China cannot be too deterministic about its practice of "soft power", said the Australian don, who spoke under the Chatham House Rule (a principle that governs the confidentiality of the source of information received at a meeting)... "China defines soft power as though one can assemble it at the border and export it like a box of toys," he added. "That is light years away from Nye's original concept."

Chinese culture enjoys increasing influence in the world. What makes it so attractive? What are the challenges facing it? Over the past eight years, the Confucius Institute has made remarkable achievements in promoting the Chinese culture and language worldwide.

The Confucius Institute’s project has been developing Chinese language and culture programmes in schools across Wales for the past five years. Lansdowne Primary School has been a pioneer, having established additional classes every week. The school was the first in Wales to submit children for the YCT Official Chinese Language Proficiency test in 2011.

Panda diplomacy has become a pillar of China's soft power strategy, but the death of a week-old baby panda in Japan -- the first born to Tokyo's Ueno zoo in 24 years -- stands to disappoint those who hoped that its birth would motivate "people-to-people sentiment" and help overcome the strained China-Japan relationship.

In his book, “A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia,” Aaron L. Friedberg says American diplomats are far too concerned with getting along with this Asian economic juggernaut at the expense of U.S. security interests.

“We are trying to bring two cultures together,” said Bruce Mitchell, associate provost and chair of the institute’s board. “It’s not just language but art, cooking and crafts.” When it opened in May, 2007, the local Confucius Institute was the second institute in Canada. The institute is a partnership between Waterloo and Nanjing University in China.

Residents of Mauritius, Benin, Cairo, Paris, Malta, Seoul, Berlin, Tokyo and Ulaanbaatar can engage Chinese culture and meet Chinese people in their homelands at these Chinese culture clubs. This impact could be seen at a recent demonstration by more than 100 tai chi students from the Mauritius Chinese Culture Center at Lady S. Ramgoolam State Secondary School in Mauritius' Port Louis.

In the Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China in 1972, the Japanese government stated it would deeply reflect on its aggression against China and the hurts and damage it brought to the Chinese people.