Reimagining Soft Power In Changing World Order

A village in Rukum in Western Nepal, 700 kilometers away from the capital Kathmandu, the bastion of the ten-year insurgency between 1996 and 2006 is gaining popularity with several spots to make Tiktok videos. A young 19 year old had just finished getting a dance video recorded and the bunch of friends were eagerly playing that video repeatedly. I asked them, what do they know about Tiktok and the internet world. They told me, China has helped to connect the world by inventing Tiktok and also inventing smartphones that are sold for cheap. In my conversations, I could gather that in their opinion, China is the leading power in technology. This is now China’s soft power. I go back and think of the days when I was 19 in the late eighties and thought the world was all about US and Europe, dominating music, movies and media. Restaurants are now designed to make it Instagram and Snapchat friendly, tourist spots are all about having selfie-points and places to make good videos, Music is about getting on Spotify or other platforms and have music videos that cross millions of views. In this new context the definition of soft power has undergone transformation and so have the countries that wield soft power. 

In New Delhi, young people crowd at Korean concerts and in New York, the Korean quarters with Korean food has grown from few outlets to taking over streets. K-Pop has following across the world and Netflix has chosen Korean productions next to Hollywood for investments. South Korea effectively leverages the “Hallyu” (Korean Wave) phenomenon as a form of soft power to enhance its global influence and reputation. Thailand has done the same with food. Thaksin Shinawatra in his tenure between 2001 to 2006, leveraged ‘gastrodiplomacy’, where he pushed the concept of every city in the world to have Thai restaurants and every kitchen in the world to cook Thai meals. This pushed tourism and now Bangkok is the most visited city in the world with 32.5 million tourists visiting a country of 72 million. 

In the post-World War world, the English language was an instrument of soft-power. Former British colonies like India or Malaysia in Asia or Kenya in Africa leveraged the language for global prominence. In the 1990s with the advent of computers and later the internet, English became the dominating language in the world. In Southasia, a billion people who had to learn computers had to learn to type in English or learn coding or write programs using English language. With the availability of multiple languages on devices, free translation facilities, voice commands and other tools the usage of English has been on the wane. With China emerging as a new dominant global player using its own language has ensured a large number of people not really requiring revering the English language as they did when taxi drivers in Beijing were asked to learn the language as Beijing hosted Olympics in 2008. There are more native language writers in Southasia writing in their own languages and going on to win global literary awards. English does not command the soft power as it did in the last century. 

Soft power is also transformational rather than being transactional. This is understood well by countries who would like to spread their food, art, culture, cinema, literature and tourism attractions. The transactional nature of geo-politics will impact how soft power is perceived. China is using ancient civilization as a tool to push the agenda around global importance, another way of projecting one’s soft power. Countries like Saudi Arabia and India are also going back into history to build a narrative around strengthening its soft power. Saudi Arabia is also using sports and entertainment as a way to exercise soft power hosting global events. This is a new way of asserting transformational soft power.  

Countries need not be big to wield soft power. Russia despite being a large country has lost its soft power after the dismantling of USSR. The way US leadership is getting to transactional relationship, need to learn from what went wrong with Russia. There is Switzerland that continues to wield its soft power despite being a small state. Singapore and UAE have done the same through becoming financial centers and providing credible platforms for investors and businesses. 

For Nepal, a country of 30 million people between two countries China and India of 1.4 billion each has been able to leverage its buffer state position as both giant neighbors do not have to make the military spending on guarding the borders. Belgium as a buffer state in Europe has been able to house the European Parliament and other EU offices. A buffer state can also be a soft power that countries like Nepal should learn to leverage. In a world where geo-political shifts are taking place, technology is disrupting human lives and people are moving like never before, the way we look at soft-power needs reimagination.