[ARI Working Paper Seires No. 9]

Soft Power Strategy of China and Taiwan

by Eunju Chi
(Research Professor, Korea University)

Notes on Contributor

Eunju Chi is a research professor of the Institute for Peace Studies, Department of Political Science, Korea University. She graduated from the Department of Political Science, Ewha Womans University. She received her MA degree from Ewha Womans University and Ph. D. from Korea University. She was a visiting scholar at National Taiwan University and Duke University. Her major publications include Independence Issues and Political Parties in Taiwan (2009), Power Transition and Policy in China (2008). Her research interests include Taiwan Politics, Cross-strait relationship, and Comparative Approaches to East Asian Countries.

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Abstract

Machiavelli had said that power comes from a threat. However, a meeting of minds may be more important. Joseph S. Nye, Jr. suggested new concept of power as “attractiveness,” more widely known as “soft power.” There are three factors of soft power: culture, political value, and foreign policy. For these factors to work, he said that an interaction between the power-holder and the power-receiver is necessary. It means that, even with all its positive attributes, soft power is useless if the power-receiver does not accept it in a positive way. Since the 1990s, China has been pursuing soft power, and it has been moderately successful. However, Taiwan has always been an exception from this trend or regarded as an obstacle for Chinese soft power strategy. Toward
Taiwan, China has shown its two different images; hostility and friendliness. Whenever Taiwan asserted “independence,” China immediately turned aggressive. But since 1980s, China started to have economic, personal and cultural exchanges with Taiwan and tried to broaden these. Considering all of these, it can say that China also adapt its soft power strategy toward Taiwan under the condition of the status-quo. This article will explore Chinese soft approaches to Taiwan and evaluate how effective these are.