China’s dramatic surge in power over the last 50 years has drawn no shortage of commentary. As its international footprint grew, Chinese leaders sought to assuage fears of those distressed by an emergent China through an extensive public relations effort with the concept of soft power, or the use of attraction and co-option instead of coercion, at its forefront. China’s soft power cultivation aimed to downplay its human rights record, handling of sensitive subjects, and militant saber rattling, and as memories of Tiananmen and Tibet drifted into the back of the West’s recent memory, the strategy appeared successful. But since General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping’s ascension to the position of paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China in 2012, the Chinese soft power offensive must smooth over a much more complex and aggressive China. Assessments from around the world have poured in, addressing Xi’s international posture. His soft power efforts to include his signature One Belt One Road infrastructure project, increased humanitarian aid, and expanded United Nations contributions have been evaluated by detractors, proponents, and onlookers alike.

However, most ignore several crucial facets of China’s soft power and view it on less than objective terms. Too often do writers approach the People’s Republic as a villain to be overcome or a charity case held down by the international community. Such attitudes obscure the reality of China’s precarious international position and can lead to misguided conclusions regardless of one’s ultimate aims. In its infancy, China’s soft power programs claimed that much of the apprehension about China’s rise was simply a byproduct of ignorance about China itself. And perhaps they were right. No matter one’s opinion or agenda on the matter, determining an accurate picture and comprehensive understanding of China is imperative to achieving any desired policy end state, even an adversarial one. Therefore, this book will look at Chinese soft power with a critical, but impartial eye and ask fundamental questions about it that have frequently gone overlooked: How does China define soft power? How does it apply and cultivate it? What does China seek to achieve through soft power? Why?

Many esteemed authors have tackled and answered these questions in depth, but as with all things, the Chinese soft power situation is neither immutable nor monolithic. Xi Jinping’s presidency has fundamentally shaken many of the foundations upon which contemporary China was built. Not since Mao Zedong has the nation witnessed such a forceful personality at its helm. He has redefined the Party, the Chinese nation, and their approach to the outside world, challenging the ambivalence of his predecessors and charting a decisive new course for modern China in the international community. It should come as no surprise that, given these bold changes, soft power implications for Chinese diplomacy abound. At a time when China’s influence on the world is ever expanding and public opinion on China is shifting, understanding Chinese soft power has never been more essential than it is today. It is therefore in the spirit of updating these questions for today that we explore how President Xi’s administration has affected the trend of China’s soft power endeavors. The Dragon’s Silver Tongue aims to fill the knowledge gap in how Xi’s contradictory approach to soft power has performed in achieving its specific goals and how it fits into the larger conception of soft power. Though they represent but a few of the potential lines of inquiry that present themselves when delving into the soft power implications of Xi Jinping, this book will the following topics and how they relate to soft power - China’s unique view of soft power itself, the Confucius Institute Project, Cross-Strait relations, China’s relationship with the Global South, and the Chinese Western Interior. We will broach this with an introduction giving a brief history of China’s foreign relations to provide some background and context.