Struggling for Recognition? Strategic Disrespect in China’s Pursuit of Soft Power

Abstract

AbstractThis paper addresses the Chinese policy community’s interpretations of identities, which potentially shape the soft power policies of China. It couples soft power to identity through a discourse analysis of the language used by the Chinese state in relation to soft power. It builds on a number of earlier theorizations that associate soft power with identity as a discursive phenomenon. The results highlight the use of strategic disrespect in China’s soft power discourse. In the context of global cultural competition, and in particular the South-South cooperation framework, it is argued that the practitioners of the Chinese discourse present China’s ‘Self’ as a soft power and the Western ‘Other’ as a hard power.