China rallied its diplomatic allies to boycott Friday's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, lobbied other nations not to attend the event and allowed scholars to announce a rival Confucius Peace Prize. But the diplomatic drive, backed by tough rhetoric from state media and the Foreign Ministry, appeared to have damaged China's image in Western nations, analysts said.

Since the worldwide success of Zhang Yimou's "Hero" in 2002, Beijing is increasingly churning out glossy blockbusters whose production values (and budgets) rival those of Hollywood. This is all part of a China's plan to build a movie and entertainment industry, not just for its 1.3 billion inhabitants, but for the whole world—a $32 billion market.

The Nobel Peace Prize panel on Thursday defended its award to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo as based on "universal values," rejecting Beijing's accusation that it is trying force Western ideas on China.

The attempt by a group of patriotic Chinese scholars to create a Chinese alternative to the Nobel Prize appears to have backfired disastrously today, with the recipient a no-show and the Chinese government distancing itself from their efforts.

The WikiLeaks cables have revealed that the US is closely monitoring China’s activity in Africa, which causes serious concern in American diplomatic circles. The growing flow of Chinese investments is one of the particular causes of concern. The fault with the Chinese is that they invest in African countries’ economies without interfering in their internal affairs, while Western powers put forward demands of “good governance”, whatever this may mean.

Once upon a time, it was a schoolyard taunt to label someone "four-eyes," but in Taiwan, they have adopted an unusual take on such labels. There is a strange and ubiquitous fashion trend seen among Taipei's teens and twentysomethings who sport eyeglass frames sans the lenses. It is not entirely clear where the trend originated, as some point to the Japanese and Korean pop scene as the trend's provenance, while others argue it to be a homegrown Taiwanese fashion.

Chinese students with foreign college degrees are coming home in ever greater numbers. Some are drawn by the new opportunities that China's rapidly expanding economy is opening up to highly educated, internationally minded young people.

The latest WikiLeaks release suggests that China is trying to distance itself from the North Korean regime and may be struggling to rein in the country, which is heavily dependent on China.