NATION BRANDING: THE CHANGING PERCEPTION OF INDONESIAN CONSUMERS TOWARDS CHINESS SMARTPHONE (2014-2018)

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.