Nation Branding as Nation Building: China’s Image Campaign

Abstract

This paper illustrates the links between China's nation building exercises and its efforts to promote the country as a 'brand'. By using the examples of the Shanghai Expo, China's national image films and the revival of Confucius, I show how Chinese soft power is both inward and outward looking. Understanding this dual role of soft power is important in comprehending the underlying motivations behind China's attempts to create and manage its identity as orderly, prosperous and legitimate.

All the World’s a Stage: Promotional Politics and Branded Identities in Asia

“…Despite the laudable richness of critical research on nation branding, work on nation branding and image politics in the Asia-Pacific has been more limited. Most comparative work on promotional politics and nation branding in Asia has remained prescriptive (Anholt, 2008;Dinnie, 2012), but critical work on individual cases in Asia has recently emerged (Barr, 2011;Cho, 2017;Edwards & Ramamurthy, 2017;Fauve, 2015;Guevarra, 2014;Valaskivi, 2013;Schwak, 2016).…”

“…Finally, in democratic and non-democratic regimes in the region, nation branding and the necessities of image projection have served as powerful governance tools in that they recreate an apolitical version of national identity that serves both economic and political purposes. Nation branding "responds to domestic political aims, measures and processes as well" (Valaskivi, 2013, p. 4; see also Barr, 2011). In Korea, nation branding helped President Lee Myung-bak restore his legitimacy, threatened by the unpopular Four River Project and the signing of the highly controversial KORUS Free Trade Agreement (Schwak, 2016).…”

“…In Japan, nation branding was employed to cope with a national feeling of crisis after the 2011 Great Earthquake (Valaskivi, 2013). China has also used nation branding as a nation-building instrument (De Kloet, Pak, & Landsberger, 2011;Barr, 2011). In Kazakhstan, nation branding was used by President Nazarbayev to legitimise his authoritarian rule (Fauve, 2015).…”

Never the twain shall meet? Rethinking China's public diplomacy policy

“…In the latter event, the Chinese delegation consisted of more than 600 publishers and 57 leading writers, and more than 10,000 titles were exhibited (China Daily, 2012). Soft power was also an explicit objective in the organization of a number of mega-events, including the Olympic Games, the Shanghai World Expo, and the Asian Games (Barr, 2012;Cull, 2008).…”

“…Most visibly, Confucius has been adopted as an ambassador for the virtues of harmony, moral virtue, and wisdom, which China would like to be perceived as embodying. A range of educational institutions bears his name, and a high-profile feature film was made about this Figure (Barr, 2012). However, the power to define China's identity has been monopolized by the propaganda administration, which has created an essentialist, exceptionalist, and sometimes caricatured version of Chinese culture.…”