Can Chinese diplomacy offer a different model of new soft power?

    I read my reading of Egyptian-American relations in their historical perspective, based on the International Knowledge Management of the Third Millennium, entitled "Culture and Soft Energy: Wars of Ideas in Foreign Policy." The researcher Nizar Al-Farawi published a serious study published by the Center for Research and Studies. Study In 2004, China established the Confucius Center in Uzbekistan, then a second center in Seoul. Seven years later, the network of 300 Chinese cultural centers in 88 countries, including more than 20 centers on the African continent, was the vital geological and economic field of Beijing, confirming leaders' conviction that cultural participation is in line with economic consolidation.

The echo emanating from these centers, which provides various aspects of ancient Chinese culture and offers Chinese language instruction, which is increasingly in demand, either as part of the study projects to pursue education in Chinese universities or to facilitate business processes for the benefit of local and economic elites, encourages China to consider more : The expected goal is to have A Confucius Center A on the Horizon 2020.
On the other hand, China has registered a long-term and self-targeted move by international organizations, especially at the heart of UNESCO, to register Chinese sites on World Heritage Lists to promote cultural tourism. Beijing wants to use its cultural diplomacy as a model of alternative development, with its own identity and without relying on a dominant power or tradition of a previous success story.

The Beijing Olympic Games were not just a passing sports station but a strategic moment in which Chinese leaders vowed to market a "dazzling" model through the engineering level of sports facilities as well as during the opening ceremony under the leadership of Chinese-Chinese director Zhang Yim. In fact, this event was a long time in the world, but was put forward in the pro Olympic Games, hosted by the British capital London compared to taking advantage of China's human and technological creativity.
Many observers have underestimated the development of Chinese power from the soft face of Chinese power, including Joseph Nye, who estimated that China does not invest much in this cross-border cultural dimension. However, this diagnosis did not last very long. Literature of politicians and leaders of the Communist Party.

Today, Beijing is investing in supporting the film industry, even in the context of state-controlled freedom of expression, and exploiting its power to penetrate the economy to correct stereotypes about this "next door" beast.

In this context, Beijing bought Chinese public debt to Spain to prove that it did what Europe and Washington did not do. Portugal and Greece also helped to influence European stereotypes.

China's soft power is still in embryonic development, but Chinese experts see it as the weakest link for the rest of the country's public policy sectors, not to mention blocking the absence of free civil society, depriving it of wide margins for a soft-power industry. Export, reflects China's huge deficit towards America in the cultural goods trade, the depth of the problem. In 2004, China imported 4068 titles from America, but issued only 14 titles. It imported 2030 books from Britain and 16 books only. It imported 694 from its ancient Japanese neighbor and only 22 books.

In general, according to the study, soft power has become an important diplomatic issue in China's view of its position on the map of world powers, especially as its experts are concerned about American cultural hegemony, even within Chinese society and mainly among new generations of Chinese people. The scenario of peaceful, slow and slow development towards the penetration of the values ​​of Western liberalism in society at the expense of special values. It is therefore quite clear that cultural competition is as important as building a strong army.

The transformational approach to power in the international arena reinforces the conviction that soft power is a strategic gamble in the scramble for leadership. This applies to the strategic situation at the global level, as well as at the regional level. Today, these long-standing voices of investment in elements other than military and economic power have become isolated from the national interest. It is clear to the decision-making circles in the foreign policy of regional and international powers that the battles of ideas and hearts are no less ferocious than the mobilization and planning of the time of armed confrontation, nor the competition for markets and resources for a healthy economic situation.
The unprecedented explosion in the role of information media and the practical verification of the concept of the village cluster create virtual civil societies and cross-border public opinion, ready to interact with the media, intellectual and cultural flows that flow from it on every side and the problematic human base of the legitimacy and effectiveness of cross-border decisions and policies.

But without falling into the delusions of this "soft" force, it is worth emphasizing that it has nothing to do with that utopian dream that preaches an open world free of the logic of looking at the world as a chessboard. Either it occupies the position of the other or loses its own site and has nothing to do with calling for complementary relationships A fair international system that applies to all .. It is an integral part of foreign policy based on the defense of the national interest and benefit at the expense of others. At least as practiced in a highly competitive international arena, soft power is not a free investment in the virtue of cultural and media exchange and listening to a multiplicity of ideas and views. In this sense, cultural diplomacy is primarily aimed at changing the ideas of others in a direction determined by the priorities of the national interest, which requires caution from its brilliant slogans.