China has spent billions of dollars to project soft power in Asia but it has struggled to win the hearts and minds of ordinary citizens in parts of the region, a study said Tuesday. President Xi Jinping doubled China’s foreign affairs budget in six years from 30 billion to 60 billion yuan ($8.5 billion) to bolster its global diplomacy, according to the AidData research lab at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. “Public diplomacy is a critical ingredient in Beijing’s toolkit to neutralise potential threats, overcome internal disadvantages, and outmanoeuvre regional competitors,” said the report, carried out with the Asia Society Policy Institute and the China Power Project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
