CHINA\'S PUSH FOR SOFT POWER RUNS UP AGAINST HARD ABSOLUTES

飞雪寒冰

If 2009 was China's year and the noughties were a decade when Beijing's rise seemed on permanent fast-forward, the past two weeks have been a setback for the country's global ambitions. The Copenhagen conference, a dissident sent to prison and an execution have raised again the question of whether China's political system is compatible with the international respect it craves.

For most of the past decade China conducted a quiet effort to revamp its global image. While the US was fighting two unpopular wars, Beijing expanded foreign aid, settled sensitive border conflicts in Asia and presented itself as unthreatening. Now it wants to go to the next level.

Over the summer, President Hu Jintao gave a speech in which he outlined “four strengths” that China needed to increase its power. As well as economic competitiveness and political influence, they included image projection and moral appeal. The message was clear: if China is to achieve great-power status, it needs the soft power that comes not from money or might but from being admired.

China's rebound last year from the financial crisis has rightly won praise and has led more people to sympathise with China's model of market economy and political authoritarianism.

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But Liu Xiaobo's 11-year jail sentence, announced on Christmas day, is a stark reminder of what authoritarian regimes actually do. His crimes were to help organise a pro-democracy petition and to write six articles that criticised the Communist party.

Since the execution last week of Akmail Shaikh – a Briton who smuggled heroin but who, according to his family, suffered from mental illness – Beijing has argued vehemently that he received the same treatment as a Chinese defendant. That might well be true, but it only reinforces the point that every week China executes more than 30 of its citizens after trials that enjoy minimal transparency.

In its own way the aftermath of the Copenhagen conference has also demonstrated the limitations of China's soft power.

Mark Lynas, a writer who had access to the negotiating sessions, says that China single-handedly blocked a broader deal, opposing a target of 50 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 and an 80 per cent reduction by developed countries. Wen Jiabao, the premier, was also criticised for sending a vice-minister in his place for a meeting with Barack Obama, the US president.

Given the perceived failure of Copenhagen, there was bound to be a monumental blame game. But what has been interesting is just how clumsy China's response to this attack has been.

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A few days later the Xinhua news agency published and circulated a 2,000-word article that was supposed to set the record straight. The story did not actually address any of the specific allegations about how China blocked the talks. But it did provide the helpful information that, en route to Copenhagen, Mr Wen announced: “Now I can feel how heavy my duty is to attend the meeting on behalf of the Chinese government.”

On the “mysterious” meeting with Mr Obama, the article contends that Mr Wen found out about it only at the last minute.

The article is significant because Xinhua is at the centre of one of China's soft-power strategies. The government has been discussing proposals to try to turn Xinhua and China Central Television into international competitors for CN* and the BBC in order to give Chinese views a higher profile. But for all the immense interest in China, there is no international audience for the brittle propaganda of articles entitled: “Endeavours to build global hope: Chinese premier's 60 hours in Copenhagen.”

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The Xinhua piece is part of a broader trend in the cultural sphere where China often competes for attention with one hand tied behind its back.

One Chinese academic argued last year that Chinese soft power would be more appealing than the west's because it would represent “openness and tolerance, friendliness and inclusiveness” and a general feeling of “peace and harmony”. Over the past two weeks, it has been anything but.

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