Worthwhile NYT series on China's global rise, and related thoughts on soft power

I just came across this series in the New York Times,** now running to three installments or more. Among the several points in the first installment, it echoes one thing that I've explored a bit in Chinese Company Law (focusing on laws governing Chinese corporations) - the fact that the "dominant shareholder in [most] major Chinese ... companies is the Chinese government." Corporate law in China, therefore, is structured to give more power to shareholders than to the board of directors, unlike American corporate law. This means that even as the Chinese economy opens up, the central government retains a high degree of control over the major corporate players. Australian politicians and citizens are increasingly sensitive to this point as Chinese companies bid on mineral-use rights.

I picked up the series today at the installment on the Frankfurt International Book Fair, dealing with China's struggles to increase its soft power to match the nation's expansion of economic and military (or "hard") power. I find this article particularly interesting, as I have long been intrigued by creation and use of soft power (I in fact wrote my senior undergraduate thesis on this topic). Soft power is defined generally as the ability of nations to persuade others by non-military means, often through the attractiveness of values, norms, and cultural institutions. If you are interested in soft power, see Joseph S. Nye, Jr.'s seminal Foreign Policy article on the subject here. The United States has historically had tremendous soft power, as the founding mythology of the country - based on freedom, equality, independence, etc. - was and is enormously appealing around the world. Cultural imports like Hollywood film, American musical idioms jazz, blues, R&B, etc., and professional sports have all helped to promote and spread the American Brand, to paraphrase Bono. I saw evidence of this effect in every day of my Peace Corps service, as my Americanness attached an automatic and unexpected glamour to my presence in the college community. People wanted to know all about America and Americans, and if many's view of American foreign policy was dim, they were invariably admiring of aspects of American culture and lifestyle.

Of course, the American image has been seriously and famously tarnished by various recent events, including the unilateral military action in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and torture, the obesity epidemic in America, and the global financial crisis precipitated on Wall Street. Nonetheless, American cultural appeal remains fairly strong and the election of President Barack Obama only helps US global image, as his recent Nobel Peace Prize clearly illustrates. China's efforts to burnish its brand abroad - to win the hearts and minds of the global populace, to become trusted and admired - shall be interesting to watch unfold, especially as its global-heavyweight-counterpart the US grapples with recession and various other domestic and international crises.

**I've linked to the first article in the series, on Chinese investments in Australian natural resources. The next, on a dispute between China and India over a Tibetan enclave, is here. I believe there is one more, accessible through the pages I've already indicated.