For the Open Questions series of interviews with global opinion leaders, Josephine Ma speaks with Joseph Nye, a former US assistant secretary of defence. Nye is university distinguished service professor, emeritus and former dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and has been ranked among the top 100 global thinkers. He discusses China’s soft-power challenges, its economic and technological hurdles, the state of relations between Beijing and Washington, and the chances of an armed conflict breaking out.
You are most well known in China for your book on soft power and even former Chinese president Hu Jintao mentioned it in the 17th party congress report. China has invested heavily in expanding its soft power and President Xi Jinping has told officials to “tell the China story well”. How do you comment on these efforts? What are the achievements and what are the failures, and why?
