The seminar offers a broad overview of the political, economic, and cultural rise of China today. To do so, it will explore the barbarism-civilization dichotomy, trying to clarify what cultures mean by and who they refer to as barbarian; at the same time, it will analyze how the great powers exercise soft and hard power.
At present, with the seemingly inexorable rise of China as a major global power, the West appears to be the new barbarian, unaware as it is of Chinese culture, while Beijing lacks sufficient soft power to make its cultural, political and social model attractive to the West and to the rest of the world.
That said, there is no denying that China’s hard power makes its presence felt in many areas of the world. No one is surprised that China is now the world’s largest trading partner, ahead of the United States, or that in certain technological sectors China is a trend-setter (5G, artificial intelligence, etc.). However, its cultural influence, the territory of soft power, is still limited, certainly when compared to that exerted by the United States, which has long been manifest in so many areas, particularly in popular culture.