China falls in soft power ranking but US loses its crown and tumbles
- United States ranked worst in the world for its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, both countries still in the overall top 10
- Germany takes the crown as the leading soft power practitioner in annual global index
While Germany took the crown, the US was the fastest falling country in this year’s Global Soft Power Index, published by Brand Finance. It lost more than double China’s score in the overall index. In the Covid-19 metric, the US came in at the bottom of the table, out of 105 countries.
China suffered from poor perceptions in the categories of international relations and governance, which track records on measures including rule of law, human rights and constitutional principles.
The index measures a country’s ability to influence through attraction or persuasion rather than hard power methods, such as military force and financial clout. More than 75,000 people from more than 100 countries were surveyed in autumn last year, from the general public as well as business leaders, politicians, academics and think tank analysts.
Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo, who contributed to the survey, said China’s draconian system – which shut down cities and even provinces as soon as the alarm was raised – had worked in its response to the Covid-19 outbreak. Every Chinese city also had the capability of testing millions of inhabitants in just a few days.
However, the world’s reaction to China’s management of the pandemic was mixed, with the perception among Western countries turning markedly negative, said Yeo, who is a senior adviser to Kuok Group and Kerry Logistics Network.
Despite providing much of the world’s personal protective equipment, China was accused of politicising exports and boasting, he added, while its vaccines were denigrated as less advanced and effective, even though China was the most important supplier of vaccines to the developing world.