Soft power projection: from colonial victim mentality to 'Middle Kingdom' global power mentality: rebuilding China's image through sport: Western media responses

As China progressed to the centre of the world stage in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, China's diplomacy strategy has focused on global soft power projection.Its confidence elevated by its unique 'economic miracle', its steadily increasing wealth and its expanding global influence. It as a result has logically jettisoned its long held 'victim mentality' and adopted a 'great power mentality'. This paper discusses the following questions by using a content analysis approach: What harmonious image has China attempted to project of itself in the region? How successful has this image depiction been? In short, what has been the response of the regions' nations? What has been the perception of China regionally in recent decades? Has China's image reconstruction been successful?