Many Chinese are fascinated by the United States, and it remains a top destination for China’s young people to study. Some American programs do send musicians or speakers to China and invite Chinese opinion makers to see the United States firsthand. But the four-day U.S.-China Forum event highlighted how unusual it was for the United States to provide broad access to American culture beyond pirated Hollywood movies.

China’s quest to enhance its world leadership status and America’s effort to maintain its present position is a zero-sum game. It is the battle for people’s hearts and minds that will determine who eventually prevails. And, as China’s ancient philosophers predicted, the country that displays more humane authority will win.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has in recent days sought to use soft power to focus the attention of South Asian countries on the importance of stabilizing he region. At the recent SAARC summit in the Maldives, for example, the need for the peaceful rise of participating members was outlined in detail, using multiple economic levers such as most favoured nation status.

The two giants of the East Asia summit, the United States and China, have both attempted to exercise soft power during the regional talks with promises of funding. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced $US600 million in aid for Indonesia, most of it for “green prosperity” in the world’s third-biggest greenhouse gas emitting nation.

Soft power and public diplomacy activities were rammed up ahead of the East Asian Summit (EAS) in Bali to lay the engagement groundwork. In Indonesia, a Department of Defence-funded integrated maritime surveillance system has just been handed over to the Indonesian government, with the US committed to supporting the programme until 2014.

An individualistic, heterogeneous, novelty-seeking American culture, strengthened by a critical mass of interdisciplinary American research universities that draw the world's best minds, represents a considerable edge in social and economic innovation.

It's a country where Shah Rukh Khan remains hugely popular. If you walk around the streets of Bali, inevitably someone will ask you if you have seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The soft power of Bollywood is tangible in nooks and crannies of this vast country.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour announced a new initiative called the China Design Program. It will be a kind of cultural exchange that sends American designers to China to learn about manufacturing, marketing, and other aspects of the fashion business there—and a Chinese designer spends time in the U.S.