Russia and China Respond to Soft Power: Interpretation and Readaptation of a Western Construct

This article examines the Russian and Chinese perspective of soft power. It argues that Russia and China are not simply authoritarian states; rather they are authoritarian states of a specialised sub-category that share a joint legacy of adherence to a Communist experience which significantly informs their behaviour and sense of national identity. As a consequence, both the Kremlin and Beijing consider that the soft power methods of the West present nothing less than an existential threat, and conceive of a soft power policy as the outcome of state initiatives rather than the product of an autonomous civil society.