Maritime Territorial Disputes and China’s Soft Power in East Asia

Territorial disputes over the East and South China Sea have been an issue of growing policy concern in East Asia in recent years. These maritime territorial disputes, as the authors argue in this study, constitute a contextual factor undermining China's soft power in East Asia. More specifically, this study quantitatively demonstrates that all else equal, citizens are less likely to take a positive view of China's influence on their respective countries with maritime territorial disputes with China than in countries without such disputes with China. This key result suggests a clear international distributional implication of maritime territorial disputes overlooked in the existing literature on China's soft power. This study cautions against one-sided views on a China's soft power whether purely optimistic or skeptical, in contemporary political analyses.