Lessons on China's soft power from the Eiffel Tower
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The Eiffel Tower has become a world famous landmark, not because of its usefulness in the 20th century as a television broadcasting transmission tower, or because it attracts a large number of tourists, hence securing large earnings for the city of Paris every year, but because it represents a pioneering construction work that increased tremendously the height of man-made structures. In its wake, all the major cities in the 20th century built skyscrapers buttressed by steel rods that could even endure hurricane. The concept initiated with the Eiffel Tower dominated development of architecture in modern cities for more than a century. For a world expo, even if the host country has only one achievement like this, that's enough.
Did the Shanghai World Expo create anything monumental like this? Many would immediately think of the animated scroll of the famous Song Dynasty painting "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival." However, it's just animation, nothing new.
What China should be interested in is how come that Gustave Eiffel arrived at the idea to use iron for his masterpiece, the highest artificial building of the world. During that very inspiring and enlightening period when French culture and ideas were soaring, competing and learning from each other, French thinkers, artists and scientists made great contributions to human civilization, which in turn reflected the strong soft power of France in the 19th century.
When talking about soft power, many would cite the numerous Confucius Institutes established by the Chinese government all over the world. However, what the Confucius Institutes promote is the traditional Chinese culture, which represents only the soft power of our ancestors. The current task of the Chinese people is to carry forward traditional culture while making innovations in our culture, institutions and ideas in order to contribute to human civilization. If a great nation with 1.3 billion people fails to achieve significant accomplishments, it simply let China's past generations and the world down.
Ting Wai is Professor of the Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University and the President of Hong Kong Association for European Studies.
(This article was written in Chinese and translated by Chen Chen.)
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