America projects soft power through popular culture (think Mickey Mouse, Taylor Swift) or its biggest brands (Nike or Stanford). As it plots its rise globally, and in the Middle East, China’s own soft power strategy is quite different: It’s top-down, run by the state and focused on educational and cultural outreach.
Beijing’s goal, however, is ambitious. China seems to want to match America in the region in terms of making its language, culture and world-view feel familiar to the next generation of leaders here.
As coined by the American scholar Joseph Nye in 1990, soft power describes the ability to influence outcomes in other countries through attraction rather than coercion. Beijing has focused its outreach efforts on penetrating the Middle East’s media markets through state-funded broadcasting, building out a network of Confucius and other similar cultural institutes, and expanding educational exchanges, according to the latest installment of MBN’s China Tracker focused on soft power.
“China is in the process of building the attraction,” Yun Sun, who directs the Stimson Center’s China Program, said in an email. “Understanding and acceptance come first. Admiration and imitation come later.”
Confucius in the Lead
In some ways, China is following in America’s footsteps. The U.S. Fulbright program, an educational exchange launched in 1946, is widely regarded as one of its most successful soft-power tools. China, which a year later became the first country to join the program, has built its own educational infrastructure abroad. Confucius Institutes — typically embedded in universities — now anchor that effort.
Criticized in the West for their prescriptive curriculum (no talk of Tibet, Taiwan or Tiananmen Square, please), the institutes have been welcomed in the Middle East, where higher education is already state-centric. The first Confucius Institute in the region opened in Beirut in 2006; there are now 29 across MENA’s footprint, including five in Egypt and four in Turkey.
Beijing has also established 41 Chinese language programs through Confucius Institutes’ parent organization, the Center for Language Education and Cooperation, to focus on teacher training and curriculum integration, and six China Cultural Centers that promote history, literature, music and film.
China has also sought to develop connections through less formal means, namely tourism. Data collected by the China Tracker shows a big increase in routes between Gulf states and China since 2023. Chinese media have promoted travel to the region. This summer, China announced it wouldn’t require travelers from four Gulf states to have visas to visit.
Some scholars dismiss these efforts as surprisingly tentative given pronouncements by President Xi Jinping and other leaders that cultural exports are a key to the country’s global ambitions.
Indeed, slogans or songs and the attitudes they represent that can galvanize movements tend to emerge more readily in open societies than in managed ones. American institutions like foreign branches of universities supported a culture that was already spreading. China is using institutions to try to create one that has not yet done so, at least in MENA countries.
On the Airwaves
Its foundation also relies on economic partnerships. Through Belt and Road projects and vocational Luban Workshops, launched in 2019, China has tied its cultural outreach to tangible monetary benefits. Under Luban, China works to teach locals skills that can be paired with its more sophisticated Belt and Road projects.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Chinese outlets in MENA and new content-sharing agreements with local news organizations are helping get the word out. With 31 partnerships across the region, especially in key media hubs like the UAE and Egypt, Chinese state media have expanded their ability to reach local audiences through established platforms.
“China has stepped up its media partnerships throughout MENA,” said Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia for the Center on Foreign Relations.
China often offers its state-run newswire Xinhua, which provides global coverage, at low cost, or even free of charge, he said. Though the news produced by western outlets like the Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg is more fact-based and less biased, he added, news organizations in the region are often unwilling to pay their pricey subscription fees.
That leaves Xinhua as a “very effective tool” through which China can promote a sometimes slanted perspective about world events, said Kurlantzick, whose book “Beijing’s Global Media Offensive” explores China’s efforts to extend its influence.
In 2011, when Egyptians took to the streets to call for an end to Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade rule, they carried placards scrawled with American advertising slogans (“Just do it,” as in just resign) and rapped their messages of protest.
Chinese-produced entertainment hasn’t caught on widely in MENA. Even so, public-opinion surveys across the region consistently show more support for China than the U.S., suggesting its unique approach to soft power is paying dividends.
