Amid US Democracy’s Moral Unraveling, Hong Kong’s Role in the Soft Power Struggle

The signing ceremony for the Convention on the Establishment of the International Mediation Organization was recently held in Hong Kong, with Wang Yi, Chinese Foreign Minister and member of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, in attendance to deliver remarks. In his speech, Wang highlighted in particular how IOMed embodied civilization’s wisdom of harmonious coexistence: resolving conflicts through dialogue and disputes through consultation. These are the common values and universal pursuits of major civilizations, which help transcend the “I win, you lose” zero-sum mentality.

Establishing an International Mediation Organization: Combining Eastern Wisdom with the International Rule of Law

In fact, this speaks to the deeper significance behind IOMed’s formation: not only does it provide countries with a more flexible, cost-effective, convenient and easily enforceable means of resolving disputes, but its mediation-first, harmony-valuing ethos reflects a fusion of Eastern wisdom and the rule of international law. That the organization has made its home in Hong Kong, at the crossroads of Chinese and Western culture, only further showcases China’s soft power.

Joseph S. Nye, the American scholar who pioneered the concept of “soft power,” used it to describe a nation’s ability to exert influence through attraction rather than through military force or economic coercion. He argued that a country’s soft power stems from its culture, its values, and from policies perceived as legitimate by others. But that legitimacy is contingent on whether a country’s actions are seen keeping with or violating a set of widely acknowledged values. Mediation is one of the key methods of dispute resolution stipulated in the United Nations Charter; while not unique to China, resolving disputes in a peaceful, consultative, harmonious and cooperative manner is entirely consistent with China’s traditional culture of valuing harmony and the ideal of coexistence above all. In contrast to the Western preference for litigation, China’s emphasis on mediation and its reverence for the spirit of gracious concession further illustrate the distinctive features and strengths of Chinese culture.

IOMed’s establishment has attracted international attention — and even a deliberate cold shoulder from some Western media outlets — precisely because it represents a breakthrough in both Chinese soft power and its international discourse power, under Chinese leadership. Making Hong Kong IOMed’s headquarters reflects not only a recognition of the city’s legal strengths, but also a desire to promote IOMed in the international arena by leveraging Hong Kong’s role as a bridge between China and the world. In doing so, the Eastern wisdom and Chinese solutions brought to global governance will help the country further enhance its soft power.

The Soft Power Confrontation between China and the West

The intensity of the soft power competition between nations matches the scale of today’s unprecedented upheavals. China’s rise has come to pose a cultural and values-based threat to Western countries led by the United States, resulting in a soft power showdown centered on political values, national cohesion, cultural appeal and international alliances. The U.S. has long had the overwhelming edge in both soft and hard power, yet after only a short time in office, Donald Trump has wreaked havoc on the country’s soft power and shattered the American “beacon of democracy.”

Even without mentioning Trump’s overreach in launching a tariff war, his actions alone are enough to show that the U.S.’ vaunted institutional checks and balances are just empty words. A president can openly accept a palatial aircraft as a gift from another country, and his family can directly participate in cryptocurrency investments. Trump even put on a lavish banquet to entertain major buyers of his official meme coin, openly converting political capital into private wealth and using power to reap enormous personal benefits. Bloomberg News reported that that cryptocurrency project netted the Trump family nearly $1 billion in unrealized profits, and CNN has further reported that the scale of the Trump family’s business in the Middle East has nearly tripled, with investments involving golf courses and luxury villas in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. With such abuses at the top, it is no surprise to find them filtering down through the ranks. The nonprofit U.S. news site ProPublica reported that several senior Washington officials were found to have made precisely timed stock trades just before policy announcements.

These blatant acts of profiteering have reached the point of utter impunity, but the Republican-controlled Congress has abdicated its oversight role, and the judiciary has been politically hijacked. All of this lays bare the disorder and dysfunction of U.S. politics.

This commentator recalls media reports from years ago that revealed how former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once invested $1,000 in cattle futures, making nearly $100,000 in profits. Although this took place more than 10 years before her husband became president, it still sparked public outrage in the U.S. and became a major stain on her political career, forcing the White House to launch an investigation. Comparing that to Trump’s actions today, the decline of American democracy and the collapse of institutional oversight are plain to see. The American democratic system — once described by scholar Francis Fukuyama as the best system devised by humankind — has not only failed to become the “end of history” or a global model worthy of emulation; instead, it has been exposed as being riddled with flaws, with even the most important principle in the Constitution, that of checks and balances, having been abandoned. Perhaps, as the philosopher Emile Rousseau once said, a truly strict democracy has never before existed and never will. Such systems rely too much on human virtue and wisdom, qualities that are rare in any era, but especially so in the U.S. of today.

Shortly before his death, Nye published an article titled “Trump and the End of American Soft Power,” in which he denounced Trump’s “short-sighted” transactionalism and “America First" approach for disregarding universal values and diminishing the U.S.’ attractiveness. He warned that “Trump 2.0” was continuing to erode the U.S.’ democratic norms, which could bring about the decline of the country’s soft power. He also noted that, while the U.S. was damaging its own reputation, China was working hard to fill any gaps created by Trump. This reflects a concern among the American elite that Trump-style misrule is steadily weakening U.S. soft power and will ultimately accelerate the decline of the U.S.’ global influence. In a sense, Nye’s death symbolized the end of the era of American soft power.

The “2025 Global Soft Power Index” was recently published in London, and it showed China’s soft power ranking as rising from third last year to second; the U.S. continued to rank first, and the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany came in at third to fifth place, respectively. According to the report, China’s gains were due to the promotion of its Belt and Road Initiative, the strengthening of its sustainable development, and the growing influence of its domestic brands. The trend in soft-power competition between China and the U.S. is now displaying increasing asymmetry, with the U.S. still strong, but China rapidly catching up. IOMed’s establishment is aimed at resolving international disputes through mediation, but at the same time, it will also showcase to the international community the Chinese approach and Chinese wisdom, offering emerging market countries such as those in the Global South a relatively fair, objective and reasonable environment in which to settle various disputes. This, in fact, is also a display of China’s soft power.

No Room for Failure in the Running of IOMed

Last year, at the ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of Macao’s return to China, President Xi Jinping stated that the values of peace, inclusiveness, openness and sharing embodied in “One Country, Two Systems” highlighted both the contemporary and global significance of that principle and represented a further contribution of China’s wisdom and solutions for global governance. These values are also closely aligned with the spirit of mediation. The central government’s decision to base IOMed in Hong Kong draws on the city’s unique strengths, but it also signals Beijing’s intention to develop Hong Kong into an Asia-Pacific hub for international legal and dispute resolution services. The goal, in this respect, would be to move beyond traditional Western frameworks, foster equal dialogue on the organization’s platform, resolve various international disputes, replace zero-sum thinking with win-win cooperation, and promote the Eastern philosophy of “regarding harmony as the most prized virtue” on the world stage. This is the key reason why IOMed has been established in Hong Kong. Ensuring its success and promoting Hong Kong’s mediation services internationally tie in with the struggle for national soft power — and this is a task at which Hong Kong cannot afford to fail.

The author is a senior vice president of the Hong Kong Cultural Development Research Institute and a member of the China Association of Hong Kong & Macao Studies.