China, a Superpower with (yet) no Soft Power

Stamp for ZhongGuo Meng (China Dream) as used on Mass Line Propaganda posters_ China 2014

I am going back to the topic of the Chinese failure, so far, to yield a soft power from her rising status as economic and military superpower.
According to many recent surveys China is perceived as a superpower but she is declining in the favor of many people around the globe, which is as to say: people see it, but don’t like it. I have many friends in China and sometime we do stumble on this issue. To me the answer to the question “why favor toward China is declining” is quite straightforward, at least for what I can understand and say from an European point of view: people from Europe value much respect of human rights, freedom of opinion and China is perceived as a country that do not respect her own people. There is another, latent worry that so far did not surfaced: if China government is, apparently, supported by the majority of the Chinese, the majority of the Chinese are clashing with the majority of the Europeans on basic ideals and concepts about political governance, humans rights and freedom of opinions, religion, expression.
If governments are scrutinized and compared, the outcome from a scrutiny of the Chinese government is negative among Europeans, whom biggest fear, most probably, is to see established in their own country a political system similar to the Chinese.

Germany is one of the European countries that benefit most from China economic rise, yet in Germany the vast majority of the people do not have a favorable opinion about China, and this fact should make clear the point, to some Chinese commentators, that it is not enough to become more and more powerful and dominant to conquer new friends, as I read on the “China Daily”.
So while economics may explain some favorable views of China in other emerging nations-markets (Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, Pakistan and some African countries) the way that China is still handling her own people and her, how can I put this? “system” of total media and internet control, censorship, labor-camps, opaque power handling, the way China is handling the territorial disputes with Japan, South Korea, Viet-Nam and Philippines, among other things, make people from other countries to have increasingly negative perception of China.

There is another reason that are increasing the worries around East Asia, which is the high level of animosity between Chinese and Japanese: at the root of this is the second world war aftermath. Chinese (and South Koreans) say that Japan never adequately apologized for the second world war while in Japan the majority of people think they did. I would like to add that ditto animosity is just kept also at very high level thanks to the never-ending pouring of films, tv serials, fiction, documentaries and so on, on all Chinese media about the period of the second world war, that they see almost as a private war between them and the Japanese, coupled with the education system and the constant call to “not forget and not forgive” that is handle down generation to generation. So it is not surprising that are actually the youngest generations that show most distrust and anger, compared to the older generations. And this is not happening by chance: not only memories are not allowed to fade away but they are fuelled continuosly, and as I stated many times, no one in China is allowed to forget or forgive, including actors and cinema directors. Media, internet and carefully controlled education are working fine, in both countries.

I do not know in which ways the Chinese government is addressing the above issues, or if they are bothered at all by them (judging from some articles on Chinese newspapers I have some doubts), fact is that the usual optimistic propaganda “we are ever growing, we are ever better, we are addressing any problem scientifically, we are back on the right position as first in the world and all that is bad and evil is coming from outside” can maybe work wonders in a totally controlled environment, but does not have much grip on the minds of people outside China. The risk to become the first power in the world alienated by most part of the people of the world it is not a good omen for future world peace and prosperity.