Overseas Chinese, Soft Power and China’s People-to-People Diplomacy in Timor-Leste

Over the past decades, people-to-people diplomacy, also known as public diplomacy, has become one of the cornerstones of international relations between countries around the world. Countries often use public diplomacy2 as a soft power instrument to build relationships with other countries. Joseph S. Nye defines soft power as the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments ... Soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals and policies’ (Nye 2004:256). Conversely, hard power, defined as ‘the ability to coerce, grows out of a country’s military and economic might’ (ibid.). Now enshrined as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), peopleto-people diplomacy is part of China’s soft power toolkit. The Chinese