At a time when the rest of the world marvels at - or perhaps dreads - China's rise, Beijing perceives a serious weakness in its own armor: the lack of soft power. For all its economic woes, the West still possesses ample soft power as evidenced by its cultural domination. Behind China's worries also lurk fears about regime stability.
"The overall strength of Chinese culture and its international influence is not commensurate with China's international status," President Hu Jintao wrote in a January article. "The international culture of the West is strong while we are weak."
China is taking this cultural war seriously, on both domestic and international fronts. Beginning January 1, two-thirds of entertainment programs on China's 34 satellite channels, including game shows, dating shows and celebrity talk shows, were deemed "vulgar" and cut, making way for programs that "promote traditional virtues and socialist core values."
Externally, China has set up more than 300 Confucius Institutes and more than 350 classrooms in 96 nations, many linked with universities, to teach Chinese language and culture. In 2010, China produced a promotional film, featuring such celebrities as basketball star Yao Ming and Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-shing, to polish its image.
China is spending billions to extend its reach to all corners of the world, primarily through the state-controlled Xinhua news agency - and its CNC World television news network since 2010 - as well as China Central Television (CCTV), which started broadcasting from its Washington hub this week.
China's approach only highlights the contradiction. Soft power almost by definition results from civil society. American culture, for example, is reflected by such products as Hollywood movies, Coca-Cola and blue jeans, none of which are government creations. The Chinese government is trying to create soft power while repressing major segments of civil society.
Moreover, China is out of sync with much of the rest of the world. It rejects the universal values of the West, such as democracy and human rights, but has nothing to replace them with other than appeal to traditional Confucian values.
The Communist party in October issued a lengthy document on deepening cultural structural reform and acknowledged the need to "move forward the construction of a socialist core value system." However, aside from slogans like "the spirit of rejuvenating the country" and "socialism with Chinese characteristics," it offered nothing concrete.
China's reputation for heavy-handed censorship is likely to hamper the growth of its overseas media organizations since few audiences tolerate propaganda.
Viewers of an official Chinese channel will want to know whether its journalists cover Chinese developments - politically sensitive ones - objectively or whether they must toe the party line. Will CCTV or Xinhua report on the arrests, trials and disappearances of human rights activists? Will they comment on the case of lawyer Gao Zhisheng, sent to prison in Xinjiang for allegedly violating the terms of his parole, apparently while detained by security personnel for the last 20 months?
Such cases of the use of brute power give China a bad image overseas, and without changing its behavior, there is little likelihood that Beijing can enhance its soft power.
