Nye, Soft Power, and Culture as a Geopolitical Resource
When Joseph Nye coined the term soft power, he probably didn’t imagine that one day we would be using it to talk about cuisines, street food, and TV series – even though he had already considered the specific weight of Hollywood’s film industry. And yet, here we are. If hard power – military, economic, coercive – shows its muscles, soft power wins hearts through charm, imagination, and everything that makes others listen, imitate, and aspire.
The concept wasn’t entirely new: for centuries, empires and world powers have tried to win over hearts and minds even before conquering territories. But Nye had the merit of giving this intuition a modern theoretical framework, suited to a world in which the weapons of cultural persuasion matter just as much as traditional ones.
His recent passing offers a moment to reflect on how theory has shaped practice – to the point of becoming diplomatic strategy, institutional communication, and national branding. Today, soft power is also measured in the food choices we make every day: from pre-packaged sushi in a London supermarket, to kimchi served on Parisian tables, to pad thai eaten in Milan.
My previous article, Food and Power, briefly touched on this topic, showing how food is never neutral. But now I want to go further: to closely observe how certain countries – Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil – have used (or are learning to use) gastronomy as a tool for global cultural influence, with varying but always intriguing results.
Food as Ambassador: Defining Gastro-Diplomacy
When we think of soft power, we tend to think of films, music, and fashion. But for at least the past twenty years, scholars and governments have begun to recognize food as a tool of cultural diplomacy. Thus emerged the concept of gastro-diplomacy: the strategic use of cuisine to build emotional bridges, improve a nation’s image, and generate curiosity, approval, and attraction through taste.
Gastro-diplomacy differs from mere culinary export: it’s not just about introducing a cuisine, but about linking it to a positive identity. It’s an operation halfway between marketing, diplomacy, and cultural anthropology. The goal is to ensure that by savoring a dish, the foreign diner also savors an image – refined, welcoming, modern, traditional, depending on the case – of the country of origin.
Policy handbooks, government projects, public funding to open restaurants abroad, chefs turned into cultural ambassadors – all of this is part of a broader strategy. If the old ambassadors spoke through speeches, the new ones communicate with curries, sushi, and street food. In an era of hyperconnection and information overload, food speaks louder than words. It’s a sensory, emotional, collective experience. And that’s exactly why it works.
Thailand – Food as a Business Card
Few countries have understood and applied the principles of gastro-diplomacy with the strategic vision and effectiveness of Thailand. As early as the early 2000s, the government launched the Global Thai program, a structured and ambitious plan aimed at promoting Thai cuisine worldwide. The goal was clear: to make the taste of pad thai coincide with the image of Thailand itself, presenting the nation as exotic yet accessible, traditional yet dynamic, smiling and welcoming.
In other words, every Thai restaurant abroad is not just a business – it’s a micro cultural embassy. The project included incentives for entrepreneurs, aesthetic and culinary guidelines, and even standardized formats with evocative names like Elephant Jump or Cool Basil, ready to be replicated anywhere in the world. It wasn’t just about exporting dishes, but about encoding an imaginary: green curry as global comfort food, the waiter’s smile as an extension of the Land of Smiles brand.
More recently, Thailand has stepped up its efforts to promote its soft power internationally. Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra embarked on a European tour, visiting the United Kingdom and Monaco from May 21 to 25, 2025, with the aim of promoting Thai cuisine, culture, and Muay Thai as part of the country’s soft power strategy. During her visit, she attended key events such as ITB Berlin 2025, the world’s leading tourism fair, where she presented Thailand’s vision for sustainable, high-value tourism, emphasizing the role of soft power in positioning the country as a top-tier global destination.
Unlike other countries that leave the spread of their cuisine to the diaspora or individual initiative, Thailand has chosen state planning, proving that food can be a geopolitical tool just as much as a pipeline or a military base. And the results are clear: in less than twenty years, Thai cuisine has firmly entered urban menus across the world, from New York to Berlin, from Melbourne to Milan. Pad thai has become a flag – but a flag that doesn’t divide, rather one that invites, welcomes, and seduces. And while pad thai becomes a pop symbol, Thai soft power grows stronger, bite after bite.
