7
Soft Power
Ultimate excellence lies in not winning every battle but
in defeating the enemy without ever fighting. —SUN-TZU
JOSEPH NYE STRESSED IN HIS PROGNOSTICATIONS about power in the 21st century that the capacity to coerce will become less important in the modern age, while the ability to set agendas and the terms of debate will be relatively more useful. In this context, economic power and moral authority may hold greater sway than military force. In other words, the future of global negotiating lies more in the carrot rather than the stick.
A New Deal
As China has grown in economic power, it has acquired the means to redirect entire nations in brand new directions. Though the Chinese could have easily pursued similar colonial practices that the Americans and Europeans once used in Africa and throughout Latin America, the Chinese have opted to create a different kind of empire. Rather than exploiting and brutalizing people, keeping them in servitude, and denying them education, China approached people in developing nations with an entirely new proposition. In exchange for the natural resources it so desperately needs for its own domestic economy, China has offered developing nations billions of dollars to invest in infrastructure as well as Chinese management and labor to help poor nations get their hard and soft infrastructure projects off the ground.
The Brutal Truth
This kind of business deal differs dramatically from those offered by Western nations. In the past, Western nations simply looted natural resources while they enslaved the native population. The British, French, and Dutch extracted millions of tons of natural resources when they colonized Africa in the 1800s while forcing African men, women, and children into backbreaking labor. When the cost of maintaining colonies outstripped the material benefits during the 1930s, modern American corporations subsequently went in to buy up natural resource rights at deep discounts from the African governments without providing an ounce of help in return.
Former African colonies, stripped of natural resources and traumatized for generations under the hands of Western Europeans, lost much of their sense of identity and pride. Deadly dictators seized control with brute force when the departure of the colonists left a void. The U.S. government offered token sums of aid money amounting to less than 1 percent of the national budget, while large multinational companies such as Exxon and Chevron extracted crude oil off the African coasts. The dictators pocketed whatever aid money entered the country and used it to buy more military weapons to keep themselves in power. Through sophisticated public relations campaigns and spokespeople like Jeffrey Sachs, aid money was marketed as proof of America’s benevolent and generous nature, when the truth was quite the opposite. Even Haiti, a country much closer to the United States and a recipient of over $20 billion of foreign assistance over decades, still remains one of the most corrupt and underdeveloped nations in the world.1 Government handouts function more precisely as diplomatic cover for the United States and other Western companies to rape and pillage countries that are too weak to defend themselves.
Studies by Professor William Easterly and others have exposed development aid money for what it was—money earmarked for commercial access and/or military alliances with countries.2 Some of this money comes from private donors, but much comes from government budgets that direct funds to various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).3 According to Tim Schwartz, who wrote Travesty in Haiti, many NGOs were riddled with fraud and hidden political agendas. These NGOs claimed to help in various humanitarian ways, but many were merely vehicles created by the politically connected to fill their own pockets. Rich, well-connected friends of elected officials would set up NGOs as personal piggy banks to receive government aid money, which was supposed to provide poor nations with food, education, and other necessities. However, most of the billions of dollars that get allocated every year never make it to the dispossessed.4 Though the accounting is difficult to trace, it has been alleged that significant portions of the money went straight into the personal bank accounts of NGO heads, who enjoyed being overpaid for work that had no accountability to any government, client, or shareholder. Most of what’s left goes to pay for the extravagant lifestyles of expatriates. Very little—some estimates are as low as .02 percent—goes toward humanitarian purposes. According to some former NGO representatives at a conference held at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, U.S. aid money represented the biggest scam in history, as billions were wasted on Americans more interested in helping themselves than in helping the desperately poor and disadvantaged Africans. After roughly fifty years of aid money, there was nothing to show for it. Millions of Africans were still starving and dying from disease, and Africa had been written off by Westerners as a continent with no future.5
Westerners ignored the Africans until the Chinese started making deals with them. The State Department, right-wing think tanks, and anti-Chinese factions in the United States began sounding alarm bells when it became clear that the Chinese were winning over many African nations. Between the years 2007 and 2009, China provided Africa $5 billion worth of preferential loans and exports buyers’ credit and extended another $10 billion for the years 2010 through 2012.6 The loans financed major infrastructure projects such as airports, housing, bridges, railways, telecommunications, and hydropower. By the end of 2005, the number of projects assisted by the Chinese exceeded 700.7
As UK’s Guardian reported: “China’s fast, efficient, ‘no strings attached’ bilateral approach is popular in the [African] region, as is the PRC preference for infrastructure over governance projects.” It further reported:
During a February 8 lunch, Kenyan Ambassador to China, Julius Ole Sunkuli said he and other Africans were wary of the U.S.-China dialogue on Africa and felt Africa had nothing to gain from China cooperating with the international donor community. Sunkuli claimed that Africa was better off thanks to China’s practical, bilateral approach to development assistance and was concerned that this would be changed by “Western” interference. He said he saw no concrete benefit for Africa in even minimal cooperation. Sunkuli said Africans were frustrated by Western insistence on capacity building, which translated, in his eyes, into conferences and seminars. They instead preferred China’s focus on infrastructure and tangible projects.
