Air China yesterday ( September 22, 2010) launched a direct route from Chengdu to Tokyo. Air China is the first airline to launch a direct route to Japan from Southwest China.

Twenty young Saudis are marking the 20 years of diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and Saudi Arabia by participating in a forum hosted by the All-China Youth Federation.

Canberra is often criticised for being a city of monuments. Mahatma Gandhi has been immortalised in bronze and perhaps most controversially, the late Labor-stalwart Al Grassby. Now there is one more luminary to add to the list - the long-dead but still influential Chinese philosopher, Confucius.

What does China stand for? That question arose at a recent dialogue between Confucian and African thinkers in South Africa funded by the Confucius Institute. Such dialogues are relatively new: They are carried out on non-Western terms and funded by non-Western organizations...But which values does China stand for and how can they be promoted abroad?

While tens of thousands of Chinese can sing the Russian song Katyusha, thousands of Russian families regularly watch a Chinese teaching TV program named "Hello, China."

If measured by wait time, Saudi Arabia has one of the most popular pavilions at the Shanghai Expo.  So what do visitors, who typically have to queue for 4-5 hours, actually see and experience?  Pavilion Director Abdulhamid Hasan discusses an innovative use of the conventional medium of film to present his country.

The classroom walls at the Hungarian-Chinese bilingual primary school here are decorated with Chinese calendars and banners. Chinese lanterns hang from the ceilings of the main entrance hall. There are stacks of new Chinese language books in the staff room, provided by the Chinese authorities, who also send two teachers a year, depending on the school’s needs.

Earlier this year at the National People's Congress, Premier Wen Jiabao stated in his government work report that China will attach more importance to cultural development to enhance the international influence of Chinese culture. This is just the latest confirmation that China recognizes that it has to enhance its global image by the exercise of soft power.