As Beijing's reach continues to expand,
Chinese analysts are increasingly troubled by the
country's weak ability to influence how
international issues, especially the rise of
China, are framed and evaluated - called the
"right to speak" or "discourse power"
(huayuquan). The Western concern about
Chinese doping at the Olympics, for example,
showcased China's weakness and the strength of
Orientalist discourse in the West that discounts
China's abilities and accomplishments.
Although this idea is not new, a regular
discussion has emerged since the summer concerned
with the gap between China's power as the world's
second-largest economy and Beijing's ability to
shape international discussions and values.
The question facing Chinese analysts is
how Beijing corrects this imbalance, because
reversing China's weakness is an "urgent
strategic need as the
competition among nations intensifies".
The idea of "right to speak" or "discourse
power" is an extension of soft power, relating to
influence and attractiveness of a country's
ideology and value system. As an important
analysis this summer characterized it, "Who has
huayuquan ultimately depends on whose
ideology, especially whose value system, best
answers contemporary global issues and provides
impetus for human progress and development." In
this respect, Beijing needs to "face the grim
reality that the West is strong while China is
weak (xi qiang wo ruan)" and start learning
how to communicate more effectively to foreign
audiences.
The proof of Beijing's weakness
is evident in how Chinese accomplishments and
policies are characterized domestically and
internationally. Domestically, people complain
China's foreign policy is too soft;
internationally, governments complain China's
diplomacy is too strong. This shows Beijing must
make it clear to both domestic and international
audiences how China will use its growing power and
what kind of world China wants.
The key to
doing this is strengthening China's right to
speak. Moreover, despite the accomplishments of
China since the beginning of Reform and Opening,
some Western elements have used their "discourse
power" to promulgate the "China Threat Theory,"
demonize China, promote trade protectionism and
impede China's peaceful development.
China's weakness stems from a couple of
different sources. The first is that there is a
contradiction in promoting a set of universal
values and respecting non-interference in a
country's political affairs. So long as Chinese
foreign policy is governed by the latter
principle, Beijing will find it difficult to break
Western hegemony in huayuquan.
The
second is that China is not necessarily creating
new ideas about how countries should run
themselves or find their place in the increasingly
integrated world. As a military analyst from the
Nanjing Command Academy wrote, if China only
translates or adapts Western ideas, then the
spread of "Chinese ideas" inadvertently spreads
Western values and places China in a passive
position.
The third problem is that
promoting the value of each country's individual
development choices according to national
circumstances does not offer the kind of guidance
that Western ideas provides for rational or ideal
political and economic choices. This shallow
characterization of China's development model as a
country's right to choose for itself shortchanges
socialism with Chinese characteristics. Therefore,
China needs to do a better job of publicizing and
explaining the Chinese experience with "seeking
truth from facts," reform and opening policies,
"letting practice be the criterion of truth" and
harmonious society.
This first step in
strengthening China's discourse power is to
develop a more sophisticated understanding of
foreign audiences. Because of a lack of in-depth
research into foreign attitudes, Chinese
propagandists sometimes push messages that may be
a positive self-expression of Chinese
civilization, but is not received positively by
foreign audiences. Beijing's challenge is how to
ensure China's voice reaches others - something
that is not happening now and requires further
study, especially on how to improve the
international penetration of socialism with
Chinese characteristics.
China can enhance
its right to speak with three steps, according to
the Wu Ying deputy director of the Shanghai
Foreign Studies University's international public
opinion center. First, Beijing needs to be more
aggressive about setting international discourse.
Second, China needs to be able to break down the
Western media's Orientalism and "responsible
power" discourses to free up China's international
discourse space. Finally, China should focus on
researching Western media, watching for feedback
on Chinese efforts to shape public opinion.
One of the ways in which China can improve
its influence is to accelerate the "Going Out"
policy for Chinese media organizations, such as
the Southern Media Group's sponsored features on
Guangdong overseas. Through this experience,
Chinese journalists can learn the laws of cultural
transmission.
Beijing does have to be
careful in promoting its discourse power, because
having a greater influence on international
narratives is not an unalloyed good. China's
Reform and Opening policies led the West to
believe that China was on a convergent road with
the Western development model.
Pursuing
China's right to speak is the starting point for
ending that belief and making it clear that
China's course is different. Yet, according to
Tsinghua media specialist Zhang Zhizhou, China
cannot rise without challenging the Western
concepts that denigrate China's accomplishments -
eg democratic peace theory, great power politics,
the end of history, etc - and thereby showing
China's divergent development path.
Peter Mattis is China Brief at
The Jamestown Foundation.
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