From Los Angeles Times:
The north of Thailand remained little more than a collection of sleepy villages for decades. Today, the region resembles a burgeoning metropolis ” a metropolis in China.
With trade booming, it has become a way station for ships delivering Chinese apples, mobile phones and other items. In the Thai city of Chiang Rai, China helped build a fancy cultural center at the local royal university and then used that to cultivate a closer relationship with Thailand’s revered monarchy. Thai politicians, too, learn about China on all-expenses-paid junkets. Thousands of Chinese migrants have moved across the border to work. So many Thai businessmen are eager to learn Chinese that the local language schools cannot keep up with demand.
The north of Thailand would look familiar to people in many developing nations around the world. Over the last five years, China has laid the groundwork to become an international power. It has done so not only with high-level diplomacy but also through the tools of soft power: aid, investment, culture and skilled diplomacy. This charm offensive has proved remarkably successful. In countries where China was feared only a few years ago, Beijing’s popularity has skyrocketed. [Full Text]
Joshua Kurlantzick is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of “Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World.” Read also The Hard Facts on ‘Soft Power’ by Axel Berkofsky.
