The rising 'Soft Power' of China and India
I know this is OLD article but that is even more reason to talk
on the subject now when India and China are even stronger than 5 years ago.
Business World: May 30, 2005
When Lana Makhanik, a yuppie Russian immigrant to the US, saw the film Monsoon Wedding, she was ecstatic. "The colour, the vibrancy, the joy and fun of it all... makes me want to be an Indian," she gushed.
Time was when the Indians and the Chinese were scoffed at for trying to ape the Americans. But suddenly, global audiences are relishing the burst of creativity that is coming out of China and India. This burst is turning the two nations, which were once exclusive importers of pop culture, into exporters. DVD versions of Hindi movies like Mani Ratnam's Dil Se and Chinese movies like Zhang Yimou's Hero are dazzling global audiences. Many teenage girls have taken to wearing the bindi, while boys are tattooing themselves with Chinese characters they cannot read. Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has become the highest grossing non-English film of all time, making about $170 million at the box office.
Chinese and Indian artists are also winning acclaim in more rarefied fields. In 2000, Paris-based Chinese novelist Gao Xingjian bagged China's first Nobel Prize in literature. A year later, the award went to a member of the Indian diaspora, V.S. Naipaul.
As culture czars and consumers celebrate the dramatic re-entry of India and China into popular imagination, they are also unwittingly driving another dynamic. Joseph Nye, professor of international studies at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, calls it "soft power".
In his book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, Nye describes soft power as the influence and attractiveness a nation acquires when others are drawn to its culture and ideas. It is basically a nation's "ability to achieve desired outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion", he says.
What is soft power?
It was Joseph S. Nye, Jr., former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, who coined the phrase a decade and a half back. What started as an idea in his 1990 book, Bound To Lead, culminated in the publication of Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics in 2004. Soft power, according to Nye, is the ability to attract and persuade rather than coerce. It stems from the attractiveness of a nation's culture, ideals and policies. In contrast, hard power grows out of a nation's military or economic might. The former chairman of the US National Intelligence Council has been severely critical of the US's "appalling underinvestment" in public diplomacy in recent times.
Until recently, soft power was largely a US monopoly. Washington wielded its soft power as astutely, and some say even more effectively, as its hard or - military and financial - might. Believers in Nye's theory say the Cold War was won as much by Voice of America, Motown and Hollywood as it was by Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' programme.
"When I was a foreign correspondent in Moscow in the 1990s, I met many Russians whose first - and enduring - impression of America had been formed by hearing Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong," Fred Kaplan, formerly of The Boston Globe, recently wrote in Slate magazine. The music "conveyed a potent, appealing image of American freedom and (somewhat misleading) racial equality" that the Soviets just couldn't compete with.
As emblems of the US, Armstrong and brands like Disney, Levi's, Coca-Cola and McDonald's presented the Soviets, and indeed the world, with a nation that was easy to love. Recognising this, the US government was not content to let the American way of life diffuse naturally. It, therefore, ran its own soft power initiatives through the euphemistically-titled Department of Public Diplomacy. Using tools such as the United States Information Service, Voice of America and Radio Free Asia broadcasts to market the US's universal ideals of free people and free markets, it made people all over the world want to be like Americans, even if their leaders told them differently.
Now, as India and China are acquiring their own soft power, they are turning the tables. Last month, even as the US National Security Council, the country's apex intelligence body, was warning its citizens that the growth and power aspirations of the two Asian countries posed serious threats, people in Washington D.C. were queuing up to attend a film festival titled 'From Beijing to Bollywood'.
"What's interesting is that China and India are now shaping their own image," said Steve Noerper, associate professor of Asian Studies at American University in Washington D.C.
For decades, it was the US government's political view of nations that defined how its citizens perceived them. During the Cold War, any mention of India or China conjured up images of underclothed, underfed and overpopulated nations preaching socialist dogma and political revolution. To a post-war consumerist western world, it seemed disconnected. During the heady days of the 1960s, when it was hip to be anti-establishment, both India and China enjoyed a brief ascent in cultural imagination. But within a few years, Nehru jackets and the Little Red Book (of Mao's sayings) were passé.
Apart from the flower power movement's own implosion in the 1970s, the reason for cultural regression in India and China was that their socialist utopias, aimed at offering the world an alternative to US capitalism, failed. The ensuing political turmoil and economic stagnation - the Maoist years in China and pre-reform years in India - led to a creative drought. Censorship and lingering colonial cultural impositions, too, stifled creativity at home. But as both India and China have opened up their markets and minds, a new generation of artists are taking their work to new levels of sophistication.