The cable further states:
South African Minister Plenipotentiary Dave Malcomson echoed the same reservations in a February 9 meeting. He opined that although governance, peace, and security are crucial to African growth, they must be accompanied by measures to reduce poverty and build infrastructure. China’s emergence in Africa as a counterbalance to U.S. and European donors has been very positive for Africa by creating “competition” and giving African countries options.8
The African point of view was later further confirmed by an announcement on February 2, 2011, from Norway’s government minister for international development pledging to support investment in Africa by Norwegian companies. According to the newspaper Aftenposten, Erik Solheim, minister representing the Socialist Left Party, said that he had kept a close eye on China’s increasing interest in the region and hoped that business would cast aside traditional stereotypes and begin to view Africa as a place of opportunity.
China’s strategy of soft power in this instance was particularly effective. When Chinese businessmen started arriving, the skeptical, bitter Africans expected them to behave in much the same way as their Western predecessors. By surprising the Africans and treating them as equals, the Chinese were able to convince them that they were in the same camp. They did not offer aid money—a gesture that the Africans associate with condescension and corruption—but instead offered medical assistance to a number of poor countries, scholarships for training young Africans in China, and guaranteed low-interest or no-interest loans to build necessary infrastructure long neglected by Westerners.9 The loans had no strings attached, and the Chinese also forgave over $2 billion of debt from former loans.10
When there was no project management expertise to oversee large infrastructure projects, the Chinese provided technical assistance. Oftentimes, Chinese laborers traveled to Africa to work alongside Africans on these projects. The Chinese dug the same ditches, slept in the same bare huts, and ate the same plain food as the Africans, according to Dr. Deborah Brautigam, who spent roughly the last 30 years following the actions of the Chinese in Africa. She argues in her book The Dragon’s Gift that the Chinese had instituted a win-win model of development, which is fostering a better economic future on the African continent.
In 2010 at an event for the book held at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service, Americans shared their experiences at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Africa. Apparently American officials sat in lavish surroundings watching soap operas. Those who occupied offices were utterly unhelpful to anyone who wasn’t a superior. One attendee recounted, “The behavior of American diplomats and ambassadors was totally disgraceful. I was embarrassed to call myself an American there.” The Chinese soft power stands in sharp contrast.
China uses soft power not only with Africans, but also with Latin Americans. China is not only one of Latin America’s biggest trade partners but also one of its largest investors.11 Chilean UN representative Heraldo Munoz, who wrote the book Open Face of Latin America, said in an interview on June 11, 2009, that Latin America is no longer an “unconditional” friend of the United States as China increases its presence there. He recalled that U.S. presidents have had a history of dictating terms to Latin Americans as opposed to listening and engaging in dialogue with them to achieve qualitative change. He believed that the United States needs to acknowledge the past repression of South American countries that were often carried out as silent wars against democratically elected presidents by overthrowing them through CIA armed coups. He cited a democratic movement against the dictatorship in Brazil that was stopped by the United States.
Similarly, Bolivian President Evo Morales accused U.S. officials of instigating insurrection in his country.12 Stephen Forneris, U.S. citizen and principal at Perkins Eastman who travels to Latin America frequently for business, confirmed that the U.S. special forces were doing almost all the fighting in Colombia and that Latin Americans are not impressed with recent American overtures to help now that the Chinese have done so much investing there.
Soft power can take years to develop, and it can take even longer to undo past relationship damage. The problem for the United States is that many leaders in Latin America have socialist leanings, so they’ve been viewed and treated as foes. But Latin Americans want to be treated as equals, and the Chinese have done that. If the United States would like to make nice with Latin Americans, it can start by not acting against their wishes. Invading Iraq, for example, did not endear us to our neighbors to the south.13 The United States can also enter into more free trade agreements that are accompanied by higher standards in labor and the environment to show fair and equal treatment of Latin Americans. Chris Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Council of the Americas, which promotes free trade in Latin America, has publicly stated that contrary to what conspiracy theorists believe, there are no military or political designs against the United States by the Chinese. The Chinese simply have sought an economic relationship with the Latin Americans that has worked out very well. Examples include the Chilean company Rein, which has been importing fleets of Chinese electric cars that cost under $9000.14 There is no reason that the United States couldn’t approach the Latin Americans in the same way.
Beijing’s particular form of development aid has been surprisingly effective in furthering Chinese political and strategic interests in raw materials to fuel its growth, but it has also elevated its global diplomatic presence and created a basis of support for its policies on developing countries. Aid and trade partners were treated humanely and given respect. This convinced them that it was unlikely that China would behave like another member of the rich countries club. These nations feel that China understands their problems with poverty and sympathizes. In return, these countries have obeyed China’s requests on the international stage. For instance, when China asked its allies not to attend the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony for dissident Liu Xiaobo, at least 19 countries responded to its request to protest, including U.S. allies Colombia and Egypt.15 This growing allegiance with China shows that China’s soft power is steadily paying off.
