Public diplomacy can be implemented as a cluster of measures that are more productive than the confrontational steps such as “checkbook diplomacy,” in which Taipei and Beijing competed for formal diplomatic partners.

China is steadily gaining the hard power that comes from factories and finance.... But lasting influence in the world has come more from soft than hard power: ideas for living, models of individual, commercial, and social life that people emulate because they are attracted rather than because they are compelled.

While discussing with political advisors in the field of foreign exchanges, Jia Qinglin, chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, said the CPPCC should actively promote public diplomacy in a bid to improve support and favor for China in the international community.

During the session, leaders of the Party approved a decision on deepening reform of the cultural system and promoting the development of the cultural industry in a bid to build a country with soft power.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) announced its intention to restructure U.S. international broadcasting... In addition, the Board called for a plan to consolidate the agency’s three non-federal broadcast networks: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

In recent years, the Chinese regime has proposed establishing soft power. But Beijing’s understanding of soft power is “money diplomacy plus grand overseas propaganda.” Actually, this kind of soft power can only be effective for a short period.

Aljazeera, the government-funded satellite TV channel, has also stirred opinion in many of the Arab revolutions of the past year, especially Egypt, extending the tiny peninsula’s “soft power” across the region.

At the end of its four-day annual policy meeting, China’s ruling Communist Party approved a programme to make its ideology more popular at home and boost China’s soft power abroad.