The Quad had its origins in efforts to deal collectively with the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, an effective use of soft power. Since then the Quad has grown haphazardly into a regional vehicle for the United States, Japan, India and Australia to make common cause against China.
Given the raucous bleating of the Trump administration, any suggestion in recent years that the Quad was an instrument of soft power would correctly have been met with derision.
Not so now. Although the paperwork emerging from the first Quad summit did not have the poetic verve suggested by the communiqué title, “the Spirit of the Quad”, the summit documentation was interesting in its emphases.
About a quarter of the communiqué was devoted to proposed regional efforts to deal with Covid 19. Equally important in practical terms, the three page White House media fact sheet devoted two pages to Covid issues and half a page each to Climate Change and Critical and Emerging Technology.
Make no mistake. The Quad is about China. But China was only mentioned elliptically in summit documents.
The main summit message was that the Quad countries would, on a meaningful scale, assist other regional countries to manage the biggest economic and health challenge of our times. It was not about how united we would be in resisting Chinese depredations.
This is intelligent politics.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will meet their Chinese counterparts in Alaska on 18 March. The Americans are doing the right thing by their allies by visiting Tokyo and Seoul first. But they have also avoided harsh Quad messages which might have compromised a first step towards a possible future dialogue with China.
More important in the longer term, through its assistance pledge to the region on Covid 19 and a genuflection in the communiqué to ASEAN centrality, the summit recognized that it is in Southeast Asia where the Quad must compete with China for hearts and minds.
This is where soft power re-emerges as a Quad policy vehicle.
The concept of soft Power, first promulgated a generation ago by the Harvard professor, Joseph Nye, as being the capacity “to persuade and influence without coercion” was widely accepted as a key component of the West’s victory over the Soviet empire.
The ingredients of soft power include governance, societal values, education , technology and wealth(when employed non-coercively). Because these ingredients are integral to national reputation they can achieve outcomes purely by example.(America will be more respected under Biden than Trump). However soft power qualities such as education and medical skill can also be deployed as policy tools.
Since the end of the Cold War, the validity of soft power theory has been questioned with the rise of authoritarianism, confused by a plethora of organizations using different criteria to measure soft power, and relegated by the views of Trump and his ilk in America and elsewhere that soft power is for sissies.
Biden seems to have come to a different conclusion –not that soft power alone will beget American strategic success -but that it is a necessary complement to hard power. Some have described the fusion of the two as “smart power.”
With erroneous judgment and regrettable timing, the Australian government concluded in October last year that following the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, a review process of soft power mandated by an earlier coalition government “should not continue as it was no longer as relevant to the significantly changed global environment”.
We must not get behind the game here. Biden understands the soft power concept. In the past few years, Japan has been skillful in deploying soft power in Southeast Asia and has emerged repeatedly in surveys in that sub-region as its most trusted external partner.
According to the same surveys, India enjoys no such trust. But in the particular context of the systems required to mass produce medication, remember this is a country that can organize and administer in a matter of weeks gatherings of literally tens of millions of pilgrims -and can repeatedly organize fair elections for its 1.4 billion population.
Having cut its external assistance roughly in half over the past few years, it is time for both strategic and humanitarian reasons for Australia to be generous again. It would, for example, be a pity if having taken up a reasonable share of the Quad’s Covid package for the region, we were to employ the legerdemain of redeploying existing assistance funding – thereby robbing Peter to pay Paul.
A version of this article also appeared in AsiaLink.
John McCarthy AO FAIIA is Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at Melbourne University, a senior adviser to Asialink, and a former ambassador and high commissioner to the United States and numerous Asian countries.
Comments
25 responses to “Can soft power contain China?”
The biggest problem with soft power is that it is difficult to accurately define and be described by data. It is usually roughly described as a vague vocabulary like’trust, closeness, and understanding’.
Therefore, it has become the best shield for an incompetent politician. It is also the best topic for international relations scholars to defraud funds.
The author is a complicit fool. The Anglo American oligarchical polity is criminal, war criminal in fact, violent, corrupt, bankrupt, replete with destitution and poverty, it’s health, aged care, and public transport abysmal, and yet the author asserts a moral rectitude…
Well done George! You ask a critical question of this author.
I posed a similar question to this gentleman following publication on P&I of his article “Beyond the Pandemic” (7 April, 2020), in which the following statement appears from him:
My response (in part) to this was:
Needless to say George, there was no response and realistically I did not expect one. Furthermore, every time I encounter words or phrases that have that aim in mind, there is never any explanation of what is meant. It is as if the very words used carry their own justification, and so no further explanation is necessary – a nice trick.
