Propaganda Songs in Music Education: Between Chinese Nationalism and Chinese Socialism

Over the last two decades, China has had a strong interest in pursuing a smart power strategy toward the world and has worked hard to engage with regional countries economically, politically, and socially. Along this line, the academic research on the Chinese Dream, soft power aspirations, and public and cultural diplomacy in the ideological and political education of school students has become a hot issue. The question of how the Chinese Government has deployed its soft power (also known as the Chinese Dream in this study) in the past and the present through the use of music in national community education in China will be investigated in this chapter. This chapter will also demonstrate how select songs are used to examine soft power, improve national communication capabilities, and undertake domestic purposes to achieve three goals, including the cultivation of cultural diplomacy through traditional Chinese culture, the development of cultural diplomacy, and the fulfilment of the Chinese Dream, soft power, and public and cultural diplomacy in China’s education.