The Liu Xiaobo case confirms that soft power does not reside in cultural voices: it does not matter to China’s soft power how many versions of CGTN are broadcasting across the world, or how many Confucius Institutes are teaching Mandarin.
Soft power derives from the way governments behave at home and abroad, how they treat their citizens, the most vulnerable in society, the levels of accountability and transparency in the political system, the inclusiveness of the political culture, which countries we regard as our allies.
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