"If you wanna know what China's gonna do..."

Watch the following video. Go on, I'll wait. It may be the greatest, most beautiful example of modern soft power propaganda you will ever get the incredible privilege to see in your life.

If you're one of those ingrates who doesn't watch videos online after being told to, this is a music video, in English, about the next Chinese Five-Year-Plan (a gigantic planning document released every five years detailing major programs and national strategies for the next planning period). The narration is clearly done by Americans, and the animation is a perfect example of early-2000s JibJab video style. And the theme is just so damn catchy. It is made by a mysterious film studio (full-ish story here) that has been difficult to pin down, but is clearly supported by the Chinese government, seeing as their videos are often reposted by Xinhua or Chinese ministries on social media.

In recent years, China has greatly increased its efforts in promoting a kind of soft power diplomacy and propaganda to better its image in the world, to an almost obsessive point. On the topic, Xi Jinping has been quoted as saying, “China should be portrayed as a civilized country featuring a rich history, ethnic unity and cultural diversity, and as an oriental power with good government, developed economy, cultural prosperity, national unity and beautiful mountains and rivers." Olympic Games, study abroad programs (I won't deny my program probably contributes to this effort, even if it isn't explicitly part of this planning), and Chinese language courses are of course a major component of these goals, but occasionally the people in charge seem to take little tumbles off the deep end, and some of those even might end up working at our dear mysterious friend, the Fuxing Road Studios. 

So far, I personally doubt China's more esoteric soft power efforts on the cultural arena have been all that successful. Historically, a lot of Chinese communication trying to project a friendly, positive image to the West has failed as a result of misunderstandings in how to reach Western audiences. Giving out free copies of China Daily at every street corner in DC is probably going to have a negligible impact on American perceptions, when the refutation of its sanitized stories is readily available on every other news source the reader has access to (and when the Epoch Times, the Falun Gong newspaper, is also distributed for free in stands usually directly adjacent to the China Daily ones). And of course, Western audiences will see these kinds of videos more as a joke than as a bringer of epiphanies about the inner workings of China. We've been trained (among other things, by history) to see overtly cheery government-produced videos as likely dishonest, and seeing these videos come out of China likely only reinforces Western popular views on the untrustworthiness of the Chinese government. 

In the end though, it is probably easy to overstate the importance of these videos to the Chinese government. A few investments in the tens of thousands of RMB into a Western-oriented propaganda video pales in comparisons to the real heavyweights of Chinese soft diplomacy in education and development support. The many thousands of scholarships given to students in developing countries to study at major Chinese universities or the $49 billion in aid given to African countries, for example (including major financial help with the new African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa), show where the bulk of these efforts are concentrated. In the end, stories of Chinese mistreatment of local laws and workers aside, this is the kind of soft diplomacy that is likely to have a long-term effect on international views on China. The obvious parallel of course would be American investment in postwar Europe as part of the Marshall Plan and the sheer number of international students studying at American universities, both of which undoubtedly have had a positive effect on America's moral standing in the world. 

It will definitely be interesting to track the further development of the Chinese soft power approach, especially since it seems to be the best strategic fit with recent broader Chinese development strategies (i.e. the "Peaceful Development Doctrine") and is appealing to a country with large geopolitical ambitions that doesn't yet have the economic or military strength alone to give it the place in the world order that it wants (especially considering that soft power is notoriously ephemeral). 

I will leave you with another beautiful example of modern Chinese video propaganda, this one produced by the People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, in which international students studying in China wax poetically on how they want their future husbands to be like Xi Jinping:

(Also go back to the QZ article in the first link above for more Fuxing Road Studios propaganda masterpieces. The one on how China chooses its president is also great, if mainly for the animation of Obama punching Mitt Romney in the face to win the White House)