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The mania for soft power is omnipresent in China, from officials’ speeches to community slogans.

The wealth balloon in recent decades has emboldened us, and we are fed up with long having been a target of suspicion and snobbery.

We figure that the ingredients of wealth and a long history of Chinese culture, plus some diplomacy, will create the right mix to make magic soft power.

The memory of the spectacular National Day military parade is still fresh in our minds, along with the thrill it aroused when the whole world seemed to set eyes on China. Recalling images of the armored vehicles driving past Tiananmen Square, fighter jets roaring overhead, and the extravagant fireworks displayed in the heart of Beijing, we feel just wonderful.

One day after the grand celebration on the National Day, a Global Times press corps took a trip to Vietnam. One of our purposes is to look for examples of China exporting soft power.

The two nations share not just a border but cultural heritage, having adopted reforms in almost the same era and relying on similar economic growth patterns.

Most importantly, there are no ideological clashes between the two, so where else is better than Vietnam to observe the strength of China’s soft power?

But stand in the landmark square of downtown Ho Chi Minh City, surrounded by the hustle and bustle and you will have second thoughts. The giant bulletin boards on the towering buildings display advertisements for Hitachi, Hyundai and LG. Take one more look, and there is not a single Chinese brand present.

At one end of the square sits an old indoor market the size of a stadium. In the dim-lit space are piled cheap commodities from slippers and candleholders to decorative paintings, originally made in China. A few Chinese immigrants, speaking accented Chinese, scutter around bargaining hard.

Everywhere in Vietnam, motorcycles are the primary way of getting around. But all you can see is the Honda brand, with very few exceptions.

In local middle-class families or those with meager incomes, home appliances are made in Japan or South Korea. It makes you wonder: Where are the Chinese electronics? Those are the essence of the robust Chinese economy, but haven’t yet become a fashionable choice in Vietnam.

Representing another bolder ambition, the Chinese yuan is attempting its maiden overseas journey. How the currency of a country is received outside its boundary is a more accurate measurement of a country’s overall power. Neighboring Southeast Asian countries are said to be warmly embracing the yuan, or at least that’s what we read.

But it is not exactly happening. At least at many grand hotels’ reception desk, the exchange rate between the yuan and the Vietnamese dong is curiously missing from a list of other popular world currencies.

With the pride of a promising China so deep in our mind, the proof of equivalent Chinese soft power is almost dishearteningly invisible in a country so close to us.

There are indeed some positive signs around indicating that China is an object of interest. Scholars are studying the Chinese model, copying successful experiences while trying to avoid the hard lessons learned. In the prestigious Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences, the China institute is the only one that studies just a single country. And as in many other places, there is a rising zeal for studying Putonghua in local universities.

All these make up a complicated, and in many ways contradictory, image of China, a combination of a country busy making cheap commodities, yet managing to accumulate formidable wealth.

The real influence of China, judging from all we’ve seen, falls short of what we’d imagined. Exaggeration, stemming from an anxiety to be acknowledged, results in the delusion that the entire world has a crush on China.

Soft power needs specific carriers. Made-in-China brands, though on the rise, haven’t demonstrated enough strength to carry that mission. Chinese cultural products also haven’t made its way into ordinary families in foreign countries.

But we do have reasons to feel encouraged because China’s influence is taking shape, though it is just starting and growing slowly. It’s a target of interest in the academic world. Young, educated people associate their future with China by picking up the language.

All indicate a possibility, if all goes well, that China will infiltrate ordinary people’s lives in the future.

The author is an editor with the Global Times

Illustration: Liu Rui

By Lu Jingxian