ASIAN POWERHOUSES
HARDENING POWER
China is struggling with an image problem. No one denies the Middle Kingdom is back, but version that is emerging is scaring many. China’s mass internment of millions of Muslims in Xinjiang is bad enough. But more Orwellian is Xi Jinping’s desire to infest every nook and cranny of Chinese society with the communist party.
Beijing has announced party control over reincarnation, plans socialist varieties of the Quran and Bible, and outlined a vision of a tech society in which every action of citizens is monitored, assessed and be rewarded or punished by an all-seeing state. Then there is its assumption that any person of Chinese origin, irrespective of what passport he holds, is still answerable to Beijing.
China has a lot of soft power, but it has such an increasingly hard edge that one has to really struggle to find the tender parts. The University of Southern California-Portland soft power index of 2019 ranked China at 27th, six points less than a somewhat smaller Singapore. The China Dream, Belt Road Initiative, Huawei and so on make banner headlines but largely evoke the negative rather than a desire for dim sum.
OLYMPIAN BET
Japan hosted its first Olympics in 1964 to showcase its postwar return, no longer an expansionist imperium but the land of bullet trains and trinitron TVs. It hosts the Olympics again in 2020 to showcase what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calls a “New Japan.” Abe has often spoken of Tokyo becoming a genuinely international city like, say, New York City with a large expatriate population, widespread English usage and an overall sense of a cosmopolitan centre. Hosting the Rugby World Cup last year and, next, the Olympics are part of that story as is the huge push for foreign tourists. It all flies against Japan’s rapidly ageing population and Abe’s talk of amending the pacifist constitution. Add on the resumption of commercial whaling, a nationalist impulse, and Japan has seen its USC-Portland Soft Power Index rating fall from fifth best in 2016 to ninth last year. The great Japanese ability to become the best in the world in any skill set that they decided is important remains an amazing asset, but its increasingly about whisky and manga rather than semiconductors and nuclear power. A new imperial era, Reiwa, underlined the country’s strong traditions and that Japan remains best-known as the land of polite elders. The Olympics will help, but Abe will need to pull more out of his hat.
KOREA STRUGGLES
That South Korea does a surprisingly low 19 on the USC-Portland Soft Power Index is a reminder of how its history has been about living under the shadow of its three large neighbours and, since 1950, under the threat of its dangerous twin. The year 2019 was much more about Pyongyang than Seoul with the eccentric summitry between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, the running bodyguards and similar memes. President Moon Jae-in has had to struggle with declining domestic ratings, Trump’s evident dislike of him simply because he looks nerdy, and a trade war with Japan that no one else in the world understands. Yet South Korea is among the most digitally advanced nations in the world and possesses among the most powerful brand names in the world. It may be the second nation to have its own 5G network and has a five-year plan for quantum computers. With a slowing economy and Pyongyang making noises about ballistic missiles launches, the only really good news for the country is that a new set of K-pop bands are on the horizon.