As the showdown escalated between Chinese security forces and residents of Wukan, where villagers revolted against the Chinese Communist Party, you didn’t find as much discussion of the incident in Chinese social media as you might expect. And it wasn’t only because the internet was shut off in the town.

One lesson of the Arab Spring is that news now travels very fast indeed. Within hours of the 20,000 copies of the second issue of Egypt Independent being pulped, the story had spread not only in Egypt, but globally, as the article in London's The Independent attests.

Internet users trying to access a new U.S. "virtual embassy"' from Iran on Wednesday said they were redirected to a Web page offering links to Iranian news, cultural and religious sites. The United States launched the site on Tuesday, saying it wanted to promote understanding between the two countries.

India prides itself on being the “free” rising Asian giant. Some Indian policymakers may have watched China’s extraordinary economic rise in recent years with a little envy. But the social clampdown is presumably not what most Indians want as they seek to emulate some of the success of their massive neighbor.

The U.S. embassy in Beijing...broadcasts its readings via an iPhone app and through Twitter, which is blocked inside China but can be accessed by tech-savvy Chinese who...circumvent the country’s Web censorship system...As a result, many Beijingers are becoming increasingly aware that the embassy’s readings often contradict those from Beijing’s environmental bureau...

The idea...is to “look for films with strategic crossovers to show the world that there are ways to make films that can be extremely successful in China and extremely successful in the U.S. That might be Chinese myths or U.S. cultural stories as long as they make for really great global stories.”

Last week, People’s Daily ran a commentary that called for the state to build up publishing houses into companies with international brands so their books can help spread “socialist core values.” And some officials ache for a mainland Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

China is expanding its presence on U.S. campuses, seeking to promote its culture and history and meet a growing global demand to learn its language.