By expanding the number of people China welcomes into its fold in a nonthreatening and nonjudgmental way, China has been steadily building good will with poor, developing nations. Although this strategy certainly furthers its own interests, it also may be paving the road for truly global cooperation between rich and poor countries.
The Green-Eyed Monster
The Western press, however, has predominately painted a very one-sided view of the Chinese as rapacious thieves stealing natural resources from developing nations and supporting genocide by cutting deals with Sudan and other human rights’ violators. Yet the press conveniently ignores the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policies supporting regimes that are equally vicious and repressive. By and large, they neglect to report that China’s moves are in some ways the response to the lack of U.S. interest in a region. Shortly after it was reported that China signed an oil deal with Venezuela, a senior Senate Foreign Relations Committee aide reportedly said on condition of anonymity, “They [the Chinese] are taking advantage of the fact that we [Americans] don’t care as much as we should about Latin America.”16
As much as Americans bristle at the knowledge that China is doing so much in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere, we must realize that China was invited by the host countries to come in to do something. Rather than complain, the West could learn from the Chinese and replicate what they have done. But if America continues to enter these countries with pure self-interest, as it has done for decades, it will never win the trust of these other nations or be welcome within their borders. Those who create employment will be thanked, and China has been doing a great job doing just that around the world.17 In response to China, America should start to develop a longer-term vision of how it will be accepted in an increasingly multipolar world.
Like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, China has provided medical assistance to parts of Africa that have either been under-served or have never received such aid at all.18 No matter what critics say, the healthcare system that China brought to the Africans was better than none at all. As a result, China can pull strings without firing a single shot. China practiced engagement with noninterference meaning that it will maintain diplomatic dialogue and relations with everyone, including enemies, because engagement is the only way to have a positive influence over anyone. Noninterference means that one respects the sovereignty and differences of another country even as one engages in dialogue. China may despise the genocidal actions of particular dictators in Africa or disagree with religious rule in Iran, but it still maintains an open dialogue with the leaders of those countries as well as other national players because it knows that world peace requires everyone to get along and that politics is dynamic.
Our Money in the Middle East
Rarely is the public aware that U.S. aid money went to support highly unpopular dictatorships in the name of “U.S. interests,” a euphemism for military and financial support for despots who make agreements, for example, to avoid confrontation with Israel. It is worth noting that, since the signing of the peace accords with Israel, Egypt has been one of the largest recipients of U.S. “aid” money to the tune of $1.5 billion a year. As was reported by the Wall Street Journal, most of the aid had been earmarked for Mubarak’s security forces, blocking democratic dissent to an oppressive regime for thirty years. Rather than mandating that the money be used for humanitarian reasons, U.S. officials knew that it was specifically used to support military forces suppressing opposition, which increased anti-American sentiment among Muslims in the Arab world. The anti-government protests that have erupted everywhere from Yemen to Egypt were in direct response to the U.S.-backed dictatorships that have impoverished majority populations of the Middle East.
China’s aggressive deal making has alarmed some who fear that China may not be a responsible stakeholder in the global order, but the evidence is more to the contrary. Unlike the belligerent tactics used by the United States—embargoes, military force, and CIA subversion—China’s leaders have for the most part tried to avoid creating enemies by seeking to understand the problems of other nations and then offering concrete results in the form of business deals that include technical assistance. China’s leaders have sympathized with underdogs, whoever they may be. They exported help that followed the same formulaic economic model China uses at home, which they continue to refine domestically. Their economic model of state-guaranteed loans, technical training and support, and measurable results have proven to work again and again in generating prosperity for its own citizens, as well as their friends in the developing world.
Policy Overhaul
Rather than become defensive about its current foreign policies, the United States should instead learn from China’s charm offensive. China’s ability to deliver on its promises and provide what foreign developing governments need most—which, more often than not, are food and jobs—go a long way in winning the friendship of those governments as well as their citizens. African citizens cannot see U.S. aid money that goes into dictator bank accounts, but they can see hospitals, football stadiums, trains, and schools that the Chinese built. Aside from the developed nations, America’s allies remain allies only by propping up the corrupt elite who run their countries like police states. Citizens around the world, such as the Pakistanis, are frequently oppressed and angry at their American-backed governments. By choosing to uphold corruption and oppression in the name of national security, Americans ironically undermine our own security more than if we were to remain completely neutral. American foreign policy designed to oppress millions in foreign lands will only boomerang, causing death and destruction at home—9/11 is proof of that. Our current foreign policy of using hard power to intimidate our perceived enemies will only stoke more hatred for the United States and increase their resolve to destroy us. Time after time, outrage from a sense of injustice is what fuels uprisings and wars. Instead, America would be better off overhauling foreign policy and using some of China’s tried and true methods of winning diplomatic friends around the world.