This is precisely the point on which you have focused George, so well done!
Even more interesting, when I returned to the previous article I noticed that my response was not present among the other comments. One can only hope that it had been removed by accident.
Julian, If your response was spot on and incisive, and your arguments caused the author to loose credibility, it is possible, I suspect, the author might have asked the JM editors to to have your comment deleted. Whatever the justification.
Thanks for your reply julianp
One of the things I learned when studying philosophy at university years ago was to analyse the semantics of words.
It is a wonderfully revealing exercise. Often we throw around words in a tokenistic way without ever questioning what they mean, and different individuals apply them with different interpretations. Some interesting other words are ones like ‘person’, ‘self’, ‘spiritual’, ‘love’, ‘soul’ and ‘freedom’. Very interesting to examine what they mean,and Socrates said “the unexamined life is not worth living”. So it was a privilege for me to learn this.
I guess that is the reason why “contain” as it is accepted, was a word that stood out in this article, and I added the synonyms to embellish a fuller sense of the semantics around such a word. ‘Contain’ turns out to be quite a nice euphemism in describing what it may mean. More extended sense synonyms like suppress, repress, stifle, subdue, gain control over, etc’, paint a much more sinister picture. Such words conjure up a meaning that sounds very much like what imperialist countries have characteristically done, and in the case of the US, continue to do.
I could only question then: why is it that the US think this is still OK ? It is the mark of a bully far worse than China.
The bottom line is Australia is geographically positioned in SE Asia and the sooner we place that in the foundations of our core future economic and foreign policy strategy, the better. It’s a bit like the Americans realizing they need to fix their problems at home to be strong enough to reach out but also to be respected. Regardless of what people think of ASEAN achievements since its inception, there is at least a common recognition of their places in the region and their capabilities. There is a reason they don’t take Australia seriously as a regional partner and friend. Trying to lead in the region by kowtowing to Donald Trump was not a good look. At least we have adults back in the US foreign policy room and leadership. Australia’s actions in what it does with its immediate neighbours will speak louder than words.
Can’t do, won’t do!
Australia plucked the previously unused phrase ‘Indo-Pacific’ from some book to replace the ‘Asia-Pacific’ (I think it was Foreign Minister Julie Bishop). Indo-Pacific sounds a lot better as we can then make Asians disappear from our Anglo ideological mindset. Ok, I may be stretching it a bit, but what was the motivation in changing the phrase, apart from a bit of fear & loathing? It is not as if India wasn’t part of Asia. You didn’t need to add ‘Indo’ to add India to the Asia-Pacific.
For now we are an integrated part of the US Military. Actually, a white colonial outpost, serving the interests of the USA. Australia can change, but only after the boss gives the ok!
Cheque book diplomacy (soft power) is a safer tool to use to influence nations without getting into wars. However, Chan’s rising economy means she has deep pockets and is also willing to give it away (with or without strings attached depending on your point view). Australia cannot compete because we do not have deep pockets. The US can compete but will have to cut her military expenditure to fund the cheque book diplomacy and she has no intention to do so at the moment. Of course, the devilish thing to do is to smash China’s economy with a war but that would invoke MADness.
Geez so many words saying so little. Here’s a simple question, can soft power feed, cloth and put a roof over your head? NO? Well F.ck off then. Soft power is more for the plebs to make them possibly more easily influenced. It needs backing from both economic power and military power, both of which are very lacking with Quad.
As for vaccine, NEXT YEAR? Better late than never but it might as well be never. Vaccines are very time sensitive, these things worth less and less as time goes on. The first doses will be remembered the most with the highest impact, promising vaccines next year is errr bit late. Plus the US explicitedly said this is to counter China.
Hang on, where’s their marketing people, this is all about HUMAN RIGHTS surely? Why spill the ulterior motive for all to see? *face palm*, basically cancels any soft power the Quad may have in the first place.
Why is it OK for any country to seek to “CONTAIN” any other country? As if that is a good thing?
The very nature of the statement is shocking.
They have not even defined what they intend, but it can only mean thwarting China’s economy and its rightful place in the world as a successful developing nation, or containing the country through military action. Why is this America’s right?
What has China done that is in any way worse than what the US has done? The US pervades the world with its military bases and has instigated many wars. It’s forced illegal wars and regime change on nations with millions dead. When did China do this? It has more often been the invaded not an invader. And with Tibet that was 72 years ago – why is it suddenly important now? Surely we can’t just keeping harping on about a few sand islands in the SCS that appear to be built as a first line of defence given the war games carried out by US and their allies in the region.
