Vietnam could be an international success story and create what’s being called ‘soft power’ for itself.

Professor Joseph Nye

That’s the verdict of Professor Joseph Nye, the eminent US thinker, who has arrived in Vietnam at the invitation of VietNamNet newspaper and the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The key, he says, to soft power is confidence

According to the professor, there are three ways to create and show power: showing menace (rod), giving money (carrot) and persuading others using neither rod nor carrot (soft power).

Leaders of nations always want to see results immediately. Therefore, they tend to use hard power. Meanwhile, they can only see the results of soft power after at a later time. That explains why the leaders rarely have enough patience to wait and see soft power result.

According to Professor Nye, economic achievements can bring both hard and soft power, and economic strength could be used as a way of attracting or threatening other countries

He says Japan and China have discovered soft power and Vietnam is likely to discover it too. Thanks to the recent economic achievements, China’s soft power has been heightened in the eyes of regional countries. Many people now see China as a model for economic management instead of the US’ model which attaches more importance to economic openings and democracy.

According to him, military strength is always considered a kind of hard power. However, in fact, it has close relations with soft power. For example, the decision to attack Iraq in 2003 has made the US less admirable in the eyes of many people due to the doubts over their participation in the war.

The concept of “soft power” refers to a strategic vision based on knowledge and good communication of positive activities and was first voiced in 1980. The concept has since been widely used by scholars and leaders of nations

However, not everyone believes in “soft power”. An US journalist recently wrote that soft power is a good theory, but it has not been proved in reality, especially in diplomacy and military.

Despite this, even military policy makers have also become aware of the importance of soft power. They well understand that the success of military campaigns not only depends on weapons.

Leading US military officials also think that if the US cannot change the belief that the US always imposes its will on other countries, then the US will never succeed in its foreign policy objectives.

Vietnam can write its own success story

Following the traditional viewpoint, the winners are those, who have economic and military strength. Nowadays, people understand that the winners are those, who can persuade others to listen to them.

Vietnam needs to write a story of its own and make people know and trust the story, Professor Nye said

A question that Vietnam needs to raise for itself is: how it should it write its story in order to attract the attention of the international community?

According to the Professor, Vietnam can learn lessons from China. The country has successfully strengthened its soft power by successfully organizing the Olympics. However, it has harmed itself with its negative viewpoints on climate change.

This can bring big opportunities to Vietnam – a country which strives for sustainable development and pays attention to climate change.

Living alongside its big neighbor, the best way for Vietnam to protect itself is to combine hard and soft power, the professor said.

“With what I have heard and witnessed about Vietnam, I strongly believe that Vietnam can do this,” he said.