China’s Soft Power Strategy

China’s economic and military rise are well documented, but their ‘soft power’ strategy, which involves boosting their image as one of the good guys in the global mind, is more complicated. As China emerges from the pandemic relatively well, can they maintain their ‘peaceful rise’ narrative, particularly while the western world, including Australia, casts a skeptical eye on Chinese platforms such as TikTok and WeChat?

In this episode, Tom is joined by Professor Michael Keane to discuss the future of China’s international influence and global standing.

  • What is ‘soft power’? [00:55]
  • The narrative China wants to tell [02:17]
  • The role of apps like WeChat and TikTok in China’s storytelling [04:17]
  • Should people be suspicious of Chinese apps like TikTok? [08:55]
  • Understanding Chinese culture [21:25]
  • Will Australia see a rise of Chinese pop culture? [26:22]

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Music: OKAY by 13ounce Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 Music promoted by Audio Library

You can read the full transcript for the episode here https://thefutureof.simplecast.com/episodes/chinas-soft-power-strategy/transcript.

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