[4][5] China's ranked 27th out of 30 nations in the Soft Power 30 index for 2018 and 2019 published by Portland Communications and the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
[11] China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has attracted many western countries to join.
[15] Chinese soft-power in the Middle East countries has been expanding since the beginning of the millennium, and includes many efforts in the fields of education, journalism, and popular culture.
[17] China leveraged the 2022 Winter Olympics to promote and expand its grandiose Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
While the world was transfixed on the Olympic competitions, countless delegations of international politicians traveled to Beijing to meet privately Chinese officials in order to carve out trade agreements that would allow their respective countries to become part of the BRI enterprise.