Amid growing global unease at China's rise, the role of public diplomacy is becoming more important. How is China's public diplomacy developing? How can a Chinese style of public diplomacy be formed? Several scholars discussed these questions at a recent round-table symposium held at the Charhar Institute, a Hebei-based independent think tank on diplomatic policy.

The biggest hit in Chinese cinema is a marketable contemporary comedy of the ilk of The Hangover. Would it succeed in the US? Something unspoken lay behind expectant articles in the film press for its US opening: the idea that this could be the point when cinema's trade winds stopped blowing from west to east, and the reverse became possible.

For the past few years, as China’s emergence has cast an increasing shadow over the region, Canberra’s strategic thinkers have tried to interest New Delhi in the concept of the “Indo-Pacific” as the two former colonies of Britain, now two leading democracies, find common ground.

The authors have been looking too much at what the US is espousing and not at what the US is actually doing in the Asia-Pacific. Most tensions between the US and China seem to be smoothly dispersed and resolved through very subtle diplomacy, such as the deal done about the fate of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who took refuge in the American Embassy last year.

TODAY, February 10, Chinese people worldwide celebrate one of their most important and revered cultural traditions, called in Mandarin language as the Spring Festival and outside of China as the Chinese New Year. Such celebrations wherever in the world the Chinese diaspora is embraced, are a manifestation of what may be called China’s “soft power”—where its very nature and personality convert into plusses for this great civilization.

The Chinese table tennis player who was instrumental in the pingpong diplomacy that paved the way for President Nixon's groundbreaking visit to China has died. Zhuang Zedong was 73. Zhuang, a three-time world champion, was a major sporting figure in China. Photographs of him with Cowan created a stir because of poor relations between their two countries.

Voice of America Director David Ensor has categorically denied allegations contained in a Chinese state television report, which blames VOA broadcasts for encouraging self-immolations in Tibet.

On Jan. 19th, the USC MPD Beijing Delegation attended a roundtable themed “The Present Situation and Prospects of China’s Public Diplomacy” sponsored by the Charhar Institute, a leading public diplomacy and international relations think tank in China.