Confronting China's charm offensive in East Asia: A simple case of fighting fire with fire?

• Main Author: De Castro, Renato Cruz
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2009
• Subjects: United States > Foreign relations > East Asia; East Asia > Foreign relations > United States; United States > Foreign relations > China; China > Foreign relations > United States; International Relations
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/2607
• Institution: De La Salle University

This article examines the United States' response to China's charm offensive in East Asia, particularly the latter's use of soft-power diplomacy to erode Washington's strategic preponderance and its ability to respond to a crisis in the Taiwan Strait and other hot spots in the region. In such a situation, U.S. analysts, diplomats, and policymakers have become apprehensive that the United States is losing in the soft-power competition with China. Accordingly, they clamor for increased U.S. funding for public diplomacy and official development assistance (ODA). This article, however, raises the question whether overemphasis on U.S. soft power will rectify the imbalance of influence between the two powers. In conclusion, it argues that the apparent disparity is the result of the general asymmetry in the two countries' power relations and that what is consequential is not the amount earmarked for ODA and public diplomacy spending, but the United States' prudent use of its co-optive capability in the face of China's growing political and economic clout in East Asia. This entails applying U.S. soft power not only to constrain China's charm offensive, but also to form and strengthen an association of liberal-democratic states in East Asia. © Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan (ROC).