And if such words as “containment” are used openly now, the US denied the very fact of this for years. It was euphemised under Obama as “pivot to Asia”, what an wonderfully innocuous term that was.
Synonyms for contain:
restrain
curb
rein in
suppress
repress
stifle
subdue
quell
limit
swallow
bottle up
keep under control
keep back
hold in
keep in check
control
master
gain control over
gain mastery over
Apologies George. I meant to post my reply to you here. See now above or below.
I have now replied below too julianp, and thank you again for your comment.
“Having cut its external assistance roughly in half over the past few years, it is time for both strategic and humanitarian reasons for Australia to be generous again.”
That is never going to happen with the current government, they seek to do everything on the cheap after making big announcements they will never deliver on. They do they same thing over and over again, it’s behaviour with a purpose.
They have the social skills of sociopaths and have done nothing but ruin relations in our own neighbourhood, and especially with China where they and their sycophant media always lie to us by painting Australia as the victim. They are not going to be able to change, it is not in their blood.
Even after the last Quad meeting on the weekend, Australia only took on logistical support for the vaccines. They can’t even rollout vaccines on time in Australia so how will it be any different for the Pacific region? American and Japanese taxpayers pay, Johnson and Johnson make the corporate profits, and India gets the income from making the vaccine. Sweet. Not too sure about the altruism there.
As with everything else, our government is big on advertising, big on press statements, but lousy on delivery. Pork-barrel where you can, and give money to cronies and people that are already the wealthiest.
‘
Obstinate leopards with such a track record for nearly eight years do not change their spots.
Are we forgetting scale in this debate? The combined population of just Beijing and Shanghai, excluding the surrounding countryside and leaving out the rest of China, is 55/56 million. The population of all of Australia is 25 million. And we want to “contain” them? Dream on.
Another way of putting it is that there are 57 Chinese people in China for every Australian.
Old school foreign policy thinking that deceives the public with false arguments that the West is a force for good. Well of course we’re not going to tell the true story of the West’s motives. Containment and destruction via power disguised as soft power exposes the deception that is the true power
“Soft power” is not only about deceiving their own people in the West with Fake News, but about massively weaponising “Human Rights” as a major tool of modern American imperialism, ably supported by the CIA/NED/other NGOs, and MI6. Not forgetting, of course, the application of the ever-reliable ‘Divide & Rule’ principle.
A dozen Colour revolutions via massive infiltration of Western propaganda through assorted CIA-supported NGOs in Eastern Europe took NATO forces right to the border of Russia. Divide and Rule plus NATO bombing in Yugoslavia resulted in the Balkans war, and disaster for many folks. Ukraine was grabbed via the ‘Maidan’ using Ukrainian Nazis, with Victoria ‘F-the-EU’ Nuland boasting about spending $5billon on it. https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/14/ukraine-the-truth/
The initial genuine Arab Spring was quickly commandeered by Western and Israeli forces for their own Divide & Rule objectives, for which they were very successful indeed: https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/13/whatever-happened-to-the-arab-spring/
And now ‘soft power’ is also being applied to destabilise Russia with the targeted indoctrination of young Russians via social media, with tales of massive corruption of Putin. A bit like spreading Christianity, get them when they are still young and idealistic.
And with China, we all know about the 70 yearlong campaign to destabilise China. Starting with work by the CIA in 1950 in Tibet, including funding the Dalai Lama and his hangers-on right until today. Ditto Taiwan, Hong Kong, and of course Xinjiang (the last included facilitating the transit of terrorists through to Syria and vice versa). And what about awarding Nobel Peace prize to a Chinese dissident, and such like interference?
As for Burma/Myanmar, as a result of the coup (right or wrong) the switches have been turned on after years of indoctrination by the NED and other NGOs. https://www.ned.org/region/asia/burma-2020/ The CIA has successfully made “Human Rights” something that young people of the targeted countries become willing to sacrifice their lives for! They have applied ‘industry best practice’ to con idealistic human beings. Full marks for performance! But take note the CIA have strangely not afforded the oppressed people of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Bahrain the wonderful ideas of ‘Human Rights’!!
“Soft power” is not the right description. “Evil and nefarious” is a better description for what we are talking about. Or if you are religious, this is the work of the Devil himself!!
