Soft Power

Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion. The phrase was coined by Joseph Nye of Harvard University in a 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. The term is now widely used in international affairs by analysts and statesmen. For example, in 2007, CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao told the 17th Communist Party Congress that China needed to increase its soft power, and the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke of the need to enhance American soft power by "a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security--diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action and economic reconstruction and development."

In 2010 Annette Lu, former vice-president of the Republic of China on Taiwan, visited South Korea and advocated the ROC's use of soft power as a model for the resolution of international conflicts.

General Wesley Clark when discussing soft power commented that, “it gave us an influence far beyond the hard edge of traditional balance-of-power politics.”