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What China’s Strong Arm Tactics Don’t Buy

• December 9, 2010
• Jim Arkedis

Beijing has arm-twisted nineteen countries to not send representatives to tomorrow’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo.  At issue is the honoree, Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese political prisoner whose views on human rights and democracy don’t jive particularly with the Chinese Communist Party’s.  Imagine that.

On the surface, Beijing’s deft deployment of “soft power” seems impressive: to keep nineteen countries from attending supporting democratic movements is impressive. “Soft power,” as Harvard professor Joe Nye explains in an October Washington Quarterly article, is an area where Beijing is just coming into its own.

But Nye also points out that Chinese soft power has limits:

It is not easy for governments to sell their country’s charm if their narrative is inconsistent with domestic realities. In that dimension, except for its economic success, China still has a long way to go.

Such is the case with the Nobel event.  Let’s examine the nineteen no-shows, and their political and press rankings from 2009 by Freedom House, the NGO that tracks these sorts of things:

Yikes.  Only two unfettered “free”’s in the lot. In other words, as Nye acutely observes: ‘[I]f the authoritarian growth model produces soft power for China in authoritarian countries, it does not produce attraction in democratic countries. In other words, what attracts in Caracas may repel in Paris.”  How spot-on.

And if you’re interested in hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth, come see Joseph Nye, Under Secretary Michele Flournoy, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and a host of others talk about these issues at a PPI panel discussion on China, next Tuesday, December 14th in DC.  Click here to see the invite and RSVP.

Photo credit: Adam