Climate change politics and the role of China: a window of opportunity to gain soft power?

Abstract

In China today, the idea of "soft power" has become important in various realms of society. We analyze the nexus between climate change and soft power with specific emphasis on China. First, we will discuss the concept of soft power, its role in the Chinese context, and the reasons why China has had difficulties to gain soft power up to now. Second, we lay out how international climate change politics are an important arena in which soft power can be won and how the issue has gained importance in China. In a third step, we discuss how the current political environment, in which the US government has changed its stance on climate change and international climate politics, impacts China. Our thesis is that the current political situation represents a "window of opportunity" for China to expand its soft power substantially both in degree and scope. In line with this thesis, so far, China has reacted swiftly after the election of US president Donald Trump and aims to present itself as the future climate leader.

Climate Change in Chinese Newspapers 2000–2020: Discursive Strategies of Consolidating Hegemony

“…At the Kyoto conference, the Chairman of the Committee on International Relations of the U.S. House of Representatives, Benjamin Gilman, described China's position on climate change as a "Three Nos" policy, in which China would have a) no obligations, b) no voluntary commitments, and c) no binding negotiations in the future (Zhang, 2013). While international media were fairly critical of China's policy (Rauchfleisch & Schäfer, 2018), the Chinese media in this period were very cautious when reporting climate change issues (Ji & Dan, 2017).…”

“…A noteworthy aspect is that after the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15), China received considerable negative coverage around the world (Rauchfleisch & Schäfer, 2018). This was addressed by the Chinese party-sponsored newspapers with the implementation of the two interconnected main strategies of euphemizing the self and condemning the other.…”

Greening the Chinese Leviathan: China’s renewable energy governance as a source of soft power

“…Soft power is an abstract, evaluative and, broadly speaking, qualitative idea: the kind of 'essentially contested concept' that is common in the social sciences (Gallie 1964). Its contested nature is particularly germane in the context of an authoritarian state such as China, which bears little resemblance to the liberal democracies with which the concept is normally associated (Rauchfleisch and Schäfer 2018).…”

“…Nye's evaluation seemed to be borne out when China unsuccessfully attempted to reposition itself as a leader in climate change politics in the run-up to the 2009 Copenhagen climate change summit . However, several developments since then have widened the 'window of opportunity' for Chinese soft power referred to earlier (Rauchfleisch and Schäfer 2018). These include the global financial crisis (Algan et al 2017;Arestis and Singh 2010), the subsequent period of austerity (Blyth 2013) and associated rise of populist politics in many western democracies (Eatwell and Goodwin 2018;Stoker and Hay 2016).…”

“…We examine how different actors -public and private economic actors, environmental organisations, government research institutes, local and central governments -responded to a range of policy settings, contributing to domestic climate actions, and enabling China to grow its non-hydro renewables sector from a standing start to global leader status. Drawing on new field research, this article provides an evidence-based insight into how and why China's autocratic but relatively effective blueprint for renewable energy governance has become a potential source of Chinese soft power in a world where the United States' retreat from multilateral cooperation in the climate change politics provides a 'window of opportunity' (Rauchfleisch and Schäfer 2018) for China to project soft power.…”