Soft Power and the Chinese Propaganda System

摘要

Chinese party-state officials now openly speak of the importance of increasing the country's soft power. This raises questions, however, about how the soft power concept relates to the party-state's existing propaganda system. This article investigates how the party-state interprets the soft power concept and how this fits into its broader approach to propaganda work. It argues that the way the party-state has interpreted the concept of soft power conforms to its approach to both foreign and domestic propaganda work. Like foreign propaganda, increasing soft power for the party-state involves improving international communication capabilities and is undertaken with domestic objectives in mind; like domestic propaganda work, policies designed to increase soft power are expected to balance the goal of promoting cultural creativity and variety with the goal of strengthening national cohesion.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2012.701031