Since the start of his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump has been dismantling the traditional channels of American soft power. The U.S. Agency for International Progress (USAID) is no longer operational, and Voice of America is tied up in legislative and court battles. The State Department has significantly reduced it’s staff and programming. Restrictive new visa and immigration policies have made the United States less accessible and less attractive to potential visitors, and Washington’s coercive and transactional dealings wiht U.S. allies have damaged trust abroad. In *The New York Times*, Jamie Shea, a former NATO official, referred to these sweeping changes as the United States’ “soft power suicide.”

Many experts and commentators have interpreted the United States’ loss as China’s gain. The late political scientist Joseph Nye,who developed the concept of soft power,cautioned earlier this year that China “stands ready to fill the vacuum that Trump is creating.” Yanzhong Huang, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, similarly contended that the Trump administration’s actions have “boosted China’s charm offensive.”

But as I argued in 2022 in *Foreign Affairs*, the U.S.-Chinese soft-power competition is not a zero-sum quest for influence. The two countries take distinct approaches to building soft power: China has tended to rely on drawing in other countries with pragmatic benefits, whereas the United States has placed ideals and values at the center of its outreach. Recipient countries, especially those in the so-called global South, have perceived chinese and U.S. offerings as complementary,accepting both rather than seeing a need to choose one over the other.

Over the last three years, and especially since Trump’s reelection, China’s relative position has undoubtedly improved. As the United States retreats, China looks to the world like the more accessible and reliable partner. But this has not turned China into a global leader in soft power. Although Beijing still emphasizes its pragmatic offerings in its diplomacy,it has reduced,rather than expanded,its international assistance to lower-income countries,and has shown few signs of stepping in to replace USAID. Nor is China positioning itself to fill the United States’ former role of promoting a particular governance model to the world. Beijing is generally looked upon more favorably than before, yet that change in attitude varies significantly from region to region, and even the countries that hold the most positive views of China view its actions with a mix of gratitude and resentment. China may be passively gaining stature from the United States’ soft-power retreat, but that is not enough to guarantee greater global influence in the years ahead.

STAYING THE COURSE

Chinese interpretations of soft power differ from Nye’s original definition, which emphasizes culture, values, and foreign policy as the key ingredients of a country’s ability to influence others without coercion. In Chinese writings, cultural power is fused together with material power: Beijing considers its economic development model, technological innovation, and material assistance to developing countries, not just its traditional culture and principles, to be vectors of soft power.

When Chinese leaders try to appeal to developing countries, they consistently underscore China’s pursuit of mutual economic benefit and its understanding of human rights as a concept rooted in economic rights and material well-being, rather than in individual and political freedom.Diplomacy is about offering something practical to other countries, whether that is trade deals (which are often announced with some kind of cultural spectacle), infrastructure projects, or training and educational programs that bring thousands of officials, policymakers, journalists, and students to China.

And with the arrival of the Trump administration, developing countries have few alternatives to what China is offering. According to the Lowy Institute, a think tank in Australia, the administration’s cuts to USAID have made China’s bilateral development assistance commitments the largest in the world. Steep U.S. tariffs have ensured that China, which still embraces trade (even if it is criticized for its unfair practices), is the more economically accessible of the two countries. China’s openness to international visitors-it now allows 30-day visa-free entry to citizens of more than 70 countries-also sharply contrasts the incre

China’s Soft Power Puzzle

China’s rise on the world stage is undeniable. Its economic influence has reshaped global trade, and its Belt and Road Initiative has extended its reach into infrastructure projects across Asia, africa, and Latin America. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has grown from a group of six countries in 2001 to one with ten full members, 14 dialog partners, and two observers today, with more countries waiting to join. Yet China’s messaging does not go much further than criticizing the dominance of the United States and demanding more say in international institutions and governance mechanisms. It falls short of delineating and inspiring an option world order.

Similarly, the recent tumult in U.S. democracy would seem to give China an chance to promote its governance model to a more receptive international audience. What constitutes this model, though, is not entirely clear. As I found in a study of training seminars for African policymakers, Chinese educators and officials do not try to sell the Chinese political system as something wholly different, but rather adopt and invert Western concepts to promote it. China is presented as just another version of democracy, but one that is more efficient and adaptive to public feedback. The Chinese leaders of these training sessions, moreover, rarely provide a roadmap for how to imitate China, even when it comes to topics such as poverty alleviation in which China is widely regarded as successful. In one striking scene at a seminar in addis Ababa, an Ethiopian official asked the Chinese lecturer to at least provide some specific advice on how Ethiopia could mimic China’s accomplishments. Another Chinese expert chimed in to say, “We are not here to give advice,” shutting down further discussion. Technical trainings related to agriculture or Chinese technology transfers likely do offer more specific lessons, but African officials and journalists have told me that concrete suggestions about China’s broader developmental and political experience are limited. Without them, Beijing may present its own example as something to aspire to, but not as a model for other countries to follow.

This is not to say that China is not making new inroads. In recent months, the growing popularity of Chinese popular culture products such as Labubu dolls, the animated film Ne Zha 2 and several popular video games, along with Chinese technologies including the artificial intelligence platform deepseek, have inspired such headlines as “How China became cool.” This kind of cultural influence can translate to greater affinity for China’s values and governance principles, especially when foreign publics latch onto films and video games that glorify Chinese history, traditions, and futuristic techno