Pen, Politics, and Power: How China and India Wield Soft Power through Education Diplomacy in South Asia

Nirjan Rai, Saumitra Neupane, and Anurag Acharya

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INTRODUCTION

1.1 Soft Power and Education Diplomacy

As powerful nations compete for regional and global influence, they employ a complex blend of hard and soft power strategies in their foreign policies. While the use of hard power—from economic sanctions to weapons of war—has become somewhat controversial in today’s global order, it remains an important tool for diplomacy, as evidenced by the fact that the world now spends more on military expenditures than ever before.1 However, powerful countries only resort to these instruments of coercion if they feel that such drastic measures are necessary, such as in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In contrast, soft power is an approach to foreign policy that is widely accepted and even encouraged. While the practice of this form of diplomacy is not a new phenomenon, the term itself was only coined in the 1990s by Joseph Nye to mean “the ability to affect others to obtain the outcome one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment.”2 Essentially, the goal of soft power is to change the preferences of others and persuade them to accept your objectives without the use of fear or force.