Week 6: Kenrick Chiang

China’s soft power is mostly based around three factors. The first of these three factors being its culture and how it attracts other people. The second one being its political values and how these values can reach to the citizens across the country because of how they can follow through. Lastly, being its foreign policies in which they seem legitimate and have moral authority. In the Sheng Ding’s article, “Branding a Rising China: An Analysis of Beijing’s National Image Management in the Age of China’s Rise,” they speak about how soft power can lead to illegitimacy. Because soft power revolves around the idea of following through with ideas and acts, legitimacy is a key component of the soft power in China. The article speaks about how Beijing has a specific way of handling things in which they should get business done and do not speak to one another. Due to this strategy, this has led to a lot of chaos and unrealistic goals. Because of this mindset, it will not be a good look towards the nation branding of China. This idea of soft power can harm countries of interest because it can set an uneasy level of expectations that some countries (especially those that are still developing) cannot follow through. This can lead to a lot of distrust within the country and give a negative output on a nation's branding.

Question: Does a form of soft power exist in countries everywhere or does it only apply to bigger, more developed countries like the USA and China?

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