Book Review: Parama Sinha Palit. 2017. Analysing China’s Soft-Power Strategy and Comparative Indian Initiatives
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797017751708 |
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
Parama Sinha Palit. 2017. Analysing China’s Soft-Power Strategy and
Comparative Indian Initiatives. New Delhi, India: SAGE, 368 pp. ISBN:
978-93-860-6265-9
The rise of China has been the subject of numerous studies over the past couple of
decades but the rise of India has not attracted as much attention, perhaps because
India’s economic growth and military power are seen as less threatening or
because its democratic system and soft-power influence obscure its progressively
rising hard power. China, on the other hand, is seen by many as a ‘revisionist
power’ seeking to change the post-war international (or, at least, the regional)
order in its favour.
China was also believed by some scholars to have ‘negative soft power’ (Van
Ness, 2002, p.143). After all, they asked, who would be attracted to China’s social
and political system? But that is changing, partly because of China’s tremendous
economic success in lifting hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty and
its very significant trade and investment footprint across all continents. It is also
because the Chinese government has invested heavily in projecting a softer
image to the outside world while maintaining a tight grip on domestic politics
and society.
Parama Sinha Palit’s new book details the efforts of the Chinese government to
enhance its soft power using a variety of means. The primary objective of her
book is ‘to study China’s soft power strategy from the vantage point of vigorous
employment of soft power by a rising power in the modern times’ (p. 6 emphasis
in the original). As the title suggests, the book also seeks to compare similar initia-
tives by India, although this comparative dimension is a secondary focus of the
book. India’s soft-power strengths and strategies are mainly covered in a single
but substantive chapter towards the end of the book.
Organized into three parts, the book is a treasure trove of facts and figures on
China’s systematic efforts to cultivate and deploy soft-power tools to enhance its
international image. The first two chapters, in Part I of the book, deal with
conceptual issues and historical background. Part II takes up more than half of the
book as its six chapters delve into China’s soft-power promotion in various
regions of the world, from neighbouring South and Southeast Asia to far-flung
Latin America, the USA and Canada. The last three chapters concentrate on Indian
soft-power initiatives, Sino-Indian relations and a comparative conclusion.
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
5(1) 98–110
2018 SAGE Publications India
Private Limited
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2347797017751708
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aia
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