In addition to revamping foreign policy, the United States could also reform some of its political conventions. For instance, ambassadorships are currently used as rewards for political support.19 This practice is not only ineffective because it puts ignorant people in strategic places, it is also demoralizing to members of the U.S. Foreign Service who understand other cultures and speak foreign languages. Exchanging ambassadorships for political donations means that these ambassadors are always wealthy and thus socialize with the elite in other nations, as opposed to spreading positive impressions of the United States among the vast majority of foreign populations who are less privileged.
USAID needs revamping so that U.S. representatives and other NGOs do not pay for their own luxurious lifestyles with the government money sent to aid development. Consider the contrast when the people in developing countries can see the Chinese work alongside them digging ditches and engaging in other back-breaking work to build badly needed infrastructure. Indeed, the strongest public relations move the United States can make is not merely to put a new spin on such potentially embarrassing situations, but to staff these agencies with people who will get things done. If China is sending Chinese workers to help the Africans build badly needed infrastructure, why doesn’t the United States hire American construction workers who are looking for work to build new infrastructure for these nations?
More importantly, the United States should recognize that its investment in soft power has been continually eclipsed by its over-reliance on the military or what is known as hard power. No one disputes that having a strong defense is critical to maintaining peace and enforcing rules. The issue arises over how much investment in the U.S. military is really necessary. Today, the United States does not face a superpower military threat. Yet it still outspends the next 10 countries combined every year on the military. The military is the only part of the government budget that has never experienced cutbacks since the end of World War II.20
Even during the Cold War, a number of U.S. scientists and policymakers, who understood the Soviet Union’s true capabilities, deemed that the U.S. arms escalation in nuclear warheads was wholly unnecessary. The supposed need for an arms race was exaggerated by Reagan and his spokesmen, and the media simply reported the lies that were told. The collapse of the Soviet Union came as no surprise to U.S. scientists, engineers, and certain State Department officials. Years before Reagan declared victory, they knew that the Soviets did not have the technology or the resources to keep up the arms race. The hundreds of billions spent on the military could have been safely scaled back substantially, had rational minds prevailed. Instead of warheads, the U.S could have redirected those funds to domestic uses, which would have arguably yielded the same Soviet collapse.
Undoubtedly, the entrenched interests of the military do not want to see their budgets pared even one iota. Their raison d’être is to fight and kill, regardless of the reason or justification. If there is no credible threat, they can make one up just to protect their own salaries, jobs, and power from being diminished. When budget cuts were being bandied about by a newly elected Republican Congress in 2011, the Department of Defense decided to announce coincidentally that the Chinese have new fighter jets, and that China’s increased military spending posed a potential threat to the United States. Interestingly, experts on China who don’t work directly for the U.S. military largely agree that China represents no such threat given its low level of military investments. China’s military spending is less than 2 percent of its GDP while U.S. military spending is 4.7 percent of our GDP.21 In absolute terms, China’s published military spending is $91.5 billion, while America’s total defense spending was $1.35 trillion in 2010.22 Though some believe China’s military spending is higher, the highest estimate comes from the U.S. Department of Defense—$150 billion—which is still only a tenth of what the United States spends on the military. Even if the Chinese increase their military spending into the double digits every year, it would still take years for them to catch up to the United States even if we stopped spending altogether because China is coming from a much lower base and possesses far less sophisticated technological expertise.
More importantly, China’s military spending is predominately a response to absorb its growing unemployed. According to my friend Ajit Pai, who immigrated to the United States from India, it would cost just as much to incarcerate a youth in India as it would to give the person a job as a uniformed police officer. Every country knows that the most efficient way to reduce unemployment is to give its citizens government jobs. Given China’s extraordinary government expenditures all across the board to save the economy after the 2008 financial crisis, its 14 percent increase in military spending in 2009 when compared to its increases in other areas such as research and development—which had budget increases of over 25 percent—does not stand out as abnormally high as a percentage of its GDP.23 China’s leaders faced extraordinary pressure to create jobs wherever they could, and the military was not immune. Finally, in this nuclear age, the odds that China would be the first to attack would be close to nil because doing so would be tantamount to suicide given their inferior military technology.
As Gideon Rose wrote in his latest book, How Wars End, the United States needs to craft viable end games before it goes to war. War serves two purposes: first, it is supposed to end the tensions that built up before the war, and second, it should replace the original system that created the tension with a new system that eliminates it.24 Unfortunately, the United States has consistently dealt with the first purpose of war, but not the second. The costly U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate incontrovertibly that without an end game in place, having a strong military does not guarantee national security, peace, or stability. If anything, the wars possibly fomented even greater insecurity as the number of terrorist attacks and insurgencies has only swelled since the days of 9/11, leaving tens, or perhaps even hundreds of thousands dead or wounded around the world.
