabilities) of ‘world order’ is seen through historical patterns that are repetitive and cyclical in nature.

The debate falls on whether China’s aim is to create a ‘New World Order’, or rather a ‘world order with Chinese characteristics’. 

The Silk Road

To gauge which side the debate falls on, it’s useful to look at the historical infrastructure of China’s trade routes and how they have changed over time to match the fast pace of world development.

The ancient silk road is an example that helps us identify the foundations of China’s hegemonic strategy. But what was it?

The Silk Road was a series of trade routes that connected China and the far East with the Middle East, and then Europe. This developed during the Han dynasty which dates back to 130 BC and continued to be used until 1453 A.D. when the Ottoman Empire decided to boycott trade with China. It has therefore been an impressive 600 years since the Silk Road has been used for international trade – and yet it has been brought back into present day media attention due to its striking similarities with China’s ‘One Belt One Road Initiative’ (OBOR). President Xi Jinping’s visit to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013 resulted in him outlining his ambitious plans to create a ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ and ‘Maritime Silk Road of the Twenty First Century’ which eventually fused together to become the ‘One Belt One Road Initiative’ with China at its hub. This sways the debate towards China aiming to create a world order with Chinese characteristics as the OBOR could be seen as the re-incarnation of the Ancient Silk Roads otherwise known as ‘The New Silk Road’. Indeed, from his comments one could ascertain that this how how President Xi wants OBOR to be perceived. 

Culture Is Power

Joseph Nye, who is an American political scientist and the co-founder of the International relations theory of neoliberalism defines soft power as a country’s attractiveness in terms of its culture, its domestic political and social values, and how it executes its foreign policy tactics. Thus, soft power is just as important as hard power as it is the ability of a country to persuade others to cooperate in an effective manner without any use of force or coercion.  He once stated that China was far away from America in terms of soft power because of its lack of cultural industries or NGOs. 

Nowadays, the conception of soft power has gained popularity in China’s public discourse, as it is translated as ruan shi li, ruan li liang or ruan quan li (軟勢力) and whilst China soft power approach is often seen as  a controversial one, clashing with Nye’s original outlook, its steady rise is eye-catching and unquestionably powerful. Times have changed since Nye’s prior statement with around US$10 billion a year being spent on soft power by the Chinese government, which goes hand in hand with its rapid economic growth and military strength. 

That being said, culture is ultimately a focal point within China’s soft power strategy as cultural competition has become a vital part of successful leadership in the global political economy. A prime example of this is China’s tech giants BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) booming in popularity globally. Tencent in particular have silently risen in the gaming industry and have upheld China’s soft power through entrepreneurship and gaming culture. 2003 saw the beginning of Tencent’s gaming divisions with online games on its QQ platform but by 2011, it had bought 93% stake in Riot Games. Riot games is the developer of League of Legends and Call of Duty and by 2012 Tencent has a 40% stake in the makers of Fortnight and Unreal Engine, Epic Games. Tencent’s outward expansion was made possible by firstly adapting games to Chinese audiences and then readapting them for global consumption. With such success, recent developments involve Tencent working with Japanese game company Square Enix to design games based on indigenous Chinese content. All of this serves to promote Chinese culture to a global audience.

The Digital Silk Road

Vocabulary such as BRICS, Belt and Road, Silk Road and Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank (shortened as the AIIB) are seen increasingly commonly in the world of international relations, and this in itself signifies the way in which China has imbedded itself in the changing world order that we see today, competing with US-linked International institutions (World Bank, IMF, the WTO, NATO).

As of recently, China has secured investment with Azerbaijan, increasing bilateral trade by 67 per cent so far just since 2019. Azerbaijan is increasingly known as the middle corridor of transportation links between China and Europe. Not only is this link specific to cargo, but the end goal is for Azerbaijan to become a regional hub for the establishment of the Asia – Europe telecommunications corridor as well as the transmission of Chinese internet traffic. This is the most cost-effective route for China and Azerbaijan, for its part, has demonstrated a positive attitude with its involvement in the One Belt One Road Initiative.

Azerbaijan as a digital hub highlights one section of China’s ‘digital silk road’ between Europe and Asia and in March 2020, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have taken the next step to strengthen regional telecommunication systems through the construction of a fibre-optic cable line linking the two countries together. The 300km cable is expected to be the primary hub that transmits internet traffic from Europe to South Asia and back and will benefit Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. 

Investing in Africa

China’s influential nature is not only reaching countries through OBOR and the Digital Silk Road, but also through establishing strong relationships by investing in developing countries through interest-free loans, thus robustly competing with American financial institutions like the IMF. 

The use of monetised power is becoming increasingly apparent in Africa. Projections indicate that, in the next 35 years, 25% of the world’s population will be African. Little wonder, then, that the continent has been a consistent source of Chinese investment, with the Middle Kingdom emerging as Africa’s largest trading partner (having surpassed the US in 2009).  By 2017, the total signed value of Chinese contracted infrastructural development projects in Africa registered $76.5 billion. 

This has had a positive impact on Africa’s economy and according to the Penn World Table average African economies’ growth rate per capita has surged from 0.6% per annum in the 1990s to 2.8% in the 2000s. Consequently, institutions and macroeconomic policies in African countries have been strengthened. 

This isn’t to say that such trade deals haven’t sparked controversy, and this mainly consists of western press with titles like “Into Africa: China’s wild rush” and “China in Africa: Investment or Exploitation”. 

Despite all of this, China have put themselves ahead by forgiving interest free loans that are coming due according to President Xi Jinping (June 2020). Together with the help of financial institutions such as Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank, China’s aim is to dampen the blow of the economic impact of Coronavirus. Such a gesture makes contrasting press titles questionable. 

In Conclusion 

The traditional lens through which we view China has been a country with an introspective tendency. For all its wealth and power the Middle Kingdom, we are told, is scarcely interested in the world beyond its own borders. 

But that traditional view flies in the face of China’s modern economic and cultural development. It is hard to find a country in the world without a cultural or economic link to China’s expansion, and with that expansion comes a new and distinctly modern brand of influence. In an uncertain geopolitical climate, confidence may well be king. And there is arguably no country to rival the China for swagger and conviction. The new world order may have an unknown destination, but China holds the map and compass.

Sophie Nepali is a staff writer for The InternationalShe runs the Smiles Across Nepal Instagram account, which you can follow here.