For decades, the United States was a global beacon for those who embraced certain values \u2014 the rule of law, free speech, clean government and human rights. Even if policy often fell short of those stated ideals, American \u201csoft power\u201d remained as potent as its armed forces. In the post-Soviet era, political figures and scholars regarded that American way of\u00a0amassing power through attraction\u00a0as a central element of forging a modern empire.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s rise is a blunt counterpoint. From 2009 onward, Chinese power in domestic and international realms has become synonymous with brute strength, bribery and browbeating \u2014 and the Communist Party\u2019s empire is getting stronger.<\/p>\n
At home, the party has imprisoned\u00a0rights lawyers,\u00a0strangled the internet, compelled companies and universities to\u00a0install party cells, and planned for a potentially Orwellian\u00a0\u201csocial credit\u201d system. Abroad, it is building military installations on disputed Pacific reefs and infiltrating cybernetworks. It pushes\u00a0the \u201cOne Belt, One Road\u201d infrastructure initiative\u00a0across Eurasia, which will have benefits for other nations but will also allow China to pressure them to do business with Chinese state-owned enterprises,\u00a0as it has done in recent years\u00a0throughout Asia and Africa.<\/p>\n
[…]Chinese citizens and the world would benefit if China turns out to be an empire whose power is based as much on ideas, values and culture as on military and economic might. It was more enlightened under its most glorious dynasties. But for now, the Communist Party embraces hard power and coercion, and this could well be what replaces the fading liberal hegemony of the United States on the global stage.[<\/span>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
While China has invested heavily to increase its soft power<\/a>, a recent report<\/a> by the National Endowment for Democracy and International Forum for Democratic Studies has found that China and other authoritarian countries are increasingly resorting to “sharp power”<\/a>–which focuses on the use of distraction and manipulation— to shape public opinion and infiltrate the information and political environments of targeted countries.\u00a0At Project Syndicate, Joseph Nye, the pioneer of the theory of soft power, explains how China is turning some of its soft-power programs into sharp-power tools<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to compel behavior and manipulate perceptions both at home and abroad:<\/p>\n
The United States has long had programs enabling visits by young foreign leaders, and now China is successfully following suit. That is a smart exercise of soft power. But when visas are manipulated or access is limited to restrain criticism and encourage self-censorship, even such exchange programs can shade into sharp power. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"