Britain rules the world, in soft power at least

[GennGreymane]

http://www.economist.com/news/britai...d/softlydoesit

HOW many rankings of global power have put Britain at the top and China at the bottom? Not many, at least in the past hundred years or so. But on July 15th an index of “soft power”—the ability to coax and persuade—ranked Britain as the mightiest country on Earth. If that was unexpected, there was another surprise at the foot of the 30-country index: China, four times as wealthy as Britain, 20 times as populous and 40 times as large, came dead last.

Diplomats in Beijing won’t lose too much sleep over the index, compiled by Portland, a London-based PR firm, together with Facebook, which provided data on governments’ online impact, and ComRes, which ran opinion polls on international attitudes to different countries. But the ranking gathered some useful data showing where Britain still has outsized global clout.

Britain scored highly in its “engagement” with the world, its citizens enjoying visa-free travel to 174 countries—the joint-highest of any nation—and its diplomats staffing the largest number of permanent missions to multilateral organisations, tied with France. Britain’s cultural power was also highly rated: though its tally of 29 UNESCO World Heritage sites is fairly ordinary, Britain produces more internationally chart-topping music albums than any other country, and the foreign following of its football is in a league of its own (even if the national team is not). It did well in education, too—not because of its schools, which are mediocre, but because its universities are second only to America’s, attracting vast numbers of foreign students.

Britain fared least well on enterprise, mainly because it spends a feeble 1.7% of GDP on research and development (South Korea, which came top, spends 4%). And the quality of its governance was deemed ordinary, partly because of a gender gap that is wider than that of most developed countries, as measured by the UN. Governance was the category that sank undemocratic China, whose last place was sealed by a section dedicated to digital soft-power—tricky in a country that restricts access to the web. The political star of social media, according to the index, is Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, whose Facebook page generates twice as many comments, shares and thumbs-ups than that of Barack Obama.

The index will cheer up Britain’s government, which has lately been accused (including by The Economist) of withdrawing from the world. But many of the assets that pushed Britain to the top of the soft-power table are in play. In the next couple of years the country faces a referendum on its membership of the European Union; a slimmer role for the BBC, its prolific public broadcaster; and a continuing squeeze on immigration, which has already made its universities less attractive to foreign students. Much of Britain’s hard power was long ago given up. Its soft power endures—for now.

[Herecius]

London-based PR firm says Britain is the most influential country in the world in its ability to sway global decisions.

I don't want to say they have a conflict of interest, but they have a conflict of interest.

[Deleted]

London-based PR firm says Britain is the most influential country in the world in its ability to sway global decisions.

I don't want to say they have a conflict of interest, but they have a conflict of interest.

Britain has empire influence, the most developed law and is a financial network hub of all hubs.

It doesnt take a genius to figure out that at the head of all these things are the most influential people on the planet.