This past Thanksgiving break, Ben Hubley ’15 traveled to China to compete in the 5th Chinese Bridge Competition, a Chinese proficiency contest for foreign high school students, held in Kunming City. Out of 104 contestants from 45 countries between the ages of 15 and 20, Hubley placed third in the individual competition after a student from Singapore placed first and a student from Russia placed second.

The India-China “battle for Buddha” has now reached Myanmar, with New Delhi sponsoring an International Conference on Buddhist Cultural Heritage in Yangon over the weekend, while Beijing has since last year been trying to leverage the legacy of “Shakya Muni” to connect with the religious majority in its south-western neighbour.

A mixture of native Chinese and Americans, we hope to accomplish an ambitious set of goals: to gain an understanding of how public diplomacy is thought about and engaged in academic contexts as well as how it is innovatively used in practice—through film, at airports, over the Internet, in media, and by corporations.

APDS Blogger: Sarah Myers

In January 2013, a group of nine Masters’ of Public Diplomacy students will embark on a trip to Beijing, China. A mixture of native Chinese and Americans, we hope to accomplish an ambitious set of goals: to gain an understanding of how public diplomacy is thought about and engaged in academic contexts as well as how it is innovatively used in practice—through film, at airports, over the Internet, in media, and by corporations.

Concern lingers within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that China could use its widening trade and investment ties as a political tool, and Japan needs to regain its soft power through more non-economic engagement with the region, experts from Southeast Asia said at a recent symposium in Tokyo.

China is expected to overtake the US as the world's largest economy a few years before 2030, while the US will remain the top player in the following two decades thanks to its dominant role in international politics, its technological prowess and its soft power that attracts outsiders, said the latest report released on Monday by the US National Intelligence Council (NIC).

“We have carried out extensive public diplomacy activities as well as cultural and people-to-people exchanges to encourage deeper understanding and friendship between the Chinese people and people of other countries.”