During the opening ceremony Belarusian Culture Minister Boris Svetlov noted that the center will work to represent and popularize the cultural legacy as well as modern culture and art of Belarus in addition to providing information about the country's public, political, and economic life.

Cultural diplomacy thrives on the exchange of arts and aesthetic ideas. Research has continued to indicate that this form of diplomacy reveals the social profile of a nation and provides platforms for possibilities in economic cooperation and development. There is no better way to understand a people than to know about their culture. Perhaps, other than France through the Alliance Francaise, China is a classic example of a country that is aggressively promoting its culture in Zambia.
 

Just a couple of weeks before the Belt and Road Forum, held in Beijing earlier this month, Sinica Podcast co-host Jeremy Goldkorn and I spoke with Joseph Nye, professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, for our show. We talked about soft power, a term he coined and defined, and for which he’s perhaps best known — about China’s fixation with it, its prospects for augmenting it in the age of Trump, and the decidedly mixed results of its multibillion-dollar investments in soft power projects.

British chancellor Philip Hammond has called for closer economic ties with China as Britain enters a new post-Brexit era. As early as in 2015 when Chinese President Xi Jin-ping made his first state visit to the United Kingdom, which ushered a “golden age” to bilateral relations, the two great powers declared their consensus in working together with all Belt and Road project partners. [...] China and Britain need to use Xi’s proposed Belt and Road Initiative to raise awareness of the mutual benefits and overall exchanges of people to people of the two countries. 

The 2017 Joint Conference of Confucius Institutes in Africa was hosted by the Confucius Institute at the University of Zambia with the goal to “exchange experiences to enhance cooperation and promote the development of Confucius Institutes of Africa”. The spread of Confucius Institutes across Africa, however, is only half of China’s language strategy. In addition to promoting Chinese language learning, China is also encouraging its own citizens to learn the native languages of those countries that it has diplomatic relations with. 

Children's Day came early for a group of "Young Cultural Ambassadors" who were given the rare opportunity last Saturday, to interact with a real Ambassador and enjoy a day of learning, art and games at the Embassy of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.The event aimed to promote cultural awareness by bringing the world to Chinese children and taking Chinese culture to children all over the world. It was also part of of activities organized by the Embassy to commemorate 45 years Guyana-China diplomatic relations. 

Taiwan's health minister on Monday accused China of playing politics with health after Taiwan was blocked from taking part in the annual meeting of the governing body of the World Health Organization for the first time since 2008. Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung lashed out at China's actions, which Beijing said was taken because Taiwan's year-old government has reneged on the "One China" principle.