The End of US Soft Power?

 GZERO published on 6 February 2025 a commentary titled "The End of US Soft Power?" by Evan Soloman.  

The author concluded that "US soft power is not gone; it's just diminished.  American culture, innovation, and institutions remain resilient to challenges and attractive to billions of people."  But the killing of the US Agency for International Development strikes a major blow against US soft power and hard power options are now the most prominent tools available to American foreign policy.  

China, Soft Power and Africa

Writing for The Diplomat on 4 June 2013, Trefor Moss, an independent journalist based in Hong Kong, in an article titled "Soft Power? China Has Plenty" criticized Joseph Nye's (the person who coined the term soft power) conclusion that China has largely been unsuccessful in its soft power efforts.

Moss acknowledged that Chinese soft power has not worked well in North America, Western Europe and those parts of Asia that fear or dislike China.  In these areas, China probably is wasting its time and resources when it tries to get people to watch CCTV, read English language versions of China Daily or helps fund Confucius Institutes.  On the other hand, Moss argues these tactics are working well in places like Africa and Latin America.