In recent years, China has spent a small fortune trying to influence the world through “soft power” — relying on language, cuisine and culture, rather than the conventional hard tools of aircraft carriers, spies and satellites. It has done this mainly through hundreds of Confucius Institutes that extol the wonders of traditional Chinese civilization, in the process setting off controversies about China's growing influence around the world.
What's often forgotten is that the People's Republic has been down this road before — and to much greater effect. Its export, though, wasn't calligraphy or Confucius but the violently revolutionary ideas of the country's founding father, Mao Zedong.
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