Times of India
Kolkata: Former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao India’s strength over China in projecting its soft power across the world lies in its democratic credentials, open society, institutional freedom and constitutional values that emphasize respect for diversity, pluralism and protection of minorities, he said on Sunday. Huh.
However, he lamented that China’s soft power was becoming stronger despite often using hard power – military, strategic and economic – that fueled fear, war and cautious response to its reach in the region. Cooking for mixing.
Delivering the second Krishna Bose lecture ‘Power’, Rao said, “India’s strength in comparison to China lies in its democratic credentials, its open society and institutional freedom and constitutional values that emphasize diversity, pluralism and protection of minorities. ” ‘Soft Power’ here at Netaji Research Bureau through Virtual Mode.
Emphasizing that India should take better advantage of these soft power assets, he said that global opinion about the country is also built on its ability to uphold these values and the functioning of internal governance.
Rao, India’s former ambassador to the United States, China and Sri Lanka, said that although China’s efforts to spread its soft power “may not achieve its desired goals due to the authoritarian nature of the Chinese state and the obsessive control of its citizens, The blatant violation of their human rights, the huge expenditure on soft power diplomacy has a huge impact.”
She said that over the past few decades, China has deliberately sought to “soften” its image abroad and gain “respect” by using the appeal of Chinese art, architecture, cinema, literature, universities and its vast economy. Rao said there are people who claim that the ‘recognition’ of Indian soft power globally is a recent phenomenon because of the efforts made by Indian policy makers over the years.
“We must remember that poets and philosophers, theater personalities and teachers from abroad, have been inspired by India’s civilizational aura and ethos for centuries,” she said, recalling how the Hollywood star Gregory Peck Recited Rabindranath Tagore’s poem ‘Anant Prem’ at the funeral of Audrey Hepburn, Stating that India has 38 cultural centers set up across the world by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Rao said the number is not commensurate with the size and weight of India globally. “We need more such institutions spread across different regions,” she said, adding that China has set up several hundred Confucian institutions to further its objective of projecting its ‘soft power’.
Times of India
He said that as an exercise in soft power, India has access to Afghanistan from 2001 till August this year when Taliban regained control of the country, can be cited as an example of achieving great goodwill and winning hearts and minds. Rao said India‘s development assistance to Afghanistan totaled more than $3 billion between 2001 and 2021, which includes projects focused on health, education, capacity development and food security, besides building roads and power transmission lines and dams. .
,