Yet China’s economic power and the many positive ways its economy influences the region have not brought diplomatic advantage. Indeed, its regional relations are in a worse state than for two decades. With Japan they remain so fraught over the contested Diaoyu/Senkaku islands that armed conflict is a serious possibility.

Philip Seib is the director of the Center for Public Diplomacy and spoke to PM from Los Angeles. PHILIP SEIB: He realises that the more Westerners, particularly Americans, who go to study in China, the greater the trade relationship between the two countries will be, but also the more stable the relationship will be. And stability is a good thing in diplomacy and in international economics.

So what can $300 million buy you in China? Perhaps, the Chinese version of the Rhodes Scholarship. That's what the Chinese and American private equity mogul Stephen Schwarzman are hoping. The Blackstone Group founder is doling out $100 million of his own money and raising another $200 million to set up an international scholarship program at elite Tsinghua University in Beijing. Alumni include business leaders as well asa China's president, Xi Jinping.

Most Americans, says Blackstone Group LP founder Stephen Schwarzman, "know next to nothing about China." His solution for that: a $100 million donation from his personal fortune to fund a scholarship program to bring 200 mainly U.S. students to China every year.

A week of critical diplomacy is set to begin in Washington, Beijing and Pyongyang. But the sides are so far apart, at least in public declarations, it is impossible to predict where any diplomatic efforts will lead.

Since the Australian Government’s last White Paper on defense in 2009, there have been rapid changes within the Asia-Pacific region. As a consequence, the forthcoming Australian defense white paper will be perhaps the most important that has ever been prepared. With a rising assertive China, the US adopting an "Asia Pivot" doctrine, and a host of rising Asian powers, the Australian Government cannot defer the strategic complexities of the region to the ’never never’ of 2030 like the 2009 paper did.

The U.S. government has even run ads in various newspapers in Myanmar showing crashed World War II aircraft and posting a phone number (09-541-9569) where locals can call and share information, stories and coordinates. The World War II-MIA card will be played close to the vest by the ruling junta in the ensuing years, just has it has in the past.

China’s efforts to project its soft power in the West are widely seen to have fallen flat. Not so in Taiwan, where concerns over the mainland’s cultural influence have flared once again after some local TV stations abridged their regular news programming on Friday to broadcast a Chinese singing competition.