China will never coop on Iran – they believe Iran has a right to nuclear power

China will never coop on Iran – they believe Iran has a right to nuclear power

[China's Thirst for Oil," http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5478&l=1]

AT: Chinese Soft Power

China’s attempts to gain soft power are failing – lack of human rights, free speech, and democracy

Ford, 10 (4/29/10, Peter, Christian Science Monitor, “On eve of Shanghai Expo 2010, China finds 'soft power' an elusive goal; Chinese authorities have seized on the Shanghai Expo 2010 - the largest in history - as another chance to enhance 'soft power' that is generated by the spread of cultures, values, diplomacy, and trade. The expo opens this weekend” Lexis)

At the heart of the Shanghai World Expo stands the host nation's pavilion, a giant latticed crown painted crimson. Packed with exhibits portraying daily Chinese life, China's ethnic diversity, and the standard bearers of Chinese philosophy, the display shows China's friendliest face to the world. Hard on the heels of the Beijing Olympics, the authorities here have seized on the Expo - the largest in history - as another chance to improve the rising giant's international image. Learning how to win friends and influence people is a task to which the government has attached the highest priority in recent years. It appears, however, to be failing. A BBC poll released in April found that only one-third of respondents in 14 countries believe China is a positive influence, down from one-half just five years ago. IN PICTURES: Shanghai World Expo 2010 "The government is putting a lot of resources and a lot of attention into boosting China's 'soft power,' but they've got a lot of problems with the message," says David Shambaugh, head of the China Policy Program at George Washington University in Washington. "The core aspects of their system" - such as one-party rule, media censorship, and suppression of critics - "are just not appealing to outsiders." Chinese policymakers and academics are increasingly fascinated by "soft power," whereby nations coopt foreign governments and citizens through the spread of their cultures, values, diplomacy, and trade, rather than coerce them by military might. Frustrated by Western domination of global media, from entertainment to news, and by what it sees as unfair coverage, China has launched a $6.6 billion campaign to tell its own story to the world by building its own media empires. Li Changchun, the ruling Communist Party's top ideology official, was blunt in a 2008 speech: "Whichever nation's communications capacity is the strongest, it is that nation whose culture and core values spread far and wide ... that has the most power to influence the world," he said. Is the message convincing? But this is not enough, says Li Xiguang, head of the International Center for Communications Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Even the best-paid messengers need a convincing message. "The United States has built its soft power by making its value and political system ... universal values," he says. "China will not beat the US in soft power until we have a better and newer form of democracy, freedom, and human rights." China has had some success in projecting soft power in developing countries, especially in Africa. "Wherever you go in Africa, roads are being built, and the people building them are Chinese," says Aly Khan Satchu, a financial analyst in Nairobi. "China expresses its soft power through building infrastructure." China's rapid economic development is an inspiration to many Africans, says Mr. Satchu. "The Chinese are selling themselves as having experienced catch-up and offering to help African governments do the same," he says. Chinese firms are also preparing to bid on high-speed railroads in California and elsewhere in the United States. Americans are familiar with some Chinese cultural icons. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) was a blockbuster movie, and Houston Rockets basketball star Yao Ming is a household name. But China lacks a Hollywood or a US-style TV industry. Part of the problem, suggests Pang Zhongying, of Beijing's Renmin Univer­sity, is that English, unlike Chinese, is an international language. Even with the creation of more than 200 Confucius Institutes around the world teaching Chinese, "I don't think China can overcome this difficulty in the short term." At the same time, says François Godement, director of the Asia Centre in Paris, however admired Chinese culture may be, "it is less easily translatable" to other cultures. Political control issuesAdding to the government's difficulties is its insistence on controlling all expressions of contemporary Chinese culture. Beijing squandered an opportunity at last year's Frankfurt book fair, which showcased Chinese literature, by pressing for a ban on exiled writers. Press coverage focused not on Chinese authors but on Beijing's heavy hand. This desire for complete political control, says Professor Godement, means that "they don't give creators the freedom to create works that would project soft power." "There is a huge gap between the official Chinese judgment and that of outsiders," adds Professor Pang. "There are many intellectuals in China, but a good intellectual is not necessarily an officially recognized one." The government has opted instead to pursue public diplomacy, or "overseas propaganda," as it is known here. Rarely does a month pass without a visit to Beijing by media managers and journalists from one developing country or another. But this is not the same as projecting soft power, Mr. Shambaugh notes. "China has a huge soft power deficit," says Pang. "The current Chinese model solves problems, of course, but it is also part of the problem. People outside China will pick China's virtues, but try to avoid its disadvantages. We should learn from such natural choices, from the impression that China can only build roads and schools. That is a problem we must address." IN PICTURES: Shanghai World Expo 2010 Related: China earthquake: day of mourning Official and grassroots relief groups rally in wake of China earthquake Web, religious freedom on agenda as US-China rights dialogue resumes All China coverage
Chinese soft power won’t solve – human rights abuses and lack of freedom

