A country’s soft power, according to Nye, rests on three resources: its culture, its political values, and its foreign policies.

 

China effectively uses a number of “soft power” instruments, such as CCTV, which broadcasts even in Russia now, scholarships for international students, expos, sport events (Olympics 2008, for example). But it is the Confucius Institute that is widely considered to be the main Chinese “soft power” instrument.

 

The first Confucius Institute was opened in 2004 in South Korea. There were 440 Confucius Institutes and 646 Confucius Classes worldwide at the beginning of 2014. There may be even more now. Hanban, the Confucius Institute Headquarters aims to establish 1000 Confucius Institutes by 2020.

 

Most of Confucius Institutes are located in the most important regions for China-UN permanent 5 states (US, Russia, GB and France), Germany, Japan (neighbor), South Korea (neighbor), and Australia (high level of Chinese investment). 97 Confucius Institutes and 357 classes in the US; 18 Institutes and 4 classes in Russia; 25 Institutes and 92 classes in Great Britain; 19 Institutes and 4 classes in South Korea, and 13 Institutes, 35 classes in Australia.

 

Still, there are several questions concerning effectiveness of Chinese soft power.

 

The professor that coined the term “soft power” I was talking about at the beginning of my presentation, Joseph Nye criticized Beijing’s efforts to acquire soft Power through centralized schemes, like the spread of Confucius Institutes. In April 2013, he wrote an article “What China and Russia Don’t Get About Soft Power” in which he wrote that despite “spending billions of dollars to increase its soft power…China has had a limited return on its investment.” According to him, this is because soft power mainly accrues when civil society actors-whom the Chinese Government tends to squash-make or do things with global appeal, not through top-down schemes which foreigners are likely to interpret as propaganda. According to Nye, China and Russia make the mistake of thinking that government is the main instrument of soft power as government propaganda is rarely credible.  Polls show that opinions of China’s influence are positive in much of Africa and Latin America, but predominantly negative in the United States, Europe, as well as India, Japan, and South Korea. That’s the first point that should be considered.

 

From my point of view, the problem with the governmental control over the instruments of “soft power” in China is not only that it turns out to be less credible. I strongly believe that governmental monopolies often tend to be less effective in terms of quality of socio-cultural projects management, as they pay more attention to the quantitative criterion-number of center opened (not the quality of their work), number of events organized, etc. Their aim is often just making good reports with good quantitative results. Do you know the country with the greatest amount of Russian centers opened? It’s Ukraine. “Russian world” foundation opened 12 ones in Eastern Ukraine and no one in Western Ukraine. Were they effective? The recent events in Ukraine showed that the West was using its “soft power” in that region more effective than Russia. Even though Russian Government managed to effectively negotiate with the former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, it was Europe that won the hearts and minds of a significant part of the Ukrainian population. European non-governmental organizations, various foundations, political and public activists had been working to reach this goal for 2 decades.

 

Here we can see another aspect why Chinese “soft power” is not that effective as it could be considering the amount of money invested. China promotes its traditional culture-calligraphy, Chinese paper cutting art, traditional music, Chinese medicine and traditional dances. Traditional culture is not that appealing for a younger generation. US, European countries, Japan and South Korea make focus on modern art and popular culture, something really interesting for a younger generation.

 

From the perception that is common for European countries and the United States, China is seen as a country that is lagging behind in terms of soft power sufficiency. As a newborn or at least a child that is making its first steps, falling is not only inevitability, but also a necessity which gives an opportunity to learn.

 

As for China’s soft power, looking back to the history of this country we can say with the confidence that it would be a big mistake to consider China as a newcomer in this sphere. This common misperception is based on the idea of the contrast of the Western soft power produced mainly by civil society and China’s model relied on the government as the main instrument of soft power. And as soft power approach is seen as a brand new concept developed by Joseph Nye, not fully copying of existing model sees as the result of China being a new entry to the soft power approach that can only lead to the country’s soft power policy insufficiency.

 

As it often happens that mass consciousness can not regard the history of the country as a whole but distinguish only those parts that can give a brief glance on a present situation. Meanwhile, history of China in a lot of ways is a history of soft power in action. The term “conciliation” is largely used to describe this specific area of China’s foreign policy. And as any other long standing political tools to survive through the ages and to be sufficient it was fated to rely on government.

 

New time sets new challenges and to meet them we need to adapt and to change our tactics. Step by step China needs to more involve NGOs and civil society to the sphere of soft power still providing subtle government support of such initiatives. In that way, the government won’t lose control, but gain the better results in “soft power” using.