In this book, using the perspective of international relations, Jing Sun examines the “wooing efforts” (p. 25) between China and Japan during three different historical phases, followed by an examination of their competition for the allegiance of countries in South-East Asia, South Korea and Taiwan. Sun's informative and detailed analysis of such efforts in their historical contexts provides a nuanced understanding of the concept of soft power. However, Sun's work suffers from some deficiencies.
First, Sun's identification of the three main resources of soft power is problematic, not because it differs from Joseph Nye's generally accepted identification but because of his understanding of culture/popular culture. While he shares the first two – political values and foreign policies – with Nye, Sun has reduced the third resource, “culture,” to “popular culture,” and where he does talk about culture he equates it with cuisine, fashion, movies and so on. This is an important difference because culture is of a more comprehensive nature, since it includes pop culture but is also “the pattern of social behaviors by which groups transmit knowledge and values, and it exists at multiple levels” (Nye, The Future of Power, Philadelphia, Public Affairs, 2011, p. 84). In other words, culture is a way of life. Sun's lack of justification for the replacement and his interchangeable use of culture and popular culture leads one to question his critique of scholars' preoccupation with popular culture.
Interestingly, Sun's understanding of culture corresponds with what the Chinese state (and some scholars) has taken it to be. However, it is reasonable to believe that China has chosen to rely on promoting what it understands to be culture when other resources, including culture with its proper meaning, can find little resonance.
Second, Sun's arguments are not always easy to follow. For instance, Sun argues that there is an implicit pro-democracy bias in the study of soft power. “That is, mainstream scholarship sees a democracy as logically a better candidate for promoting soft power as a consequence of the universal appeal of the values it embodies” (p. 7). By that, Sun seems to imply that authoritarian countries like China also have charm for countries of similar political natures, and that the world of different political systems therefore “simultaneously adores and abhors China's ascendency.” Sun gives examples to illustrate that China's efforts have had limited success with democracies (p. 149). However, although China remains a one-party state there are no examples to show that China has successfully achieved its goal of wooing a country with a similar political system.
Similarly, Sun states (p. 150) that the Chinese government has realized it has only a slim chance of making itself appealing to “the West,” and that therefore it has shown signs of abandoning its courting of the Western market. This would be more convincing if Sun provided examples. As it is, one is left wondering about the intended purpose of China's expensive one-minute promotional video on Times Square in New York in January 2011 and its 30-second promotional video in Times Square again in August 2012. One also wonders why the state-controlled Central China Television Station has set up a North America News Centre in Washington, DC in 2012 if it is abandoning the Western market.
Third, Sun argues that states are the only political organizations that can credibly claim legitimacy in speaking on behalf of the entire citizenry. This is a very bold argument, when the 21st century distinguishes itself by power diffusion from state to society, or, as Nye states, “the paradox of using public diplomacy to generate soft power in a global information age is that decentralization and diminished control may be central to the creation of soft power” (The Future of Power, p.109). In the analysis of China, as the government engineers the projection of soft power, the call to bring back the state is unnecessary.
Finally, Sun firmly believes that soft power is instrumental, self-interested, calculating and competitive: it is therefore wrong “to equate soft power with ‘nice’ power” as long as it serves national interests (p. 10). This differs with Nye again as Nye rightly argues that no one definition is accepted by all, and people's choice of definition reflects their interests and values. In this age of globalization, “it is not enough to think in terms of power over others. We must also think in terms of power to accomplish goals that involves power with others” (The Future of Power, xvii).
Sun sets out to narrow the gap “between how the concept ought to be read and how it has been read and executed in diplomacy” (p. 7), and students of international relations and Chinese studies will benefit from Sun's great knowledge about both China and Japan and their diplomatic efforts. However, he himself does not successfully avoid the confusion between what scholars should pay attention to in their analyses of a nation's wooing efforts and its soft power in reality, as charm offensive does not always translate into soft power.
