Thanks to the U.S. State Department, Beijing residents finally have the answer to one of the city’s greatest mysteries: How often is the air polluted? Well, a lot, a resident would say. But how many is a lot? 

As one of the most bankable stars on the planet, Johnny Depp has the luxury of keeping his PR obligations brief. But he was jumping through press hoops this week as he made his first trip to China to sell moviegoers on his new sci-fi film, "Transcendence," which opens here April 18.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s latest attempt to cultivate his image as a man of the people is creating some unintended consequences. Qingfeng Restaurant, an unassuming local eatery where Xi ate a meal of pork buns, fried pig liver and vegetables last month, has since become a staging ground for residents to protest against their local governments.

A week ago, Taiwan enjoyed formal diplomatic relations with 23 countries, largely concentrated in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. As of November 15, that number is down to 22, thanks to a surprise announcement by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh that his country would cut its diplomatic ties to Taiwan. As J. Michael Cole wrote elsewhere on The Diplomat, it’s unclear whether The Gambia will officially establish diplomatic relations with China, and what that would mean for the “diplomatic truce” between China and Taiwan.

When Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, expectations were high—in Beijing and among the pro-mainland forces in Hong Kong—that identification with the Chinese nation would slowly but surely strengthen among the local population, especially among the younger generations, eventually solving the problem of Hong Kong’s full integration into China. Once the colonial education system ceased poisoning young minds, it was thought, future generations would embrace the worldview and politics favored in Beijing.

A Cirque du Soleil performance left a Beijing audience audibly shocked when a banned image of the iconic Tiananmen "tank man" protester was displayed on giant screens in front of 15,000 people. The politically-charged image -- of a sole, unarmed protester blocking a line of tanks during a 1989 government crackdown in Tiananmen Square -- was displayed for about four seconds as part of a montage of protest imagery during a performance of Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us," according to a post on That's Beijing magazine's website.

No-one has been more skeptical about Chinese soft power than Joseph Nye, the man who first coined the phrase twenty years ago. In particular, Nye has criticized Beijing’s efforts to acquire soft power through centralized schemes, like the spread of Confucius Institutes or the establishment at the end of last year of the China Public Diplomacy Association. Despite “spending billions of dollars to increase its soft power … China has had a limited return on its investment,” he recently argued.

Much debate has followed since Joseph Nye defined soft power in the 1990s as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than through coercion.” Realists usually consider soft power a consequence of the hard one – the kind that comes from missiles and economic strength – while others see it as a smarter, complementary way to ensure that national goals are achieved.