By Edward Nawotka, Editor-in-Chief

A couple of years ago, I asked the question of whether literature was a useful instrument for soft-power initiatives. At the time, I was focusing on China and how over the past half-decade the country has aggressively promoted its country and its culture through the export of its literature. Not only has China already served as guest of honor at recent Frankfurt and London Book Fair’s, this week’s BookExpo America is featuring several events to preview China’s showcase as the focus of the “Global Market Forum” of BEA 2015.

As I wrote before, “soft power” is itself something of an amorphous term, but it can generally be agreed upon that for it to work, it needs to be seductive and/or attractive — it needs to lure people into a more positive, less critical view of a nation.

When it comes to Chinese fiction,  the books that have been translated are often highly critical of the country, focusing on everything from the poverty of peasants, mistreatment of Tibet, to the struggles of the rising middle class. I argued before that literature, and fiction in particular, may be too wild and unpredictable as tools for soft power. But you never do know. After all, the popularity of the novels of Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami in South Korea has been credited with easing tensions across the Sea of Japan.

George Zhu Daping (Photo: Forbes)

Granted, fiction may not be an ideal “soft power” tool, but blunt-edged nonfiction may very well be. Just ask George Daping Zhu, an executive who got his very start in the propaganda office of the Chinese government, only later to found Beijing Mediatime Books, a company which was founded in 2008 after private ownership of publishing companies in China was sanctioned. His latest company is CN Times Books, a firm that was launched in New York last year and is focused on publishing books Chinese culture, history and politics in the U.S., with — writes Forbes — the goal of “influencing the thinking of the American elites.”

The company’s first list has included titles such as China Threat? by Lionel Vairon, The Chinese People’s Liberation Army by Wie Wang, and The Wealth of China by Gao Qiang and Yu Yi.

here is no doubt that there’s a “soft power” angle work here, something Zhu admitted to Publishers Weekly in December, when he said: “The U.S. uses thinking and publishing to maintain its power in the world,” adding, “it’s difficult to sell Chinese books in the U.S. but if we can increase sales and increase [cross-cultural] communication, we can reduce friction [between the two countries].”

While all this may all seem suspect at first, ultimately at its core, CN Times Books is a publishing business like any other — after all, their next forthcoming title has nothing to do with China at all. Instead, it’s an homage to the company’s hometown — Point of View New York City: A Visual Game of the City You Think You Know by Janko Puls. It’s a commercial gift book if there ever was one.

Of course, we will have to see. After all, if the entire book is focused on the back alleyways of Chinatown, it might raise suspicion.

What do you think? Do you agree that books have a role to play in influencing nations and states? Let us know what you think in the comments.