Is it possible that all this needless bloodshed could be avoided if the United States were to follow China’s practice of soft power and stopped making enemies? Americans actually did play this diplomatic card well after World War II through the Marshall Plan. By generously helping the Western European economies rebuild after the war through humanitarian aid, foreign investment, and other technical assistance, the United States won valuable allies who still support us today. It is a terrible shame that America has failed to repeat that policy initiative in its subsequent dealings with the rest of the world. Many reasons account for that, but one particularly powerful force is the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about in his Farewell Address to the nation on January 17, 1961. The complex today is stronger than ever and should be reined in if the United States wants to avoid another unnecessary and costly military confrontation. Furthermore, the U.S. military, by law and design, is a highly undemocratic institution. Allowing its power to grow unchecked could even turn America into a military state.
Despite grumblings about the Chinese military, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) hardly has the clout that the Department of Defense does. They have not fought a war in the last 30 years, and no senior Chinese official in the Standing Committee has a military background. Most of the military spending on the PLA has been to provide basic needs for soldiers, such as improving their living quarters so that they didn’t have to live on dirt floors. Even if the PLA had upgraded their military capabilities significantly, the personnel still possesses little to no experience in real combat.
The United States, in contrast, can count a number of ex-military officials holding top cabinet–level positions. Ex-military personnel like Donald Rumsfeld have had outsized influence in the White House. Their dominance seems to correlate highly with the number of wars the United States has engaged in since becoming a superpower, averaging about one per president. If the United States is a peacekeeping force as it claims to be, then why has it invaded places like Iraq and conducted secret wars in Yemen and elsewhere?
“Think of how India and Brazil sided with China at the global climate-change talks. Or the votes by Turkey and Brazil against America at the United Nations on sanctions against Iran. That is just a taste of things to come,” wrote Gideon Rose in a piece published by Foreign Policy.25 The logical conclusion to the two foreign policy tracks the United States and China presently pursue is that China slowly wins over hearts and minds with its soft power, and the United States becomes increasingly feared, isolated, and dangerous. If the United States continues to lose friends this way, it will be severely disadvantaged, since even the most powerful military couldn’t manage multiple threats without the help of enough loyal allies.
Fair- and Foul-Weather Friends
But aside from Israel, the U.K., and Canada, most countries around the world are not beholden to the United States. The assumption that Australia and Europe would always remain strong allies may be tenuous. Australia owes its recent robust economy to China, and over 70 percent of Australians view the relationship with China as highly beneficial.26 Likewise, some Europeans have grown more distant from the United States, particularly after the financial crisis of 2008. Most Europeans have much more socialistic and progressive views than Americans, and these differences have surfaced during G-20 meetings whenever financial reforms have been discussed.27 While northern Europeans still preach solidarity with the United States, cracks have been appearing. Iceland’s support of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange has been a slap in the face to the United States who has been trying to prosecute the Web publisher for disclosing damaging and embarrassing state secrets.28 The Germans have been developing closer relations with Russia, a historic enemy of the United States.29 Last but not least, the closer ties of Spain and Greece to China since the outbreak of the slow-motion Euro crisis could also signal future defections of European nations to China from the once-solid U.S. diplomatic camp.30 As a European Central Bank (ECB) official told me over lunch at the Levy Economics Institute’s 2011 conference, “There is no special relationship between the United States and Europe. We are, shall we say, faux amis (false friends).”
Americans can reverse this trend if they stop responding to the fearmongering from national security hawks who constantly paint a scary picture of the world. People tend to live up to expectations, and this truism would apply whether it pertains to individuals or nations. Charles Kupchan, associate professor at Princeton University, wrote in his book How Enemies Become Friends that the way nations turn hostility into friendship must be through active courtship initiated by the nations’ leaders. Economic activity between two nations alone can’t prevent war from arising as in the case between France and Germany leading up to World War II, but if the leaders of two nations decide to become friends, then warfare between two nations can be eliminated. Professor Kupchan followed the relationship between Britain and the United States, which was once hostile but became friendly after both sides decided it was in their best interest to make amends.
Some may suggest that the United States and the U.K. were exceptions because of their shared cultural heritage. However, the same could be said of the United States and China since the Founding Fathers looked to Confucianism for guidance in designing the new nation.31 But shared cultural heritage may not be a relevant factor in decisions about alliances anyway since there are also examples in which people of shared cultural history often can become worst enemies such as the tensions between the Shiites and Sunnis.
The relationship between the United States and China may be best described as an analogy to a male/female courtship. As the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus describes, both may seem different on the surface and experience bouts of misunderstanding that can lead to frustration and hostilities, situations that define every close relationship. But underneath the tense exterior, the two share similarities and a strong underlying bond of respect and attraction that can draw them together to work out their differences, if they both let their guard down just a little.
By keeping such relationships in perspective, the United States ought to adopt an attitude of tolerance and goodwill toward the rest of the world, including China, whom it increasingly sees as a growing threat to its interests. Instead of viewing and treating other nations as threats and playing a zero-sum game, the United States should acknowledge that China has been adept at winning friends and should consider modifying its existing approach to nations around the world. The problem with the United States is that the entrenched interests who benefit from belligerent actions have a loud and powerful voice in Washington and they have much more to lose if foreign policy were to become less hawkish. The cooler heads in the rest of the country, whose immediate economic interests are not threatened by more friendly foreign policies but have the long-term interest of world peace at stake, have not been as vocal or as organized as the entrenched military interests. Nothing short of electing a supremely courageous and visionary leader to become Commander in Chief would be required to offset the very powerful special interests that now control the country. Perhaps even then, the chances of restraining their power and influence are slim.
