A group of representatives from Taiwan's diplomatic allies in the Pacific is visiting Taiwan to learn more about the country's development, as part of Taiwan's cultural diplomacy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.

As part of a public diplomacy program, the Fiji mission in New Zealand is actively building people-to-people contacts. The Foreign Ministry says the mission is also seeking to raise awareness of Fiji's national interests among future leaders of New Zealand.

Although all fall under the main theme of “The Living Ocean and Coast,” the international pavilions at the Expo 2012 Yeosu Korea are as diverse as the 104 participating countries themselves. Linked by a digital canopy displaying ocean scenes on a giant overhead LED screen, the international pavilions showcase nations’ oceans, coasts and the work they are doing to protect them.

Later this year, Britain is dispatching to Asia its ultimate “soft power” asset, Prince William and his wife Catherine. This concerted flurry of British diplomatic activity suggests that – for all the media focus on US President Barack Obama’s “pivot” to Asia and China’s assertiveness in the Spratlys – other major powers such as Britain are also ratcheting up their regional presence.

Taiwan, a small island the size of Belgium with a population of some 23 million, is the mother of all status quo powers. If ever there was a country more interested in preserving the conditions of the here and now, it is this one.

Some argue that when we talk of exporting Australian arts to Asia, we ought to be talking only of their role in soft diplomacy: that is, assisting Australia's political and economic agenda.....The implication is that the arts in Asia should not be valued on their own terms.

As the Korean wave sweeps over Asia and the rest of the world, there is a growing audience for all things Korean. There are already dozens of K-pop sites, allkpop has 75 million views a month, but koreaBANG has a harder news edge.

For the students of diplomacy, the photographs detailing the early years of Asean are objects of nostalgia and politics. Established on August 8, 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) was composed of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.