On the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China, Xinhua published a rare opinion piece by his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. The obvious choreography of the visit and article shows the delicate balance in relations between China, India and Pakistan. For Beijing, both powers are important if it is to realize its ambitious strategy of trade and economic corridors emanating from the Middle Kingdom under the rubric of the Silk Road Economic Belt. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a gathering of more than 3,000 Japanese visitors in Beijing Saturday to support people-to-people exchanges between the two nations. "The China-Japan friendship is rooted in the people, and the future of the bilateral relationship is in the hand of the people of the two countries," Xi said as he delivered a speech at the meeting at the Great Hall of the People in downtown Beijing.

President Xi Jinping's plea for a "united front" from the ruling Chinese Communist Party in a high-profile speech this week shows that the president is combining the hostile politics of the Mao era with an ever-expanding deployment of "soft power" in the form of influence that goes well beyond the business of government, political analysts said on Friday.

China’s military is in the middle of a “hidden war” with the West, according to an editorial in the People’s Liberation Army Daily. The piece claims that the Internet has become an “ideological battlefield” that  can only be won by controlling it. In shielding the Chinese public from “Western hostile forces,” China’s government may successfully win an ideological battle, but it may come at the cost of homegrown technological innovation and could stifle economic development.

Toshiko Takeuchi’s fears of her Chinese table tennis opponents dissipated when she saw the unfamiliar players smiling and enjoying the moment. “Just like us, they are simply athletes who love pingpong,” Takeuchi, 67, said she thought during the World Table Tennis Championships here in 1971. She also had no idea that the tournament would help change the course of world history.

Four female koalas have just made their debut in front of an adoring public at Singapore Zoo – the latest in a long line of animals used for diplomatic purposes. [...] As Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s media release says, the koalas' visit will “further build on our long-standing constructive relationship”.

Premier Li Keqiang is bringing along another group on his trip to Latin America as he tries to increase China’s influence and soft power in the region – novelists. A special delegation will attend a seminar in Colombia on cultural exchanges between China and Latin America, the People’s Daily reported.