Since the late 1990s, China has sought to bolster its soft power – a country’s use of culture, language and other “soft” tools aimed at making outsides feel better about its politics and motives – with mixed results. China is often feared and respected but not necessarily trusted or loved beyond its borders. Mark Magnier, a foreign correspondent based for the past two decades in Asia, will look at Beijing’s strategies and tactics moving forward as it attempts to improve its image and ease its rise as a global power.

Mark Magnier has spent the past 20 years as a foreign correspondent based in Japan, China and India for the "Los Angeles Times" and "Wall Street Journal." He’s also done various conflict assignments in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, covered earthquakes and tsunamis, camped under Saddam Hussein’s highways and slept in an abandoned nunnery during the violent birth of East Timor. He is here on a U-M Knight-Wallace journalism fellowship.