Chinese Soft Power

Shocking pictures show the residents of China's Bound Feet Women Village -- where more than 100 pensioners suffer the agonizing effects of the 1,000-year-old practice

The process involves breaking bones and toes in feet and then tightly wrapping them with material.
It began in the early 600s and was a sign of wealth and high status in the country for centuries.
By JOSEPH CURTIS

These are the shocking images that show pensioners in China suffering the painful effects of the 1,000-year-old practice of foot binding.
More than 100 women aged 70 and older partake in the custom in the village of Liuyi in the Yunnan Province, with the location dubbed the 'Bound Feet Women Village' as a result.
The custom involves tightly wrapping the feet of young girls to change their shape and was popular among wealthy women who did not have to work, and therefore 'did not need to use their feet'.
It also became a sign of beauty and affected limbs became known as lotus feet in the country.

These images show the horrific effects of the ancient Chinese tradition of footbinding, when girls aged four to nine would have their toes and bones broken before their feet were tightly bound in material in a process that was supposed to show wealth and high status. Pictured is a woman's foot in Liuyi Village, where more than 100 elderly women who have undergone the process live

This bound foot shows dry and cracked skin and toes mashed together. It belongs to 100-year-old Luo Pu, who lives in Liuyi, known as Bound Feet Women Village due to the high proportion of women who live their who have experienced the process, which dates to the early 600s and was banned in 1912.

But the images suggest the feet are anything but, with toes shown contorted around each other while the skin itself appears dry and cracked.
Binding was often performed on girls aged between four and nine during winters, when the cold temperatures were more likely to numb feet against pain.
It involved breaking and mutilating toes and bones, while toenails were also cut very short before the bandages were applied.
The custom is believed to have started sometime in the 600s, although the exact origin remains unknown.

Several origin stories exist for the process, with many involving dancing. Women who have undergone foot binding continue to dance, with women in Liuyi wearing 'Three Cuns Golden Lotus' shoes for their Bound Feet Women Dancing Team. Bound feet were often called lotus feet

The Bound Feet Women Dancing Team are pictured here practicing martial arts as part of their routine, with each wearing their special lotus shoes

One explanation offered is that a Chinese emperor fell in love with a dancer whose feet were bound with silk, while another claims an emperor's favourite concubine had a clubfoot and so asked him to make foot binding compulsory for all girls so her feet would not be considered ugly.
Dancing appears to be part and parcel of the process, as women in Liuyi who have had foot binding performed have formed their own dancing teams.

The process was carried out on young girls, usually during winter when their feet were supposedly more numb to the pain due to the cold weather. Three youngsters are pictured here with bound feet in Imperial China before the practice was outlawed. 

Chinese soft power: Hollywood take-over on the cards in quest for cultural influence

The term "soft power" has been thrown around the media and academic circles for the last couple of years, but its currency has heightened in regards to Australia's relationship with China.
By MATTHEW CARNEY

Xi Jinping's directions for China's soft power strategy are specific: "To give a good Chinese narrative and better communicate China's messages to the world. To be portrayed as a civilised place featuring a rich history, with good government and developed economy, cultural prosperity and diversity and beautiful mountains and rivers."

All countries practise some form of soft power — the ability to coax and persuade other countries that their culture and values are desirable — through organisations like the British Institutes, Alliance Française or the Goethe Institutes.
American soft power regularly tops the tables and largely because of its popular culture, like Hollywood films or corporate labels like Levis.
In North Asia, South Korea has been successful with K-pop songs like Gangnam Style.
It is a recognition that for nations to be powerful they need more than economic might and military threat. 

They need soft power.
Soft power is by its very nature not coercive and is determined by its ability to appeal and attract others.
China has realised this and come to the game much later than most other countries. 

In the late 2000s, it identified "the threat theory" that much of the Western world sees China as distinctly unfriendly.
Now China is devoting billions to try to refashion its image.
Xi Jinping has made it a priority and has said China has to become a "cultural superpower".
His directions for China's soft power strategy are specific: "To give a good Chinese narrative and better communicate China's messages to the world. To be portrayed as a civilised place featuring a rich history, with good government and developed economy, cultural prosperity and diversity and beautiful mountains and rivers."
A big part of the plan is to take over Hollywood. 

The Chinese want to take back some of the popular global narrative to drive their message home. 

It means no longer will China be presented as the bad guy, but as a noble civilised place as Xi wants.
The Chinese have the market power to make sure it happens.
In 2018, China will become the world's biggest box office, surpassing America, and it will keep growing, at least doubling before peaking.
Now in China, 22 new cinemas open everyday.
Hollywood producers are now considering the "China factor" in any future profitability. 

Stories and narratives are changing to become more appealing to the Chinese. 

Many of the world's future blockbusters will be made in China.
When the Oriental Movie Metropolis in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao becomes operational next year it will dwarf any Hollywood studio.
Thirty big-budget films are slated in first couple of years. 

The first, The Great Wall, with a budget of $180 million, has Hollywood star Matt Damon playing the suspicious savage who is finally convinced by a noble Chinese warlord and beautiful maiden to take up the good Chinese fight.
The man in charge of making the reality a vision is Wang Jianlin — China's Rupert Murdoch — and he has the backing of the top leadership.
Wang is a party member and spent 16 years in the People's Liberation Army before he quit to build a real estate and media empire.
Wang has gone on a $10-billion buying spree and is buying up Hollywood one piece at a time. 

He has bought US production house Legendary Entertainment and Dick Clark Studios.
He has also purchased AMC entertainment — the second-biggest cinema chain in the US — as well as snapping up Europe's biggest cinema group Odeon and Hoyts in Australia.
A big part of Xi Jinping's plan for China to become a "cultural superpower" is to take over Hollywood. 

Australia 'fertile ground' for China's soft power
But film is just one part of China's soft power strategy. 

The Government has put $10 billion into promoting Chinese traditional culture and language. 

It has set up 500 Confucius institutes in 140 countries all controlled by the Central Propaganda Committee in Beijing.
Australia has been fertile ground for China's soft power. 

Fourteen Confucius Institutes have been established at Australian universities and 60 schools around Australia have introduced Confucius classrooms.
Many say it is smart and proper to establish a bigger understanding and deeper relationship with our biggest trading partner. 

But others say the Confucius institutes overstep the mark, and attempts at soft power backfire when the Chinese try to control what can be said about human rights or the independence of Taiwan or Tibet.
Chinese "values" clash with Australian ideals of freedom of speech and inquiry.
There are a growing number of Australian academics like former ambassador to China Stephen Fitzgerald, who say the Confucius institutes should be scrutinised much more as they compromise academic integrity.
At Peking University I had the good fortune to hear the man who invented the term 'soft power' and inspired the Chinese leadership to take up the cause, Harvard professor Joseph Nye.
But Professor Nye says China's soft power has fundamental flaws.
Its claims in the South China Sea undermine attempts to make it appear friendly or attractive. 

Also, its program is being driven by the top leadership and not the people.
Professor Nye says soft power is usually more successful if it comes from the grass roots and is not a dictated program.
"Civil society is really crucial to developing soft power and I think it's very difficult for the party to unleash the full talents of China's civil society," he says.
Professor Nye says it will be some time yet before China overtakes America as the dominant global power, so in the meantime, get ready for more Chinese "heroes" at the movies.