“Low-Profile Dragon” Meets “Amicable Eagle”: Soft Power in U.S.-China Relations.

This paper compares and contrasts the soft power resources of China and the U.S., and discuss on the wielding of soft power in their bilateral relations. There are so many uncertainties between these two gigantic powers in the Pacific Asia. Will China adopt a revisionist approach and use its increasingly stronger national power to challenge the status quo power, or continue to stay patient and low-profile in a long term? Will the U.S. step up its efforts to assemble an effective international alliance to contain China’s rise, or allow Beijing to emerge as an active and decisive leader in a region and actively engage China into the role of responsible great power? Traditional study of US-China relations focuses on both countries’ hard powerâ€"the ability to use economic inducement and sanction and/or military threats and invasion to get its way. A discussion of soft powerâ€"attraction and agenda-settingâ€"in the U.S.-China relations may provide us some new cues to the future. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]