ABSTRACT
In recent years, the concept ‘soft power’ (ruan shili) has frequently appeared in Chinese media, policy and academic circles. With the rise of China, more and more people inside and outside China are paying increasing attention to Chinese soft power, although they may have different understandings of the concept. Since the beginning of this century, Beijing’s soft power in international relations has been emerging. How China exerts its soft power, or how Chinese soft power is manifested, becomes an important question for the scholarly community. In explaining Chinese soft power, another fundamental and critical question needs to be addressed: what kind of theoretical perspective or thinking is appropriate to be adopted in analysing soft power in international politics? So far, most Chinese academic discussion on soft power has been based on the popular concept of soft power developed by Joseph S. Nye. Scholars tend to accept the concept without any doubt. In fact, whether this concept is analytically useful or persuasive is a key issue worth examining.