However, according to an analysis by the Bangkok Post, Thailand’s soft power strategy has shown some shortcomings. The article points out that while the country has invested in tourism campaigns and cultural promotion, it lacks a clear strategic vision of what soft power should achieve and what values Thailand truly wants to project. Moreover, the current approach has been described as “all style, no substance,” suggesting that without political coherence, credible leadership, and a moral purpose, soft power efforts risk becoming empty exports, easily consumed and quickly forgotten. And that’s a risk inherent in any soft power action pursued for its own sake – regardless of the country undertaking it.
Japan – Refinement in Service of National Branding
Japan doesn’t need to sell its cuisine. It’s the cuisine – or rather, the aesthetic imaginary surrounding it – that sells Japan. In no other country is food so deeply intertwined with the concepts of harmony, precision, silence, and balance. Eating here is a gesture that borders on the sacred, an aesthetic practice even before it is a nutritional one.
In 2013, UNESCO recognized washoku – traditional Japanese cuisine – as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity. But beyond this official acknowledgment, it is the global perception of Japanese food that has helped build a lasting, elegant, almost invisible soft power. Sushi, which until the 1980s was little known outside of Japan, is today synonymous with contemporary sophistication, healthy minimalism, and bourgeois cosmopolitanism.
But it’s not just sushi: ramen, izakaya, kaiseki, wagashi, matcha. Every segment of Japanese gastronomy has become a narrative channel, capable of conveying the identity of a country that presents itself as both advanced and rooted, high-tech yet respectful of tradition. Japanese restaurants – even those run by foreigners – often replicate not only the recipes, but also the aesthetic experience: raw ceramic dishes, soft lighting, measured gestures, silence as language.
In this sense, Japan’s gastro-diplomacy is all the more powerful because it rarely feels intentional. It is a silent and authoritative presence, like that of a Zen master who teaches without speaking. And it’s precisely this kind of approach that has made Japanese cuisine a global benchmark, a standard against which all other gastronomic experiences are measured.
South Korea – K-Food and the Pop Strategy
If Thailand carefully planned its gastro-diplomacy and Japan embodied it with natural grace, South Korea orchestrated it like a cultural symphony, blending food, music, cinema, and lifestyle into one powerful current of soft power: the Korean Wave, or Hallyu. Here, food doesn’t act alone – it’s part of an integrated cultural strategy where nothing is left to chance.
As K-dramas and the global phenomenon of K-pop began to conquer the West, dishes like kimchi, bibimbap, bulgogi, and Seoul street food started appearing in international markets, fusion restaurants, and TikTok videos. This wasn’t a side effect, but the result of a carefully crafted cultural policy: food as an extension of Brand Korea, flanked by pop idols, award-winning films, and cutting-edge tech products.
Starting in 2009, the Korean government launched official campaigns to promote Hansik (traditional Korean cuisine) abroad, allocating funds for events, cooking classes, chef scholarships, support for restaurant openings, and coordinated advertising campaigns. In parallel, Korean celebrities showcased iconic dishes live on social media, reinforcing a virtuous circle between entertainment, identity, and commerce.
The strength of the South Korean model lies in its ability to create desire: it’s not just the food that’s appealing, but the entire lifestyle that surrounds it. Eating Korean becomes an act of adherence to an aesthetic, a way of life, a culture perceived as fresh, modern, and dynamic. It’s a pop gastro-diplomacy, but no less effective: it works because it speaks the language of global consumers, because it seduces without explaining, letting the experience itself – gustatory, visual, emotional – do the talking.
Brazil – Diaspora, Affection, and Untapped Potential
Unlike Thailand, Japan, and South Korea, Brazil has never launched a formal gastro-diplomacy program. And yet, few countries in the world can boast such an affective, inclusive, sensory cuisine – capable of evoking not just a place, but an entire lifestyle made of warmth, generosity, and cultural fusion.
Brazil is a living crossroads of cultures: African, Indigenous, Portuguese, Arab, Italian, Japanese. This blend has produced a mixed and festive cuisine, where dishes like feijoada, moqueca, pão de queijo, or acarajé tell stories of slavery, colonization, resistance, and migration. It’s a cuisine that embraces, often consumed in groups, during festivities, at home, or in lively streets. It lacks the formal perfection of kaiseki, and isn’t driven by a state strategy, but it possesses something harder to design: a recognizable soul.
