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Journal Article

China’s Soft-Power Push

16 Jun 2015-Foreign Affairs (Council on Foreign Relations)-Vol. 94, Iss: 4, pp 99-108
TL;DR: The Search for Respect as mentioned in this paper : As China's global power grows, Beijing is learning that its image matters, and it has mounted a major public relations offensive in recent years, investing billions of dollars around the world in a variety of efforts.
Abstract: The Search for Respect As China's global power grows, Beijing is learning that its image matters. For all its economic and military might, the country suffers from a severe shortage of soft power. According to global public opinion surveys, it enjoys a decidedly mixed international image. While China's economic prowess impresses much of the world, its repressive political system and mercantilist business practices tarnish its reputation. And so, in an attempt to improve perceptions, Beijing has mounted a major public relations offensive in recent years, investing billions of dollars around the world in a variety of efforts.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Silk Road Economic Belt, an infrastructure development agenda with the distinct promise of regional and sub-regional economic development, was introduced by China as discussed by the authors, where the Silk Road economic belt is considered.
Abstract: China is moving ahead with the Silk Road Economic Belt, an ambitious infrastructure development agenda with the distinct promise of regional and sub-regional economic development. However, the init...

167 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This is the ninth annual horizon scan to identify emerging issues that could affect global biological diversity, natural capital and ecosystem services, and conservation efforts and 15 that may have the greatest positive or negative effects but are not yet well recognised by the global conservation community.
Abstract: This is our ninth annual horizon scan to identify emerging issues that we believe could affect global biological diversity, natural capital and ecosystem services, and conservation efforts. Our diverse and international team, with expertise in horizon scanning, science communication, as well as conservation science, practice, and policy, reviewed 117 potential issues. We identified the 15 that may have the greatest positive or negative effects but are not yet well recognised by the global conservation community. Themes among these topics include new mechanisms driving the emergence and geographic expansion of diseases, innovative biotechnologies, reassessments of global change, and the development of strategic infrastructure to facilitate global economic priorities.

117 citations


Cites background from "China’s Soft-Power Push"

  • ...25 trillion by 2025 [76,77], will deliver economic development, supported by considerable scientific and technological development, across Eurasia to Africa....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
19 Jun 2019
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors review infrastructure development under BRI to characterise the nature and types of environmental impacts and demonstrate how social, economic and political factors can shape these impacts, showing how impacts interact and aggregate across multiple spatiotemporal scales creating cumulative impacts.
Abstract: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the largest infrastructure scheme in our lifetime, bringing unprecedented geopolitical and economic shifts far larger than previous rising powers. Concerns about its environmental impacts are legitimate and threaten to thwart China’s ambitions, especially since there is little precedent for analysing and planning for environmental impacts of massive infrastructure development at the scale of BRI. In this paper, we review infrastructure development under BRI to characterise the nature and types of environmental impacts and demonstrate how social, economic and political factors can shape these impacts. We first address the ambiguity around how BRI is defined. Then we describe our interdisciplinary framework for considering the nature of its environmental impacts, showing how impacts interact and aggregate across multiple spatiotemporal scales creating cumulative impacts. We also propose a typology of BRI infrastructure, and describe how economic and socio-political drivers influence BRI infrastructure and the nature of its environmental impacts. Increasingly, environmental policies associated with BRI are being designed and implemented, although there are concerns about how these will translate effectively into practice. Planning and addressing environmental issues associated with the BRI is immensely complex and multi-scaled. Understanding BRI and its environment impacts is the first step for China and countries along the routes to ensure the assumed positive socio-economic impacts associated with BRI are sustainable.

107 citations


Cites background from "China’s Soft-Power Push"

  • ...Chinese BRI investments are projected to exceed $1 trillion, dwarfing all previous geopolitically-motivated American and Soviet spending [7]....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the post-Cold War period, the democracies pursued a strategy of engagement with authoritarian states in the belief that this approach would yield mutual benefits and lead to political reform in the autocracies as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In the post–Cold War period, the democracies pursued a strategy of engagement with authoritarian states in the belief that this approach would yield mutual benefits and lead to political reform in the autocracies. Instead, authoritarian regimes have turned the tables on the democracies. Exploiting globalization and the opportunities presented by integration with the West, authoritarian states have set out to undermine the very international institutions that welcomed them by employing a malign mirror image of “soft power.” Through the manipulation of the Internet, the establishment of pseudo–civil society organizations and “zombie” election monitors, as well as sophisticated state-run propaganda outlets, authoritarian trendsetters such as China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela have hijacked the concept of “soft power.”

45 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors pointed out that football clubs in China are owned by wealthy corporations, partly directed by government, and expensive coaches and players have been transferred from Europe.
Abstract: Sport, especially football, has rapidly acquired global cultural, commercial, and also political prominence. China recently and belatedly has sought to acquire international recognition in sport and participate in global development by linking soft power, national status, and football. Market principles have been adopted, football clubs are owned by wealthy corporations, partly directed by government, and expensive coaches and players have been transferred from Europe. Conversely, Chinese corporations have invested in European football clubs. State plans are oriented to success in the World Cup and the adoption of the ‘world game’ throughout the nation, but cannot easily be implemented from above in a team sport with weak ‘grassroots’. Successfully developing the ‘people's game’ in the People's Republic has proved difficult. In this sporting arena, soft power has been limited because of domestic and international failings.

37 citations