A Seat at the Table
However, it can be done. In China’s case, the Red Guard that brought revolution to China was eventually dismantled because more rational leaders were promoted to positions of power. Over time, the number of doves outnumbered the number of hawks, and China turned 180 degrees from an ideological wasteland to become one of the most dynamic, productive nations in the world.
If an American president wanted to diffuse military power, he should appoint more diplomatic experts and give them seats at the table so that military solutions to overseas problems do not dominate policy conversations. Diplomatic experts do not have to be merely bureaucrats from the State Department. Ex-military whistleblowers have valid perspectives and should not be repudiated. Former Afghanistan commander Army General Stanley McChrystal, who was asked to resign for calling the Afghanistan effort a failure, could impart important lessons from the front lines that could balance pro-war views. As someone who risked his life and his soldiers’ lives, he understood the importance of building alliances. Without the trust of locals, who could be abetting the Taliban, American forces were handicapped in the field. Taken to a larger level, the authoritarian pacts that the United States made to ensure national security objectives could prove unreliable as waves of democratic movements intent on unseating unpopular dictatorships sweep the Middle East and possibly elsewhere.
As the United States ought to know through its haphazard alliances, a country who was once a friend can become an enemy and vice versa. During the Iran–Iraq war, the United States sided with Iraq, but a couple of decades later, the United States invaded its former ally and deposed its leader, Saddam Hussein. Similarly, the United States fought the Germans and Japanese in World War II and now has them both as allies. The same may be said of the Vietnamese in time.
Going forward, former allies, such as Egypt and others in the Middle East, could become enemies if the United States does not engage with the players in the region who may ascend to power. These players could include the Muslim Brotherhood and militant jihadists. The United States would ignore them at its own peril however. Groups such as these have gained followers.32 Whether the United States likes them or not, they are legitimate and could likely come to power through democratic means. The United States will have to face them one way or another, and it would be much more prudent to follow China’s example and begin building relationships with these groups now so that we understand the enemy. If the United States chooses not to build connections with these people, then when they come to power, they will owe us nothing and could turn a bad situation worse. The United States, as large and powerful as it is, is not an overlord of these countries, and can only make suggestions. Controlling the situation through military means would be a mistake. Similarly, in a region where the population will no longer tolerate another figurehead and would be satisfied only with substantive reconstruction, any attempts at cosmetic change would be tantamount to standing before a dam about to explode. As we are learning the hard way, the Iraq War has lasted longer than anticipated and has stretched U.S. forces to their limits. Military involvement in another Middle Eastern country now would be courting disaster.
U.S. foreign policy has historically rejected the policy of engagement with noninterference by calling it appeasement, which has had a long negative connotation, including the attempts to negotiate with Hitler at the beginning of World War II. These negotiations were diplomatic policies aimed at avoiding war by providing concessions to preserve peace at all costs. Over the years, critics of the policy claim that appeasement failed to prevent war, so redressing grievances peacefully through disarmament and agreements had no credibility in their eyes.
The problem with this analysis is that appeasement was used as a last resort to a hostile aggressor. Negotiating in weakness has never worked, and that is not what the Chinese are doing. Noninterference engagement simply means that a dialogue gets created between two parties that can help normalize the geopolitics and will more likely sow conditions that can bring positive political change.
No-fly zones could have potentially been an effective soft-power tactic for the West to limit civilian casualties during the Libyan uprisings. However, the West squandered that opportunity to show moral leadership when it used no-fly zones as a thinly veiled excuse to send its own military into Libyan airspace to bomb Muammar el-Qaddafi’s military forces, killing Libyan civilians in the process. In the eyes of many, the end did not justify the means, and some even question the proclaimed “end” that was used as justification for the unprovoked violence.33
Sanctions, while a nonmilitary tactic, have such hostile overtones that they alienate a country, giving the ostracized leader and citizens more reasons to oppose the country that imposed them. Sanctions not only breed hostility, they often drive the ostracized country to the arms of other nations who are willing to work with it. The U.S. embargoes of Iran, for example, have only enabled the leaders of Iran to strengthen their base during its three decades of isolation from the West. Through its business interests with Turkey, Russia, and China, Iran developed firm control over its economy so the U.S. policy refusal to engage with Iran backfired. Similarly, the Bush administration’s refusal to reconcile with Syria was also a missed opportunity to secure U.S. interests in the region through diplomacy.34 Syria could have been an important transport corridor and is central to the region. Had the United States begun a strategic noninterference dialogue with the Syrians, thus garnering an ally, the political landscape might look less threatening.
Another common complaint from U.S. officials is that China has essentially been economically blackmailing its Asian neighbors by procuring their loyalty in exchange for access to their market for trade. If these smaller nations run to the United States for help, China would shut them out of its economy.
