Interior development update

I have uploaded an English version of the presentation I delivered last week concerning China's interior development and comprehensive national power. You can access it here.

Comparatively weak

Yesterday I was quite busy preparing a presentation for my class on China's political economy. I've made it available online, although it's in Chinese. I'll translate it and post an English version sometime over the weekend.

The topic of the presentation centered on why the development of China's interior is important as a source of comprehensive national power (综合国力, CNP). As opposed to focusing on hard or soft power, Chinese scholars have combined the two with a new capability called coordinating power (协调能力). While hard power is measured in military and economic terms and soft power stemming from cultural attractiveness, coordinating power gauges a government's ability to channel resources and deal with problems. Given modern China's history, this isn't an entirely surprising addition.

Economic development of the interior is critical. From what I've read in the Chinese press and scholarly writings, China's CNP hinges on being able to bring development to the entire country, not just selected areas on the coast. In the presentation I chose Qinghai province to get a sense of its progress since economic reforms were first initiated in the 1980s. I was quite surprised to see annual income rise in tandem with a population, as the Solow economic model and empirical results show that high growth in population negatively impacts income growth (e.g. the more people you have, the smaller the slice of the pie each person gets). However Qinghai's experience goes against the grain. Turns out that the companies in operation were on the secondary and tertiary levels of the value chain, meaning higher incomes for employees.

So what do I mean by today's title? Quite simply that a segment China's academic community looks at the whole of China and other states when measuring strength. It isn't enough to have a strong military or economy, a state also needs an efficient government and domestic stability. From their 30,000 foot level, these Chinese scholars see their country as a comparatively weak country. While their assessment may be accurate today, it will most likely be dated come twenty years.

The soft side of China

In 1990 a well-known political scientist, Joseph Nye, coined the term "soft power." For those of you unfamiliar with the term, soft power is when other countries want what another country wants. In regards to China, soft power would be reflected when other countries want the same thing China wants. No need to threaten or persuade. It's similar to a person having Golden Retriever (without a wagging tail), where a Golden is up to doing anything its owner wants to do (especially playing fetch or eating).

This "soft power" is different from military or economic power (otherwise known as "hard power") in that its sources are cultural attractiveness, political ideology, and activity abroad. Put simply, if other countries like the culture and have good feelings about China, then China will have a lot of soft power. The problem is that measuring soft power is really hard. How does one quantify or qualify cultural attractiveness? The number of movies, pop songs, or Nobel prize awards? Using any of those doesn't quite do the trick, as we don't know how one more movie, pop song, or Nobel prize enhances a country's soft power.

That all said, people are making a big deal about China's "soft power." I'm really skeptical on the subject, especially when everyone agrees that the source of soft power is the attractiveness of culture to foreign audiences; it isn't something that a state can really promote. After all, when you know that a government is trying to shape your opinion, you're more likely to believe the exact opposite of what it is saying. So when I see something like CFR's article on China's soft power, I cringe. It details China's commercial diplomacy more than anything else. Sure, people in Southeast Asia and Pakistan have favorable views of China now, but Southeast Asia definitely has concerns about China in the future. Soft power, like any other type of power, comes and goes. Moreover, because soft power's primary source is culture, it takes a while (say more than a generation) to actually see any payoff. China just really started to focus on soft power in 2006. Little too early to talk about its soft power from my perspective.

In the Western world (including South Korea and Japan), there is still a lot of anxiety surrounding China's intentions. Throw Tiananmen Square and Tibet on top of China's increasing military capabilities and you have a recipe for almost continual suspicion of China. For all the talk about China's "soft power" there really isn't much to it.