"Today's [Asian] artists have a world view," says Ha Jin, the China-born award-winning author of Waiting, which Hollywood producer Andre Morgan of Enter the Dragon and Million Dollar Baby fame is turning into a film. "For instance, the idea of identity was alien to the Chinese language - there was even no word for it. But now, Chinese artists are exploring identity in ways that are so universal."
"Our own voices are now coming through to the world," says Chinese director Gu Changwei, whose film Peacock, a moving tale about life during the Cultural Revolution, won the Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival this year. "For too long, we could not fully express things we felt. Now we want to show the world what China really is... What makes me happy is that people want to hear, understand and connect with us."
Cultural catharsis of this nature is also influencing aspects of the US's own culture, says Eileen Chow, associate professor of East Asian studies at Harvard University.
In the field of music too, Chinese and Indian pop stars such as Nitin Sawhney are inspiring western bands to interlace guitar riffs with Asian melodies and instruments. The effusive dance numbers of choreographer Farah Khan and composer A.R. Rahman, created for Bombay Dreams, are seducing Broadway and Hollywood. Morgan has hired Khan to choreograph his latest US-China production, Perhaps Love, a musical set in Shanghai.
While Hollywood has inspired many Asian movies, directors such as Martin Scorsese are now remaking films like Andrew Lau's Internal Affairs and Rajkumar Hirani's Munnabhai MBBS. Books like Suketu Mehta's Maximum City and Gish Jen's Typical American are taught at universities across the world.
Lu Ann Walthers, senior editor at Pantheon Books that publishes Chinese and Indian authors, says globalisation and falling ethnic prejudice are exposing western audiences to the world. And many are intrigued by what they see.
"In the past, one could read excellent American books and never get any picture of the outside world," says Walthers. "[Now] the outside world is thrust into America's consciousness. Americans are puzzled by its complexities and are reaching for works that help explain them."
Meera Nair, the India-born author whose book, Video, was published by Pantheon, says the work was intended to be "an exploration of what happens when the West intrudes into the East. But what I have come to realise is that when Americans read a book written by an Indian about how Indians see America, it changes their view of both cultures. So a book about the intrusion of American culture into India itself becomes an intrusion of Indian culture into America".
Slick and successful Chinese films like Kung Fu Hustle and Hero and awardwinning littérateurs like Gao Xinjian have left lasting impressions on western minds. The US capital recently hosted a film festival titled ‘From Beijing to Bollywood’.
Artistically, this is heady stuff. Even before globalisation, art and culture had always sought to achieve a universalism of expression. So one would expect nations to cheer this cultural mingling. But the surge in Asia's soft power has powerful commercial and geopolitical undercurrents.
Artists in the two countries also want world-class budgets and returns, which the local market just cannot offer. Last year, Ke Ke Xi Li, a film about life and death in Tibet directed by Lu Chuan, won the Golden Horse award at the Taiwan Film Festival and created box office history in China. It grossed over 5 million renminbis ($606,000). But that is only half the 10 million renminbis ($1.2 million) the film cost. It was the 6.4 million renminbis ($780,000) the film made internationally that allowed it to return a profit.
Western distributors are also finding that Asian films serve to excite viewers. "The American public is really interested in experiencing Asia," Michael Barker, co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, said recently. "Distributors need to understand the Asian communities better and market them."
The West is lapping up films like Bend It Like Beckham and Bride & Prejudice, and musicians like Nitin Sawhney.
The push by Chinese and Indian producers to get into international markets also promises to revitalise distribution and production set-ups. Many are already rolling out the red carpet for them. "We can both be of great help to each other," said Mark Warner, governor of Virginia, while announcing an incentive to attract Indian productions to his state.
Working with foreign studios and distributors also brings professionalism to Asia's otherwise famously erratic filmmakers, who are often forced to depend on the local mafia and wealthy dilettantes for funds. With the number of corporate film studios like Zee TV and UTV growing in both China and India, it is also conceivable that foreign studios will set up local operations in the two countries. Barker says that would be a logical progression, with considerable opportunities for local film industries. Already, foreign television and film producers such as News Corp., Viacom, Warner Bros and Sony Pictures have signed joint ventures with China Central TV and the state-owned China Film Group, the country's biggest film producer.
But the most significant ripple effect of Asia's soft power is how it's altering the 'country of origin' problem. When Titan Watches first entered the international market, it branded its product as 'the world watch', partly to disguise its origins. The company knew that many customers just wouldn't accept a high-end watch made in India. Today, the made in China or India mark is not barring brands from creeping up the value chain (See 'Enter The Chinese Brands', BW, 7 June 2004).
