Shakespeare is booming in China. But translating the Bard’s greatest works isn’t as clear as a summer’s day.(...) Already a phenomenon in China, William Shakespeare — known locally as Shashibiya or even Old Man Sha — is about to get a major boost. In September, the Royal Shakespeare Company announced an initiative to translate the Complete Works, all 37 plays and 154 sonnets, from Elizabethan English into modern standard Mandarin, the world’s most-spoken mother tongue.

Korea plans to seek strategic cooperation with relevant countries including the United States and China as a means of paving a way toward unification as well as to denuclearize North Korea, the foreign ministry announced, Monday.

In 2014, China stepped up its campaign to shape international norms governing the Internet, moving vigorously in its public diplomacy and behind the scenes to subjugate the online world to state power.

Designed to attract more visitors to sights, and sites, along the ancient Silk Road which linked China to the countries of Central Asia - and to Rome from about 100 BC - it is particularly hoped to draw more people to China's western provinces.

To many Americans, globalization may mean Americanization but, in China, globalization is Koreanization. This is the impact of Hallyu (the Korean word for “Korean wave”), which began in 1997. Hallyu began with Korean television dramas and today extends throughout Chinese life: k-drama, k-pop, movies, fashion, food, and beauty.  It is argued to be the only example of a cultural power “that threatens the dominance of American culture.”

In 2014, China stepped up its campaign to shape international norms governing the Internet, moving vigorously in its public diplomacy and behind the scenes to subjugate the online world to state power.

If the measure of a country’s soft power is what people expect of their leaders, even in truancy Obama is demonstrating the advantage US leaders have over their undemocratic rivals—if only they can seize it.