"Access China" provides opportunities and expands the channels through which the younger generation in the U.S. and China can strengthen exchanges and consolidate friendships, by way of interactions and a better understanding of each other, according to reports.

Like the Chinese title 'Silk Road and the Great Wall,' the Silk Road' symbolizes the country's soft power, while the Great Wall represents the country's hard power. National prosperity must be achieved on the basis of supreme integration of hard and soft power.

As the numbers have grown, so too has the concern of Western academics who believe the project presents a serious threat to freedom of thought and speech in education.

Representatives from the Chinese and Thai governments signed bilateral agreements worth more than 62 billion yuan. The trade and development accords are yet another instance of Beijing engaging in a soft power approach to diplomacy with its Southeast Asian neighbors.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Brazil in July, the two leading emerging economies consolidated their booming partnership and signed more than 50 cooperation agreements in economic, cultural and political sectors.

The BBC World Service is being financially outgunned by Russian and Chinese state-owned news channels, its former director Peter Horrocks has warned, amid high-level concerns that Britain and the US are losing a global “information war” with the Kremlin.

China signals a change in priorities, raising the risk of tension with the developed world.

Since the first institute opened ten years ago, 475 Confucius Institutes and 851 smaller Confucius Classrooms have been established in 126 countries. These numbers raise concerns outside of China about the institute’s intentions, and have prompted some to consider the future of China’s most prominent and most controversial cultural diplomacy initiative.