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Opinion | A Chinese ban on animal cruelty can be an easy soft power win for Beijing
- A ban on animal cruelty would reaffirm Chinese age-old cultural traditions of compassion and have popular support
- Such a move can be easily achieved by Beijing and would greatly improve China’s image in the eyes of people around the world
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Covid-19 has focused the world’s attention on China’s wet markets and the country’s treatment of animals. In doing so, the crisis provides an important lesson to Beijing’s policymakers on how to improve China’s image on the world stage and increase its soft power, i.e. its ability to exert influence through attraction.
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As China’s rise brings it to parity with the United States in the economic and strategic spheres, Beijing continues to face challenges with regards to soft power. Within this realm, China’s greatest disadvantage stems from the “foreignness” of its culture in the eyes of many key countries when compared to America, which, over the last 75 years, has familiarised the world with its culture.
The average person will be less critical of foreign states whose cultures are familiar, than those deemed as different and strange. Food and the treatment of animals are both highly visible dimensions of cultural difference, with the latter having more weight.
The coronavirus has both exacerbated and exposed this situation. Mainstream and social media have been flooded with xenophobic commentary on Chinese culture, both on eating habits and the treatment of animals. Footage of animals in wet markets, domesticated and exotic, trembling in cages and graphically slaughtered, has reignited some of the deepest biases towards China held by many in countries from Australia to Sri Lanka, from Britain to India.
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These emotional sentiments go deeper than rational calculation. Emotion clouds the fact that factory farming exists throughout the world, inflicting industrial-scale suffering upon animals in almost every country.
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