Whatever tactics China uses with its neighbors, China remains a nation looking after its own security interests. Like the United States, China does not want hostile forces in its own backyard, and like the United States, China could resort to Realpolitik if forced by necessity. But unlike the United States, China has shown much greater restraint in deploying its military to express its displeasure with uncooperative foreign actors. It may have used economic threats in rare instances when it has felt another nation has crossed the line, but China still sends a consistent message that it intends to refrain from military responses as solutions to threats.
The genius of soft power is that China has teamed up with many nations to carve out win-win economic solutions, so that cooperating with China means greater benefits than drawbacks. Any fight with China would result in mutually assured economic destruction in the same way that neither the United States nor the Soviets could win in a nuclear exchange. By giving these nations an economic stake in their future, China helps minimize the threat of war among nations, who would all prefer to advance economically than to engage in more bloodshed. Had China followed the example of the West and used military interventions to force its partners to cooperate, China would no doubt be fighting bloody battles on multiple fronts today.
Civic Ties
China is trying to build not only business connections across the world, but also civic ties. It has invited and sponsored thousands of African students to study in China to learn Mandarin.35 China also actively invites academic experts from all nations to exchange ideas with their Chinese counterparts. While I was teaching at Peking University, I met dozens of local professors, as well as those who traveled from every corner of the earth to be there, either to teach, research, or both. There was a professor from Greece, who was invited to help the Chinese restore their dilapidating national treasures, such as the Summer Palace. I also befriended a physics professor from New York who worked with the Chinese in search of black holes and invited me to take a tour with her to see one of China’s superconductor facilities. As a matter of fact, during my teaching stint there, the Chinese facilitated more meetings between the multinationals on their campuses than I have ever encountered during my time teaching at American universities.
More recently, the CCP has opened Confucian Institutes (CI) around the world. Like the Goethe Institut, Alliance Française, and Instituto Cervantes, CI was launched as an effort to bridge the cultural misunderstandings between the East and West. Given the strong influence these values have in Chinese culture, CI was initially conceived to educate those who have not been exposed to the writings or philosophy of Confucius. However, in response to assertions from some Western critics that the Chinese were using CI as a propaganda tool, most CIs today have limited their offerings mainly to Mandarin speaking instruction.36 Nonetheless, the language outreach alone can stimulate a growing interest in China. “Languages as carriers of culture and communication tools are bridges for different civilizations,” State Councilor Liu Yandong told the fourth conference of Confucius Institutes in December.37
Despite the controversy, the CCP has opened 316 CIs and 337 Confucius Classrooms in 94 countries and regions as of July 2010.38 Starting with the first CI piloted in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in June 2004, the Office of Chinese Language Council International, otherwise known as Han Ban, currently has plans to set up 1,000 CIs by 2020 and award as many as 3,000 scholarships to foreign candidates to study Chinese teaching by 2013.39 True to its goal of spreading cultural understanding, each CI must be affiliated with a hosting university or cultural institution, with the partner required to match funding from Han Ban.
This strategy of bringing students from other parts of the world to China is similar to the strategy Julius Caesar used when he conquered Gaul. Since Caesar didn’t have enough Romans to run the region, Caesar took the sons of the conquered elites and raised them as his own instead of throwing them into jail. By caring for them in such a way, he turned the Gauls into Romans who could be trusted to run Gaul for the Roman Empire.
The United States has also used this form of soft power very well by admitting international graduate students into top American universities for decades. In the process, many young Chinese have become similar to young Americans, who love to consume American products, adopt American dress, and have American ideals. But since 9/11, entry by foreigners has been curbed with immigration laws becoming tougher, thereby somewhat blunting the influence of American soft power.40
China’s soft power is not only coming from official diplomatic channels. Its average citizens have also been ambassadors for the country. As mentioned earlier, Chinese laborers worked alongside African laborers, showing the Africans solidarity rather than superiority.41 Many Chinese students have gone abroad to study, and in the United States, many of the PhDs in the hard sciences have consistently been Chinese foreign nationals.42 According to the National Opinion Research Center, China was the country of origin for the largest number of non-U.S. born doctorates. Wherever the Chinese diaspora land, much evidence, anecdotal as well as statistical, confirms that the Chinese tend to become productive members of society without the help of affirmative action. In these cases and others, average Chinese civilians engage in public diplomacy as citizen role models.
Media Megaphone
Notably at a conference in Bangalore in 2010, India’s minister of state for external affairs said, “It’s not the size of the army that wins; it’s the country that tells a better story.”43 No nation understands this more than the United States, who launched the most successful soft power in history. From the Peace Corps to Hollywood, the United States has spread its culture and democratic capitalist values through every channel available. English is the current lingua franca, and American fast food and brands like Coca Cola can be had anywhere on earth. In fact, the dominance of American culture is so pervasive that Americans take it for granted.
