The long-awaited 11-storey China Cultural Centre in Queen Street has been completed and a writers' forum featuring five reputed Chinese novelists tonight will kick-start its series of pre-launch programmes. Designed by prominent Singapore architect Liu Thai Ker, the centre took over two years to build. Its official opening later this year is expected to be hosted by both countries' top leaders.

The outcome of apology diplomacy between the countries never satisfies any of the parties. Despite some heartfelt apologies from the Japanese government, neither Beijing nor Seoul has been satisfied. Words that have been used in textbooks, visits by Japanese prime ministers to the Yasukuni Shrine, movies and fiction about World War II have all became divisive issues in one of the economic engines of the world.

The Narendra Modi government has decided to make India's Buddhism links the centrepiece of its cultural diplomacy thrust through a blitzkrieg of novel projects, after the Prime Minister feted East Asian leaders through his first year in office with references to this religious bridge.

Targeting China’s international reputation is a good place to start. Despite popular misconceptions, Beijing is actually extremely concerned about maintaining a positive image. It knows that being viewed as a pariah could bolster international moves to counter its strategic, political and economic weight. 

Two musk oxen for a pair of giant pandas. Who would make that trade? The Chinese did, when President Richard M. Nixon was on his world-changing trip to China in 1972. [...] Panda diplomacy has had a long history, but before Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing arrived in the United States (not long after Nixon returned from his trip), there hadn’t been a giant panda here for more than 20 years.

In the wake of the tragic explosions that recently shook the Chinese coastal city of Tianjin, Beijing’s flagship publication the People’s Daily published an online commentary last week titled “China Needs to Learn from the West to Work with Media in Crisis” – the loose translation of a commentary originally published in Chinese. 

In 1956, near the end of this first term, Eisenhower convened a White House conference on citizen diplomacy.  Out of that grew Sister Cities International, a non-profit organization with the mission to “promote peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation – one individual, one community at a time.” [...] Durham joined the growing Sister Cities movement toward people-to-people diplomacy.