Article
Attracting Neighbors: Soft Power Competition in East Asia
Yul Sohn1
1Yul Sohn is professor of international studies and chair of the International Studies Program at Yonsei University in Seoul. He has written extensively on Japanese political economy, international political economy, and East Asian regionalism. His most recent works include “Japan’s New Regionalism: China Threat, Soft Balancing, and East Asian Community” (Asian Survey, 2010), “A Twenty-First Century East Asia: Contested International Societies” (Journal of World Politics, 2009), “Korea’s Japan Policy Under the New ROK Government” (Journal of East Asian Affairs, 2008), and “Whither the Japanese Model?: Evolutionary Changes and the Rise of Many Japans” (Journal of International and Area Studies, 2008).
© Copyright 2011 Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received: Feb 10, 2011; Revised: Feb 26, 2011; Revised: Mar 30, 2011; Accepted: Apr 08, 2011
Published Online: Apr 30, 2011
Abstract
This article explores the dynamics of competition by means of soft power among two key regional states, China and Japan. It demonstrates that, in their embrace of regionalism, each has concentrated soft power on East Asian neighbors by competitively proposing regional visions that would best position it in the regional leadership stakes. China took the initiative, Japan responded quickly, and China is now striking back. This does not necessarily mean that the liberal claim that East Asia is “ripe for cooperation” is misplaced. Nor does it suggest that the realist claim of “ripe for rivalry” better represents the reality. Rather, this article argues that regional powers compete in order to attract neighbors. Since this contest involves embracing others, it is not necessarily a zero-sum game. This article evaluates the success, or lack thereof, of the two countries’ efforts in order to learn what they imply for Korea.
Keywords: soft power; attraction; regionalism; East Asian community; charm offensive; nationalism
