China’s soft power is arguably weak, at least if you are to listen to voices within China. Recently the press in China have asking why China can’t produce a global hit as Korea has done in PSY’s Gangnam Style. The press lament the fact that the Chinese can only copy (parody) the song.
But is China’s soft power really that weak? It is one of the great paradoxes of British Chinese life that the Chinese community at one and the same time is culturally open and culutrally closed. It’s openness is demonstrated in its sharing of Chinese culture and traditions, from martial arts to Chinese New Year, traditional Chinese medicine to Feng Shui, and of course the ubiquitous nature of Chinese food. Indeed, it is difficult to think of another culture that has so visibly impacted upon British cultural life either in breadth or in depth as the Chinese.
Capitalising on the cultural foundations established by overseas Chinese communities is certainly one way hat China could at the very least raise its own understanding of its position in the world in regards to soft power – perhaps then there would be less lamenting and more developing?