Apparently, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe calculated that sharing a few words with Chinese President Xi Jinping was worth the risk of a potential brush off. This set the stage for Abe’s diplomatic gambit at the G-20 Summit meetings in St. Petersburg earlier this month. While leaders milled about in the moments before the kickoff, Abe approached Xi and extended his hand in an attempt to begin a process of chipping away at the diplomatic deep-freeze in Sino-Japanese relations since last September’s purchase of three of the disputed Senkaku-Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.

Much has been written lately about China's growing influence in the developing world, particularly in resource-rich Latin America. While China holds significant sway over many countries, rarely has this influence been as pivotal as in cash-strapped, oil-rich, revolutionary Venezuela.

This week, after many months of preparation two of China's leading educational institutions, Peking University and Tsinghua University, joined the EdX online educational consortium by providing six courses available without charge online. China now has officially entered the movement known as the Massive Online Open Courses, or MOOC.

China's recent history has been marked by two key features: rampant economic growth and tight governmental control on the spread of information. Now, it seems, both are starting to wane, as economic expansion is slowing down and even the government's zealous grip on the internet is beginning to loosen.

China and South Korea should boost mutual-understanding through more public diplomacy initiatives including the economic and trade exchanges, personnel exchanges, research cooperation, the mass media and others, officials said Tuesday during the Sino-South Korea forum on public diplomacy held in Seoul.

If Tolstoy had written a history of foreign corporations in China, it might have started something like this: “Companies that succeed in China do so for similar reasons; every company that fails, fails in its own way.” It’s not because the businesses were incompetent. Many of the biggest failures belong to the Fortune 500: Mattel, eBay, Google, Home Depot. All of these have thrived in markets around the world, but not in China. Why?

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has enjoyed considerable diplomatic attention in recent months. This is due in a large part to a courtship involving three major powers: Japan, China and the United States. Japanese Prime Minsiter Shinzo Abe has visited ASEAN three times since returning to power late last year, his latest trip a whirlwind tour that took in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. In all, he has to date visited seven counties in ASEAN.

As of last week, posting a message that the Chinese government deems inaccurate on social media platforms can get you three years in the slammer, provided it gets 500 retweets (or their equivalent) or 5,000 views. At least, that’s what the law said. But would the new policy, part of the Chinese government’s draconian crackdown on “online rumors,” be enforced?