2. Russia's soft power resources

2.1 Culture: a soft power resource that has failed to exert its full effect

The rise of a great power is always accompanied by the flourish of its culture. Powerful cultural influence constitutes a great national strength together with politics, economy and military force. The opening ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, themed “Russia's Dream, ” attracted world attention and Russian culture was undoubtedly the most dazzling element. Nonetheless, though its cultural resources have gained recognition from the rest of the world, its overall national image has failed to garner international credit. Statistics show that Russia has ranked the 21st or 22nd among 50 countries on the list of national brands, and that it has been located in the downstream in the IFG-Monocle Soft Power index and the World's Most Reputable Countries.

Why has such a splendid culture failed to enhance Russia's attractiveness and be transformed into soft power? From the perspective of soft power, culture is not just literature, art, music, painting or craft; its core lies in ideology and religion. Ideology played a protruding role during the Cold War era when the Soviet Union exported communist values through a variety of cultural communication means and stood up to the US as an equal. But Russia does not possess the ideal equivalent to the effect of communism. As the ideology and political system of new Russia, “sovereign democracy” has not only been questioned by the West but also failed to spread in the post-Soviet era. The Eastern Orthodoxy has played a crucial role in national cohesion and political stability but flunked in serving as a cultural core in international communication. Russia's current cultural communication remains at the primary stage, without the ability to exert educational or didactic impact.

2.2 Whether the Russian language can boost Russia's soft power?

The communication ability of the Russian language is closely related with Russian's fate. During the Soviet Union era, the Russian language played an important role in forming the national spirit, promoting the ethnic fusion and enhancing the country's influence. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia's national strength weakened to a large extent, resulting in the plummeting impact of the Russian language which later lost its monopoly position in the post-Soviet era. The “deserting and utilization” of Russian language has become a crucial tool of some countries to manifest an independent spirit and pursue a new status. With the gradual recovery of national power, the Russian language has become an important means to promote soft power for the strategic need to improve its national image and enhance its influence upon the CIS states.

Despite the Kremlin's firm resolution, cultural promotion projects like “Year of Russian Language” and foreign publicity institutes including the Russian World Foundation, and Rossotrudnichestvo have exerted limited influence in recent years. The position of the Russian language has not been obviously improved mainly because of three reasons. First, policies related to language can hardly take effect within a short period, so Moscow's publicity effort failed to immediately reverse the downward trend of the position of the Russian language over the past two decades. Second, the position of Russian language is not just purely the issue of language communication but a political wrangle. The Baltic States have even proposed the issue of “language sovereignty” and associated that whether to reserve Russian with politics. Finally, Russia is unlikely to promote its language through administrative means and lacks economic power to boost and popularize teaching with Russian.

Though it is impossible for Russian to return to its monopoly position in the Soviet era, there has no other comparable language. It remains a common language with the highest popularity. Language is a key tool of soft power Russia masters and will play an important role in the process of regional integration if properly used. In the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, Moscow interfered in the name of protecting the legitimate rights of ethnic Russians as Ukraine was considering leaving off Russian as its official language. It not only integrated Crimea but also made a mess in eastern Ukraine. Whether the “language” and “human rights”cards used by Russia will become tools for it to realize its strategic interests remains to be seen.

2.3 Image of Leader — Personification of National Image

In Today's Russia, Putin is the core character of Russian social development, serving as an extremely important symbol on both domestic and international stages. He is the representative of national dignity and solidarity. As a state leader, Putin has gained not only popularity from the Russian people hut also wide attention from the international community given his political achievements, governing style and personal charisma. According to survey data released by the Levada Center during the past 14 years when Putin was in office (including his term as prime minister), his approval rate has been above 60 percent all the time. In 2014, Russia's integration of Crimea helped push his approval rate to a peak of 86 percent. Putin is also very popular in China, and in particular his “hardman” image in foreign policies and anti-terror issues has earned wide endorsement from the Chinese public. Not only has there been little criticism on him in China's official media outlets but there are plenty of news and commentaries speaking highly of him across the country's social media. The“In Touch Today” program of Tencent, China's largest and most used Internet service portal, conducted an opinion poll on Putin's approval rating from 2008 to 2014, the result of which shows that his supporting rate has always been above 90 percent in China. Putin has been among the top in the Forbes lists of the World's Most Powerful People; he surpassed his US counterpart Barack Obama and carried the crown in 2013 and 2014. According to Forbes, Putin, who has been maintaining power for a long time, is far beyond ordinary state leaders with his resources, scope and use of power as well as the number of people he impacts.

Putin is the major architect and representative of Russia's national image at present. As a leader who guarantees domestic stability and order, Putin is widely accepted by the public and the elite, and he showcases superb political wisdom at critical historical junctions and upheavals, His image has become one of the most important sources of Russia's soft power.