Across European cities, Brazilian restaurants born from the diaspora have begun to build emotional bridges with those seeking the warmth of a different culture. The Brazilian approach to service, food, and hospitality is often remembered for its humanity, its contagious joy, and the way it makes people feel “at home,” even thousands of kilometers away.
And yet, here lies the paradox: despite having all the ingredients for successful gastro-diplomacy – iconic ingredients, powerful stories, a rich culinary culture – Brazil has yet to fully capitalize on this potential through international cultural policy. What’s missing is a unified narrative, a strategic direction, a structural investment that could turn the taste of Brazil into a systemic form of soft power, capable of generating influence, attraction, and geopolitical value.
In a world that craves authenticity and warmth, Brazil has already won the emotional game. The question now is whether it will – and can – turn all of this into a more conscious and coordinated form of cultural diplomacy.
Cuisines as Geopolitical Imaginaries
Eating is never just a physiological act. It is a cultural, symbolic, relational gesture. Every dish tells a story, a particular worldview. That’s why today, cuisines have become geopolitical imaginaries: emotional maps that countries draw on the palates of others in order to represent themselves – or be desired.
In gastro-diplomacy, food is not just cultural heritage to be preserved or showcased, but a strategic language. Sushi says: “we are refined and ancient”; pad thai: “we are welcoming, sensual, vibrant”; kimchi: “we are dynamic, energetic, proud”; feijoada: “we are fusion, celebration, resilience.” Every bite, every taste contains an implicit message, a mini national narrative, a promise of identity. It’s no coincidence that many of these dishes are made more “presentable” or softened in flavor for international audiences: it’s palatal diplomacy, where even authenticity becomes negotiable.
These imaginaries don’t arise by chance: some are carefully cultivated, others grow spontaneously. But all of them help shape a country’s international reputation, influencing how it is perceived globally. And since we live in a world increasingly shaped by so-called “narrative” – where identities are performed, sold, and staged – the dish becomes a powerful semiotic device, capable of saying much more than it seems.
To cook for others is, ultimately, an act of trust. To accept another’s food is an act of openness. In this exchange – simple and profound – lies a part of modern diplomacy, more effective than a thousand words, because it is more direct, more human, more memorable.
Nye’s Legacy and the “Food as Message”
Joseph Nye taught us that power is not exercised only through force or fear, but also – and perhaps above all – through the appeal of example. Today, that lesson echoes more than ever in the way nations tell their stories and represent themselves through culture. And among the many storytelling forms, food is the one that penetrates most deeply and immediately, because it speaks not only to the mind, but to the body, the senses, and memory.
Gastro-diplomacy is one of the most effective expressions of contemporary soft power: it has the power to seduce without persuading, to attract without explaining, to leave an indelible impression without using words. Whether it’s the refinement of Japan, the pop strategy of Korea, the warm spontaneity of Brazil, or the planned efficiency of Thailand, every gastronomic experience builds a relationship. And every relationship is, at its core, a form of influence.
The power of a dish lies not only in its flavor but in the narrative that surrounds it. The way it is presented, served, and shared. The gesture with which it is offered says something about the world it represents. That’s why today we can no longer separate diplomacy from culture, nor culture from cuisine: they are interconnected systems, strengthening one another. And those who can recognize this interdependence have a strategic advantage, even before a commercial one.
Italy, in all this, plays an ambiguous role. It possesses one of the most loved and replicated cuisines in the world, but too often relies on the myth of its fame rather than on a coherent cultural strategy. Italy’s image is still shaped more by carbonara and pizza than by public policy. But in a world where cultural competition is increasingly fierce, we too should perhaps ask ourselves: do we want to continue being unconscious symbols, or become conscious narrators of our gastronomic identity?
Nye’s legacy invites us to reflect precisely on this: those who truly influence the world are not the ones who shout the loudest, but the ones who know how to be remembered. And few gestures are as memorable as a shared dish.