How China Is Usurping Traditionally American Soft Power

April 28, 2006

Beppu - Ritsumeikan's Asia Pacific University (APU) hosted Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for International Studies at MIT Dr. Richard J. Samuels for undergraduate and graduate lecture programs. Dr. Samuels discussed how Japan, China, and the United States use mixes of soft and hard power in their multilateral relations. Dr. Samuels noted that China has made the best use of soft power in its recent multilateral relations, from its working to win the right to host the 2008 Olympics to its current �esmiling�f diplomacy, and contrasted this with American preoccupation with hard power in Afghanistan and Iraq. After his presentation he was peppered with questions from an active audience.