east asian policy 5 * Zahid Shahab AHMED is a Research Fellow at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Australia. Ahsan HANIF is a PhD Scholar at the RMIT University in Australia. HE Baogang is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and Alfred Deakin Professor at Deakin University. WHAT CONSTITUTES SOFT power and whether one country is recognised as having soft power are hotly contested. In recent years, China’s soft power has been subjected to such ferce contestation. China is often perceived as lacking in China’s Soft Power in Pakistan: The Representation of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor in Local Newspapers Zahid Shahab AHMED, Ahsan HANIF and HE Baogang* This article conducts a case study of China’s infuence on Pakistan by collecting and analysing news coverage from two prominent English and Urdu newspapers in Pakistan for a fve-year period between 2013 and 2018. It compares the changes in newspaper reporting before and after the launch of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in 2015. Analysis has shown a signifcant increase in positive reporting on the CPEC and China. The case of Pakistan is representative of its recognition of China’s soft power in a developing country, thus offering a new perspective on China’s goodwill vis-à-vis the Belt and Road Initiative.