Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 5, 2023

 

Theoretical Innovation of Chinese Cultural Soft Power: An Analysis of Joseph Nye’s Idea of “Soft Power”

(Abstract)

 

Zhang Guozuo

 

Joseph Nye’s concept of “soft power” has a profound political and academic background. Although he made some theoretical contributions to the idea of soft power, his real purpose was to serve American political and national interests. Due to the limitations of his political stance and way of thinking, his idea of soft power was quite biased. The study of cultural soft power in Chinese academia, based on Chinese conditions and with Chinese characteristics, has shaped a theoretical system comprising “eight pairs of categories” and “sixteen problem areas.” This has realized theoretical innovations in terms of strategic positioning and objectives and of cultural roles, systemic logic, breadth and depth of understanding, and reconstruction of connotations, thus transcending the boundaries of Western soft power thinking and proposing a series of theoretical countermeasures to further enhance China’s cultural soft power.