For almost a year, China has been pitching an idea to its neighbors in Asia: a big, internationally funded bank that would offer quick financing for badly needed transportation, telecommunications and energy projects in underdeveloped countries across the region.

The Palace of Arts in Budapest on Friday was home to a photo show and the presentation of an album combining the beauties of China and Hungary, as well as a ceremony re-introducing a volume of classic Chinese poetry published in Hungary.

It is India's ability to wrestle such nitty-gritty that will form the basis of success or failure of Modi's big economic diplomacy push. 

The news that Cambridge representatives held a series of one-to-one meetings with Wen Ruchun, the daughter of the former Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao, raises profound and disturbing questions about the integrity of British academia and the reach of China's soft-power machine.

With the widespread filtering, even blocking, of both traditional media Internet sites and social media sites by the Chinese government , Chinese-Americans have been finding other ways to keep tabs on the pro-democracy demonstrations taking place in Hong Kong.

On Oct. 1, the Toronto District School Board became the latest high-profile North American educational institution to sever ties with the Confucius Institutes, a Chinese government-funded language and culture program.