Taiwan’s culture potentially provides it with a unique diplomatic power, if it can harness it.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/07/25
By: Jason Hsu

The idea of “soft power” was first introduced in the 1990s by Joseph Samuel Nye, Jr., a professor of international relations at Harvard University. Unlike “hard power,” such as military or economic capabilities, Nye said soft power represents resources of attraction, including culture, political values and policies.

Culture shouldn’t be considered as a single independent entity; just as Britain’s creative industries built upon its industrial development and the Bauhaus movement was a reflection of Germany’s industrial engineering. Culture is, in its essence, the practice and implementation of values.

Taiwan’s value lies in its cultural diversity and the freedom to discuss and spread different ideas in society.    [FULL  STORY]