North China's Shanxi Province has begun a training program for Afghan hospital administrators and medics. It will train 64 Afghans within the next two years, and 19 of them are already training in the province, its health department said on Saturday.

Controlling a multilateral investment bank will give Beijing greater influence over the Asia-Pacific region that needs a whopping $8 trillion-worth of infrastructure investment until 2020 to keep pace with global technological and demographic changes

Recent diplomatic rows with countries like Brazil are no secret and President Obama is working to repair bilateral relations with the strategically important countries before he leaves the oval office for good.

What are the implications of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank for the next U.S. president? (...) Currently, 57 countries are confirmed founding members. The United States stands alone.Critics of the U.S. decision not to join see Washington sidelined as allies jump on the AIIB bandwagon. 

Peng Liyuan, the celebrity wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, has played a key role in successfully projecting the Communist giant's soft power abroad through her public diplomacy, according to a study on the country's first lady.

Despite China’s impressive build-up of hard power from its manufacturing industry to an ever-increasing number of fighter jets and submarines, the country’s soft power or its inherent cultural or ideological appeal is in short supply. Many people remain suspicious or even fearful of a resurgent China.

Yet it seems that the Chinese are the most devoted students of Nye. In fact it is not too much of an exaggeration to say the Chinese have become obsessed with soft power.

For Australia, a key focus of its foreign policy should be how to balance its economic ties with China and its cultural ties with the United States; appeasing both without getting in the middle of an ugly tug-o-war that forces Canberra to take sides.