Abstract:
Nation branding is one of the concepts in soft power in international relations that
is useful in the concept of forming a country's image. China, as one of the major
Asian countries, has negative nation branding in Indonesia in terms of the low
quality of products made in China and imitation products on the Indonesian market.
Since the growing popularity of Chinese smartphones in Indonesia since it first
entered the Indonesian market in 2014, such negative opinions have changed to
become more positive in 2018. This is seen from the dominance of Chinese brands
in smartphone sales in the Indonesian market and a survey conducted by the author
about the opinions of Indonesian consumers towards goods made in China. It
practices quantitative analysis with the theoretical concept of nation branding. This
study found that the changes that occurred due to several factors such as
improvements made by the Chinese government and Chinese brands in terms of
high technology research and development. The improvement of the product and
branding of the Chinese state gave a positive opinion towards the country of China
as a whole and had a good effect on China’s economic business. Even so, this
research still touches the basic layers of the concept of nation branding in soft power
between China and Indonesia and requires deeper exploration. The results of this
study contribute to the study of the use of nation branding and soft power in the
world of international relations.
