Outside of Africa, Chinese soft power extends to countries like Barbados. Barbadian Prime Minister David Thompson expressed admiration for the Chinese economic model and sought to emulate the way Chinese state controlled banks guided development. Chinese soft power in the Middle East countries has been expanding since the beginning of the millennium and includes many efforts in the fields of education, journalism, and popular culture. One of the most influential of China's soft power tools toward the Arab world, as Roie Yellinek et al. said in their article, are the 15 Confucius Institutes across the region.
