Douglas Clark’s magnum opus 3-volume history of Britain and American Law Courts in China and Japan is an exploration of gunboat hard power and the concept of extraterritoriality.
However, soft power is also a critical component of the influence projected by a Great Power.
A nation’s soft power, unlike hard power, rests upon the admiration of foreigners for its values, culture, and achievements.
An example of soft power is the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the West with East Germany caused by East Germans who had lost faith in communism and were drawn to the soft power of West Germany, i.e. its values, culture, and achievements.
Another effective soft power projection was by the Roman Empire where aliens and conquered subjects were attracted to its values and the rights conferred by the empire to its citizens and aliens who acquired Roman citizenship.
Another excellent example is the way the Chinese in China, and by extension the Chinese diaspora, from early days have called the country known as the United States of America.
China’s name for the United States is ‘Mei Guo’, the Beautiful Country. [p. 5, John Pomfret].
Such soft power can be seen from the migration of Chinese to America in the 19th and 20th centuries to work in the gold mines of California and the building of the railways.
Chinese immigrants built the western section of the transcontinental railroad between 1865 and 1869. This was one of the greatest engineering feats in US history.
Sadly, this love affair has ended. China’s foreign minister Wang Yi has now criticised the US as ” two-faced”.
He said that Trump’s friendly rhetoric towards Xi would not negate bitter trade relations.
He further said,” Such two-faced behaviour… makes it impossible to build mutual trust. This is not the behaviour of a responsible major power”. [See FT 8 and 9 March 2025, p. 3].
It is sad to see the terminal decline in relations between an ancient civilisation and the present greatest power on earth.