Abstract:

The difficulty of improving soft power lies in how to transform soft power resources into soft power including institutional, cultural and value attraction, the key of which is the generation and maintenance of soft power currency. From the case studies of the United States, Britain and Australia, this study identifies three mechanisms for generating soft power through international education, namely the network mechanism, the value-sharing mechanism and the institutions and standards mechanism, all of which can promote the transformation of the three soft power currencies of benignity, beauty, and brilliance into soft power respectively, drive the transformation of different forms of capitals, and hence reinforce their dominant positions in the field of international education. But if the process lacks benignity, integrity, or is over-branded, which leads to inconsistency between branding content and its reality, soft power will be diminished as a result. In this view, China should take international education as an important strategy to accumulate its soft power currencies, strengthen the quality of benignity, beauty, and brilliance under the concept of “a community of shared future for mankind” while draw upon the rich domestic soft power resources, and then build effective pathways for the functioning of the three mechanisms to gain soft power through international education activities.

Key words: soft power, the United States, Britain, Australia, international education, cultural capital, symbolic capital