刘康:How to Build up China's Soft Power
Soft power, the ability of a nation to achieve its goals without resorting to coercion or payment, is now brought to the fore in China's efforts to burnish its image overseas. Boosting China's soft power entails different dimensions. To disseminate Chinese culture around the world is an important arrow in China's soft power quiver. The Chinese culture, manifested in the forms of Chinese traditional values, folk arts, Chinese movies, soap operas and so on, may work wonders in bridging the gap in ways of thinking between China and the West and consequently dissipating misunderstandings and expanding scope of cooperation. But an important issue here is how to extract the true essence of Chinese culture and present it in a way that is acceptable to the Western eye and ear.