If the Confucius Peace Prize is a genuine attempt at projecting soft power, it is a hilarious one. Candidates for the 2017 award included Bashar al-Assad, Rodrigo Duterte, and eventual winner Hun Sen. In 2015 it went to Robert Mugabe.
China is using their "peace" prize as soft power to further their own interests. They are being rather blatant about it as you showed with mugabe winning it in 2015. And europe is using their "peace" prize to further their own interests. Though they do pay lip service to "peace", "human rights" and "democracy". The chinese haven't bother with that much, but if history serves as an example, it won't be long before the chinese pretend to be the champions of the "peace", "human rights" and "democracy" like europeans do.
Also, the chinese peace prize winners are suspect for sure. But so are the european peace prize list. People like woodrow wilson and henry kissinger are nobel peace laureates.