The U.S. media have played a central role in American soft power too. They have been creative in exporting U.S. culture and values. While the U.S. government has an official news channel called Voice of America (VOA), the private sector has had a much bigger impact in spreading American culture. During my time living in Beijing in 2008, a number of Chinese television channels carried English-speaking programs such as the comedy series Friends and reality show American Idol. These shows subtly—and not so subtly—promoted the American way of life and its values toward individualism, consumerism, celebrity, humor, and other defining aspects of American and Western culture. Egyptian economist Samir Amin theorized that the ascent and decline of a nation is largely determined in our age by global monopolies, one of them being the media.44
But U.S. soft power that has been so reliant on the media for its public relations internationally will suffer a giant blow in credibility if our actions contradict our messages and if America consistently fails to deliver on its promises.
Regarding the first point, the Internet enables social media to connect people who were once unable to communicate with each other. The rise of television stations like Al Jazeera also allows hundreds of millions of people to scrutinize American actions more closely. This sort of transparency may develop public opinions that are antithetical to those that the American government and media would prefer. Most Americans did not have access to Al Jazeera’s live television coverage of the unrest that unfolded throughout the Middle East. This puts in question the notion that free press guarantees the best coverage, or even open coverage. The United States remains practically the only market in the world where the Arab network is barred. Even if allegations of anti-Israeli and anti-American bias are true, the American democratic system demands that everyone has a right to be heard, including minority voices that may be deemed unpopular. In contrast, China, a government that has been accused of being less open than the United States, accepts Al Jazeera broadcasts within its borders. If America moralizes but fails to eliminate its own policy contradictions, other nations will increasingly view us as hypocritical about our democratic ideals, and fewer people will want to emulate America’s model. Like China, it can be accused of spreading propaganda, but unlike China, it cannot claim consistency in its message. Breeding distrust will be the fastest way to lose influence and thus soft power.
Selling Snake Oil
On the second point, Americans, from politicians to businessmen, are among the world’s most expert salespeople. Many American CEOs and other public figures have received extensive public relations training in which they have had hours of practice speaking in front of television cameras. They hire advertising firms to craft logos, corporate messages, and advertisements that bombard multiple media outlets. Their sales teams have been carefully recruited and trained to entertain their clients in order to win deals. In other words, almost everyone can fall under the sales charm of America.
But sales need to be backed by real deliverables. To use an analogy, when a person oversells himself in an interview and résumé, an employer will eventually find out the truth on the job, and the subsequent firing of the employee is never pleasant. This American cultural habit of overselling and underdelivering is particularly acute in American politics, exemplified by President Obama who many feel has underdelivered with his promises of change. This cultural habit could have a more detrimental spillover effect in international relations as well. For example, as the largest polluter per capita in the world, the United States should show some leadership in environmental protection initiatives. U.S. government officials such as Suresh Kumar, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, rattled off platitudes about investing in innovation and supporting clean-energy initiatives at an event hosted by New York University, but the numbers didn’t support the claims. The United States has plans to invest a total of $366 million in building energy innovation hubs around the country, while China has already invested over $400 billion in clean-energy research and development with announced intentions to invest another $753 billion in this area.45 When questioned about why the United States has failed to meet China on this challenge, Mr. Kumar responded with “The U.S. remains the most innovative place in the world,” again without any facts or figures to back his assertions.46
Note that Mr. Kumar was speaking to a large multinational audience, including many foreign students. When I asked some of these students what they thought of the presentation, many were derisive of the speaker, disappointed that a U.S. government official had wasted their time blowing smoke and offering no concrete assurance that the United States was investing in the future. Such perceptions by the young and educated, if widespread enough, could trigger youth demonstrations not unlike what happened in Egypt and elsewhere. Indeed, the youth in America and around the world don’t want lip service; they want results. As the most educated in many generations, the global youth population, particularly in the United States and Europe, has begun to realize that what was promised to their elders, such as steady jobs and retirement plans, may never materialize for them.47 Not only are job opportunities rapidly shrinking, many have had to rely on financial resources from their parents well into their mid-thirties. As youths become increasingly desperate, they will grow steadily angrier at the status quo and government unresponsiveness. We’ve already seen signs of this in the 2011 London riots and Occupy Wall Street protests.
And the rest of the U.S population has grown increasingly cynical as well. The U.S. “strong dollar” slogan has not been matched by actions, as Warren Buffett would say. The U.S. tactic of relying on great public relations and sales will have run its course when there are no more people left to con. As an old Wendy’s commercial put it, “Where’s the beef?”
Cultivating soft power requires the good old-fashioned delivery of honesty and integrity. Glamour and the allure of lofty talk will attract short-term admirers and some alliances of convenience, but real friends and allies require trust built over years of delivering on promises. China has gone about accruing its soft power by offering financial generosity, knowledge, and human labor over decades to people and nations who have been pilloried by the West. Patient, efficient, and reliable to its partners, China invested in the idea that actions always speak louder than words. Could the United States be as effective as China on the international stage if it didn’t rely on its military for results to complex foreign issues? That is the million-dollar question—and a trillion-dollar challenge.