Significantly for both, the political advantages of taking their culture global are as alluring as the economic ones. "When a country gets very popular with the American public, it gets somewhat harder for Washington to follow a hard line against them," says Nye. "We live in an information world and information depends on its credibility... Countries that are more credible are more likely to be believed."
That is encouraging for both China and India, who want US support in their standoffs with Taiwan and Pakistan, respectively, to pursue their own public diplomacy. The two are spending millions of dollars on overseas public relations. Analysts say Chinese and Indian consular officials have been instructed to work hard at promoting cultural exports, and on image campaigns.
India's use of soft power as a foreign policy tool was visible in Afghanistan after the Taliban fell. The then foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, was one of the first dignitaries to fly into Kabul. But unlike other visitors, Singh, who was eager for India to replace Pakistan as the neighbour of influence, packed his plane not with supplies of food or medicines, but with tapes of Hindi movies and music that were quickly distributed.
China, on the other hand, has been less savvy than India. Much of the soft power that could accrue to China is diluted because the government squelches acclaimed works it sees as subversive. Chen Kaige's film Yellow Earth is an example.
"No other country in the world today spends as much money and manpower as China does just to create an image," says Li Kun, associate professor and chair of the department of communications, School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University. Beijing's greatest PR project is clearly the 2008 Olympics - a chance to show what China can do.
To many people, Coke, Britney, McDonald’s and Mickey Mouse are icons that represent Brand America.
Projecting this can-do image is critical for China and India to retain credibility with global investors who have pumped almost $1 trillion into the two countries. The truth is, "most CEOs follow the buzz", says an investment banker in Hong Kong. "China and India need about $1 trillion in investments over the next decade and people aren't going to want to put their money into problem places."
On the flip side, human rights groups and others complain that official and corporate interest in managing the media is hampering them from performing their watchdog role effectively. While the media in China is overtly suppressed, in India too, bearers of bad news are often seen as downers raining on Corporate India's carefully choreographed parade.
"We are sick of stories about caste and corruption and all that," says Sailesh Vadra, a cloth trader in New Delhi. "Our media should not bring us down... it should motivate us."
Critics of public diplomacy also complain that the two governments are eroding the fine line that separates propaganda and soft power. This is nothing new - Hitler used the Olympics to showcase a new Germany in 1936 and the Allies made imaginative propaganda films like Casablanca during wartime. But artists and writers such as Ha Jin say the process of using art for politics is "a kind of violation".
A bigger question hanging over the West's romance with Asian cultures is its sustainability. The novelty factor is still a major driving force behind western interest. But it is unclear if Chinese and Indian artists will be able to enter the general consciousness in a meaningful way. Significantly, if Asian artists try too hard to connect with foreign audiences they might find themselves losing home audience.
"Over the last 10 years, many Chinese movies are winning at international festivals but aren't doing well in China. It makes people ask if they are real reflections of Chinese life, or if they were made to appeal to western tastes," says professor Li.
Even if our cultures achieve universalism of expression, that's not all that will count. Ultimately, success will depend on how a cultural product feels, looks, sounds and performs.
"China's soft power comes a lot from its economic success - the impact development has had on our peoples' lives," says professor Li. "But in terms of overall image in the world, I'm not sure China's image is that positive. All the work the government does is destroyed every time they do something stupid. For example, one large protest by a Tibetan group could overshadow the Olympics."
In India, too, it takes just a landing at one of our decrepit airports for people to seriously reconsider any glossy image they may have had of the country. More significantly, the disregard the government and the social elite have for serious national issues becomes apparent even to those who know little.
Increasingly, this principle is true for the US as well. A recent Rand Corporation report on soft power says: "Misunderstanding of American values is not the principal source of anti-Americanism. Sometimes foreigners understand us just fine. They simply don't like what they see. Some US policies have been, are, and will continue to be major sources of anti-Americanism." (For more on this point, see 'Postcard From America' on page 31.)
Still, evidence suggests that this is only motivating China, India and the US to work harder at public diplomacy. Like consumer marketers competing for a slice of public mindshare, all three nations are vying to win hearts and minds. Superficially, this may not seem bad. The battle for minds may be insidious, but at least it is not gory.
Yet, as the US founding fathers warned, good judgement of citizens is essential for freedom. As public perceptions are increasingly manipulated, there is a risk of misjudging what is real and what is artificial - in the process, making citizens less aware of how life, politics and business are actually playing out on the global stage.