Business / Opinion

Long, hard look at China's soft power

By Cecily Liu (China Daily) Updated: 2014-02-10 10:32

Family values are traditional, but an emerging value is care for the environment, which largely stems from China's severe pollution problems.

The Chinese value Barr believes easiest to promote in the West is that relating to Chinese food, because Chinatown has become a popular entertainment destination in many major Western cities.

"For the Chinese meal, food is not just food, because people eat in a more communal way than we do in the West. There are a lot of values around community and responsibility for each other which is important."

The Chinese government's investment in soft power has been criticized for adopting a top-down approach, but Barr believes this demonstrates double standards because the same approach is used by Western countries in their soft power campaigns.

He cites as an example the US government's funding of black American musicians to perform on the international stage to demonstrate its racial inclusiveness.

The Chinese government's investment is justified, he says, because the country's creative industries still need to catch up with the West. When they do, there may not be a need for government funding.

He hails the setting up of Confucius Institutes, the language and cultural centers affiliated with Western universities, as a soft power success. By July last year, there were 420 institutes worldwide.

Bio

Michael Barr

Lecturer in international politics at Newcastle University, England

Age: 44

Born: York, Pennsylvania

Education:

1993: BA in international politics, York College of Pennsylvania

1999: MA in theology, University of Durham

2004: PhD in philosophy, University of Durham

Career:

1993-95: Teaching English in China with Amity Foundation

1997-98: Teaching English in Egypt with Synod of Nile Schools