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.

So how can China better use the influence of its culture to boost its soft power? And from a Westerner's perspective, what are the better ways of introducing the Chinese culture to them?

Ni hao, you're listening to People In the Know , bringing you insights into the headline news in China and around the world, I'm Zheng Chenguang in Beijing. In this edition of the program, we are discussing how to boost China's Soft Power through dissemination of its culture. 

We talk to   Prof. Liu Kang, Dean of the Institute of Arts and Humanities at Shanghai Jiaotong University, and also Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies and Director of Program in Chinese Media and Communication Studies of Duke University and Gary D. Rawnsley, Professor of International Communications Institute of Communications Studies University of Leeds.

LIU Kang, Director
Duke China Research Center
Professor
Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Duke University

 摘自《中国国际广播电台》：http://english.cri.cn/7146/2011/12/31/1942s674081.htm