The Paradoxes and Limits of Chinese Soft Power
September 2012: President Hu Jintao and his Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visit the port of Dalian to attend the launch of the first aircraft carrier delivered to the Navy of the Popular Freedom Army. Dalian is China’s third biggest port, located in the province of Liaoning, in the North-East of the country, at the heart of ancient Manchuria that was invaded by Japan in 1931. Liaoning is also the name of the air- craft carrier – 300 metres long, weighing in at 67 000 tonnes. That day, China became the tenth country in the world and the last of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to own an aircraft carrier.