Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. debt, along with the political battle over the debt ceiling and a faltering U.S. economy, will siphon away the time President Barack Obama has to deal with foreign policy issues. CFR's James M. Lindsay says that while the United States remains the world's dominant power, the downgrade strengthens the hand of those who argue that it is "in terminal decline."

Some may continue to point to the structural advantages enjoyed by the United States...of its rare combination of hard and soft power; of the fact that it remains the only serious power with true global reach... But in the current climate such facts appear to be cutting little ice with those who now insist that as result of Bush's ill-conceived war on terror, followed by the financial crisis, American decline is now a foregone conclusion.

Outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has made his first anti-government comments since his release from detention, using Twitter to hit out at the treatment of colleagues and fellow dissidents and risking a potential return to custody. Mr Ai became the most high profile casualty of China's increasingly authoritarian stance following the Middle East uprisings, after which several prominent Chinese dissidents were detained.

The Indian Embassy has taken to Sina Weibo, the popular Twitter-like microblogging service from China, in an attempt to portray India’s modern image and promote Indian culture and tourism to Chinese youngsters. Since Sina Weibo boasts a hundred million users...it provides a perfect platform for the Indian embassy to remove the earlier misconceptions and present a modern image of India.

The Indian Embassy in Beijing has taken to China’s widely popular version of Twitter in a new public diplomacy campaign aimed at directly reaching out to young, middle-class Chinese, in an attempt to present an often overlooked “modern” image of India here in China.

In the slow-evolving world of diplomacy, it may be the biggest innovation since the wax seal: social media that lets Canadian diplomats go around the censors to speak directly to, and hear from, the citizens of the world’s rising superpower.

The Dalai Lama likes to say he's an Indian because he's eaten dal and rice for decades. This tends to get the Chinese riled — but then anything he says gets them riled. But he did, in his sublime way, encapsulate the strength of food diplomacy.

What do American comedy shows, such as South Park, an animated cartoon sitcom, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a parody of news broadcasts, have to do with public diplomacy? Well, more than you think.