The Economist, 10 (1/9/10, “From the charm to the offensive: Banyan,” Lexis)

China's smile diplomacy shows its teeth IF A single impulse has defined Chinese diplomacy over the past decade, it is its smile: near and far, China has waged a charm offensive. With its land neighbours, India excepted, China has amicably settled nearly all border disputes; it has abjured force in dealing with South-East Asian neighbours over still unsettled maritime boundaries. On the economic front, the free-trade area launched on January 1st between China and the Association of South-East Asian Nations is the world's biggest, by population. China's smiling leaders promise it will spread prosperity. Farther afield, China has scattered roads and football stadiums across Africa. By the hundreds, it has set up Confucius Institutes around the world to spread Chinese language and culture. More than anything, the Beijing Olympics were designed to showcase gentle President Hu Jintao's notions of a "harmonious world". In all this, the leaders appear not simply to want to make good a perceived deficit in China's soft power around the world. A more brutal calculus prevails: without peace, prosperity and prestige abroad, China will have no peace and prosperity at home. And without that, the Chinese Communist Party is dust. Yet of late smiles have turned to snarls. The instances appear unrelated. Last month China bullied little Cambodia into returning 22 Uighurs seeking political asylum after bloody riots and a brutal crackdown in Xinjiang last summer. On December 25th, despite China's constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech, a veteran human-rights activist, Liu Xiaobo, received a long prison sentence for launching a charter that called for political freedoms. Western governments had urged leniency. Britain had also called for clemency for Akmal Shaikh, a Briton caught smuggling heroin into Xinjiang. Mr Shaikh seems to have been duped by drugs gangs. His family insist he suffered mental problems and delusions. Yet the courts refused a psychiatric evaluation. Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, said he was "appalled" by Mr Shaikh's execution. In turn, China lashed out at this supposed meddling and ordered Britain to "correct its mistakes". Sino-British relations, painstakingly improved in recent years, have come unravelled. It is harder to complain of foreign meddling when Chinese actions have global consequences. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 the Chinese held the yuan steady as currencies all about them crumbled. Not only did that avert a round of tit-for-tat devaluations. The regional respect China earned, its diplomats argue, paved the way for the charm offensive that soon followed. New-found respect gave China a taste for more. In contrast, during this downturn many complain that China's dogged pegging of its currency to the dollar harms others. As the world's fastest-growing big economy, with the biggest current-account surplus and foreign reserves, its currency ought by rights to be rising. By several yardsticks the yuan is undervalued and Americans and Europeans fear this leaves them with the pain of global rebalancing. ASEAN furniture-makers and nail foundries also beg for relief from the mercantilist advantage that a manipulated currency gives China. Most striking of all were China's actions at the Copenhagen summit on climate change, where the world's biggest emitter appeared churlish. In a bid to avoid being pinned down to firm commitments, China insisted that all figures and numerical targets be stripped out of the final accord, even those that did not apply to China. Further, China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, at first did not deign to sit down with President Barack Obama on the final day, sending relatively junior officials instead. China may have got a deal it liked, but at the cost of a public-relations disaster. Some think this a prelude to a prickly, more unpleasant China in the decade ahead, but it is too soon to conclude that. More likely, China will now try to patch up relations with Britain, and keep putting a positive gloss on Copenhagen. Peace and prosperity is still the calculus. China is spending billions cranking up its state media to go global, taking Mr Hu's message of "harmony" to a worldwide audience. But the message of harmony will ring hollow abroad if it is secured by muzzling voices at home. Besides, there is now less goodwill to go around. A smile is fresh at first, but loses its charm if held for too long. One problem with China's smile diplomacy, says the man who coined the phrase, Shi Yinhong of Renmin University in Beijing, is that China's global impact—its demand for resources, its capacity to pollute—is so much greater than a decade ago. " For all we may smile, you can still smell us," he says. That even applies in places, such as Africa, where enthusiasm for China was once unbounded. China has more than a presentational problem. For instance, it sends Africa both destabilising arms and peacekeepers, the one generating demand for the other. China's manufactures destroy local industries. Many Africans resent Chinese firms' deals with their unpleasant leaders and blame them when leaders pocket the proceeds. China's clout makes a mockery of two guiding tenets of its charm offensive: relations on the basis of equality; and non-interference. That calls for a new diplomacy. China's presentational problems with the old one speak of an abiding lack of sophistication, and an attachment to a ritualistic diplomacy ill-suited to fast-moving negotiations, such as in Copenhagen, where the outcome is not pre-cooked. Over the case of Mr Shaikh, the official press indulged in the predictable and puerile ritual of railing about the historical indignity of the Opium War. Yet even many Chinese recognise that the world—and even drug-pushing British gunboat-diplomacy—has changed, and that it may be time to move on. Banyan demands that China correct its mistakes.

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