‘The concept of soft Power, first promulgated a generation ago by the Harvard professor, Joseph Nye, as being the capacity “to persuade and influence without coercion” .
I think you’ll find Sun Tzu pre-empted Joseph Nye by about two and a half thousand years. ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.’
I see the US is saying there won’t be progress in US-China relations unless China moderates its anti-Australia stance. Nice to have friends. I’ll be interested to see if they stand by it, because I can’t imagine China will receive this well.
Even the conservative AFR can see China has case:
“We targeted China before they targeted us”.
https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/we-targeted-them-before-they-targeted-us-20210202-p56ynr
But George, the Chinese don’t believe in talking snakes and virgin births so therefore they are evil! Evil must be exocised! *straps on some bombs* oh wait, only Muslims do that. Press the launch missile button!
Sir, as a person who was born in SEA; and who grew up and worked there, I think Quad has an almost impossible task of competing with China for the hearts and minds of SEAsians. It is too diverse a region to be thought of as a single group. Some are pro-US, others pro-China and the rest somewhere along a spectrum of allegiances. The differences between one and the other is a complex mix of religion, history, race, culture, politics and economics. To attempt purposefully to win their hearts and minds, Quad would have to understanding their hearts and minds which has to be dealt with individually, if at all possible.
“… the summit recognized that it is in Southeast Asia where the Quad must compete with China for hearts and minds.”
There is however, one factor that unites them and that is economic cooperation which ASEAN has amply demonstrated. Therefore, in economic terms, China has the advantage. Many are presently deeply “integrated” economically in a complementary way with China. Unless Quad members can buy their products in the way China can and sell them goods cheap enough for the average household or their small businesses to afford, they will not progress very far geopolitically in the region. Of the four members, Japan has the greatest clout; and is the most trusted as you rightly point out. This derives from the long history of business engagement that Japan has with the region. In the business world, they are known to be good for their words and are well trusted. In the end, it boils down to “What’s in it for me?”
The vaccine diplomacy that Quad intends as soft power will do much to soften their attitudes towards the US and Japan. They would, of course, enjoy the largesse when the vaccines are rolled out but it would be naive for the US to think that they would not ask themselves, “Why the sudden interest in me?” I believe that they are smart enough to know that a hard stand against China is not in their long term interest. China may not have their hearts, but they have their business minds.
I also think that the idea that the US always has to “compete” against China or anyone else, even in soft diplomacy is ridiculous. It’s not about competing, it is about working together and hearing what South East Asian countries actually want.
America still sees the world like a game of survival of the fittest. It’s all about winners and losers, not mutual cooperation for the benefit of all. And that is what we need more than ever given so many problems are now international in nature. There has always been another way. It is China that again sees that with its win-win intent, and help with development
It reminds me of the days before the war in Vietnam when US presence in the surrounding countries was only there to stop the “commies”. Had they listened to the people in these countries and helped them with a few needs like hospitals and schools instead of pushing for military strategies and building infrastructure to fight communists, then they might of won over the minds of the people. They didn’t even bother to learn the local languages so they could communicate. Instead the communists just offered these countries what they wanted and so easily won their confidence.
Do they ever learn?
George, I remember the late Singapore Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, saying (perhaps in the 70s) that the best way the West could prevent poorer countries in the region from falling to communism was to trade with them. Although I did not care much for his personality, I could give him credit for being a very brilliant politician, economic tactician and a very astute observer of international politics. Singapore’s success speaks for the type of leadership that he initiated. Today, China is doing exactly what Lee prescribed. The irony is that China is communist turned capitalist. It is helping a whole range of government types in the region to get out of poverty through mutually beneficial trade and investments; and with that comes technology that is affordable. A basic Huawei is about a tenth of the price of an I-phone.
I completely agree Teow Loon Ti.
In many ways the recipe of capitalism mixed with socialism is an an honest attempt at fairer governance. China is working through this model and understands very well what is needed for developing nations – it is a successful exemplar itself.
We play this out in democracy too, in that capitalism always needs moderation because of greed, predatory capitalist behavior, and the tendency for exploitation. Unfortunately some don’t think both sides of the equation are needed. History proves otherwise.
Right wing politics always believes that some should be vastly more entitled than others, and often importance is only based on how much money you have. There is no recipe for happiness there.
I look forward to fairer models of governance and stability that give everyone a chance on this Earth to live with greater equality, and the cultivation of much better understanding between different cultures.
There is much wisdom in Asia, we can learn a lot if we are open to it.
Always good to share thoughts with you.