Latin American entrepreneurs, cultural centers and embassies debate and spend huge amounts of money every year to promote their countries in China. It is getting more soft power ( soft power ), to create a country brand that is able to give impetus to domestic firms. However, on top of all these initiatives, there is a much more natural one that has proven to be extraordinarily more effective: soccer.
The true soft power of Latin America in China
The World Cup in South Africa has been the most recent example of the impact that football can have in China and around the world, revealing countries that normally do not appear in the media and that most citizens would not even know place on the globe. In the last month, words such as “Spain”, “Argentina”, “Uruguay” and “Paraguay”, some of the Spanish-speaking nations that have had the most to talk about in this World Cup, have become the terms most sought after by Internet users Chinese on the Internet. They may not know who their prime ministers are, but they all know Messi, Casillas and Forlán.
If we compare the media presence of these Latin American countries (and Spain) in the last month with previous years, the “boom” is simply spectacular. Using Google Insights , which analyzes the number of searches made by users in a certain country (in this case China), we realize that since 2004, Spain, Argentina, Uruguay or Paraguay have never been talked about so much before as in this last month (click on the photos to see them better):
As can be seen in the tables above, interest in these four countries has grown by up to 100% in recent weeks. Neither cultural nor political events can come close to competing with football, which becomes almost entirely the only thing the Chinese know about us.
Soft power España en China
Si es prácticamente imposible que un país hispanohablante aparezca en la portada de un periódico chino, durante el Mundial éstos han batido récords. El ejemplo más claro ha sido el triunfo de España como campeón mundial, que estos dos días han colocado a La Roja en numerosas portadas:
Uruguay y su nuevo soft power en China
Uruguay, con su cuarto puesto, ha sorprendido extraordinariamente a los chinos. Diego Forlán, considerado el mejor jugador del torneo por la FIFA, también ha aparecido en varias portadas estos días. Que una referencia aUruguay aparezca en la portada de un diario chino y que su nombre se escuche en radios y televisiones todos los días es algo sólo al alcance del fútbol, esa religión universal.
El soft power de Argentina en China
Capítulo a parte para Messi y Argentina, fusionados de alguna forma en una sola entidad. Si a cualquier chino le dices que vienes de Argentina, éste te responderá ipso facto, casi sin pensarlo, en una asociación de palabras sin dudas: “Messi”. El argentino ha sido el futbolista más buscado por los internautas chinos durante la mayor parte del Mundial (en competencia con Cristiano Ronaldo y Kaká), ha copado portadas de periódicos, discusiones en fórums y anuncios de televisión (el más famoso de todos el de QQ, que se ha repetido partido tras partido):
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