Last month, the mayor announced that Los Angeles is grooming and recruiting students for a new program launched by President Obama called the 100,000 Strong Initiative. Being in Beijing on Monday, the mayor boasted of his plans to increase the number of American students studying in China the next four years.

America’s stock has depreciated the most in the arena of moral power, which stems from the natural attraction of an entity’s cultural, political and economic prowess that encourages others to voluntarily follow it. As the world discovers America’s gridlocked and money-dominated political system, its ecologically damaging, and crisis-prone economic system, it is fast losing its appeal as the country to emulate.

Black Eyed Peas frontman will.I.am is doing his part to contribute to United States-China relations as he travels to Beijing this week for a concert designed to further the two countries' cultural diplomacy. The dialogue and concert is designed to raise money to support APSA in funding study abroad programs for underprivileged American students.

China as the dominant international economic and political force in Africa epitomizes the most dramatic shift in geopolitics since the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet the United States, Africa's traditional trading partner, seem incapable of responding to the challenge and retaking the initiative. Instead, its response has been to wring its hands in despair and make ineffectual noises about human rights and democracy.

India prides itself on being the “free” rising Asian giant. Some Indian policymakers may have watched China’s extraordinary economic rise in recent years with a little envy. But the social clampdown is presumably not what most Indians want as they seek to emulate some of the success of their massive neighbor.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing, which broadcasts readings from its own pollution monitoring equipment on an hourly basis through Twitter and an iPhone app, has been instrumental in piercing the veil around air quality in China’s capital, particularly since celebrity real estate mogul Pan Shiyi cited its readings in calling for tougher air monitoring standards.

For China, the quest to develop advanced computing centers is not simply a matter of national pride. It is an attempt to lay the groundwork for innovative Chinese companies and to reshape the technological landscape by doing something more than assembling the world’s desktop PCs.

Former Chinese basketball star and NBA player Yao Ming is named vice-chairman of Shanghai Public Diplomacy Association on Monday. As the association's "Honor Ambassador", Yao accepts he will do some "tangible work" to introduce his home city to more people by sharing his eight-year experience of living in the U.S.