The Chinese government has criticized unnamed "overseas media organizations" and said their reports that former President Jiang Zemin had died "are pure rumor." But instead of telling the world about the health of Jiang, Beijing responded by stonewalling and censoring the Internet to the extent that even information on the hospital where the former leader is being treated was blacked out.

It's not size of your sports diplomacy that matters, it's what you do with it. This is why we can all learn a lesson from Sarandon, who at 64 has lost neither her looks nor her charm, when she informs the audience today that she is "a ping-pong propagandist" - while flashing a beautiful smile.

Hu Yuandong of UNIDO...says the focus of the project is job creation, poverty alleviation and environmental protection. Xiao has made clear that the $3bn investment is not coming from the Chinese government, but rather from various funds "around the world" - even from the Middle East. But it would be difficult not to see this as a smart move by China and an extension of its soft power.

Yang also touted the benefits of the administration's flexible diplomacy, which he said avoided competition or direct confrontation with the mainland and relied instead on Taiwan's economic and democratic soft power to create opportunities for Taiwan in the international arena.

The Chinese government has expressed its strong commitment to lift educational cooperation with Kenya and promised to increase the amount of scholarships given to Kenyan students to study in Chinese universities from the current 32 to 64 annually, a top Kenyan government official said on Friday.

China will open a two-day education exhibition on Friday in the Kenyan capital Nairobi to promote local understanding about the Asian country's higher education and attract more Kenyan students to study in China.

''The teaching of Chinese language and culture is welcome in NSW schools but it should be available free from the influence of the Chinese Communist Party doctrine and censorship.'' China pays NSW schools more than $200,000 to promote its language and culture through the Confucius Institute, based at the Education Department's Ryde office.

With rising Sinophobia and calls for an anti-China boycott, the Philippines has openly spurned China's earlier soft power, trade and investment-oriented advances. Whether those sentiments materialize into concrete anti-China policies and actions is unclear.