Here's an idea raised by a friend: Apparently the Thai government/embassy used to (still does?) subsidize Thai restaurants in DC as a way to promote Thai culture--hence the proliferation of pun-laden Thai joints (Thaiphoon, Thaitanic, and so on).

Producers and movie industry advocates visiting the Beijing International Film Festival’s first full day on Sunday from around the world joined their Chinese counterparts in a summit to slice and dice the potential perks and pitfalls of making movies together.

The mood of the Arab public shifts easily, and beliefs such as that China sells inferior merchandise to Arab countries, or is stealing Middle Eastern oil, have greatly affected the way local people think about China.

China is better off due to its extensive international engagement. Yet such engagement is double-edged, increasingly exposing China to regional unrest such as the current turbulence in Libya.

The Harvard China Forum is one of the largest China-focused conferences in North America and annually attracts hundreds of audiences from across the world. Topics at this year’s forum ranged from culture and society, business and innovation, to economics and finance.

“When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them,” Confucius once said. Apparently, someone extremely powerful has taken the saying to heart, having decided that a 31-foot bronze statue of the ancient Chinese sage that was unveiled near Tiananmen Square four months ago did not belong on the nation’s most hallowed slice of real estate.

While some streamlining of U.S. international broadcasting will be necessitated by the House Republicans’ proposed 10 percent cut in the BBG’s current $745 million budget, economies should clearly not be found by the wholesale elimination of key services.

"Chinese film-makers are going to shoot a documentary about Baku, the soundtrack of which will be a Chinese song about Baku performed by [Azerbaijani singer] Rashid Behbudov," Valeriy Ruzin, president of the Eurasian Academy of Television and Radio and a member of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, told a press conference in Baku.