7/17/2019 Fernando Martin

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In the recent years China has been increasing their efforts and budget in diplomacy in order 

to increase their influence within other countries by peaceful means, but to what extent are

they been successful?

Well, it seems that to some degree they are making progress, but only in specific regions

due to a fact that we tend to forget: soft power limit is marked by hard power and

geopolitics. It is almost impossible for the Chinese government to gain influence over

countries which is facing or negatively affecting in other fields such as the !war of

currencies" which is currently going on with the #$%, while on the other hands it has been

&uite obvious that the main reason of their popularity in other regions such as 'atin

 (merica has been the billionaire investments that they have been making in the last years

in a similar fashion of what the #.$. did with the )arshall *lan in western +urope%, so it

seems that at it the end of the day soft power can be bought.

he Chinese communist party is aware of this, especially after the fact that despite their

huge investments In other forms of soft power such as the -eiing /lympics their relation

with the west has not improved at all, so instead they are focusing in !economic diplomacy"

with has granted them better results in both (frica and 'atin (merica, which were their main

obectives due to their huge deposits of natural resources.

)ao used to say that the power only grows out from the barrel of a gun, and their

successors believe that if the word gun is changed by money, the &uote of the 0reat

1elmsman remains as true as they were when they were coined.