Soft Power in East Asia

Transcript

MARSHALL BOUTON: On the one hand the kind of big headline as you may have seen in the New York Times today is that the U.S., despite all our worries about the decline of U.S. influence and reputation in East Asia, that in fact the U.S. is still doing pretty well in terms of the perceived soft power. Even as our arguably our hard power, or certainly our ability to project our hard power, both military and economic is being stretched by economic difficulties at home and by the demands on our military that are coming now from the Middle East.

On the other hand as a kind of the bad news, if you will in this story, is with its very clear findings that Chinese and American attitudes towards each other’s countries are diverging and diverging would appear rather dramatically. This presents a big challenge to the incoming administration, to the incoming President, to enter into a conversation with the American people and to develop a narrative for the American public that around which we can build consensus on a long-term and sustainable relationship with China. But right now the American public is moving away from even a kind of constructive acceptance of the rise of Chinese power. Perhaps the greatest risk, of course, in all of this -- as you here in Washington know well, but I in the Midwest perhaps know even better because we’re not in the Beltway -- is that the risk that the incoming administration will just not pay much attention to Asia at all. Given the demands that we’ve placed on it to address critical issues in the Middle East, as well as a whole bucket full of domestic concerns.

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