More than 190 countries and 50 organizations are represented at the event, which has had at least 52 million visitors thus far. Of those 52 million, there are roughly 160 American college students working at the U.S. pavilion in the Student Ambassadors Program run by the University of Southern California. The event runs through the end of October.

Recently China has been ramping up its efforts at soft power. Last July Xinhua announced that it would launch a 24 hour English language channel and in 2009 China Central Television (CCTV) launched an Arabic channel. Even the private sector is getting into the act and Blue Ocean Network, China's first privately-owned English language TV network targeted at overseas audiences was launched in 2009.

Branding China as a free rider on the international order not only affects China's relations with the West, but also has strongly negative effects on China's international image.
Fighting this argument is a huge public diplomacy problem for China.

As an ancient civilization that has lasted five thousand years, the Chinese civilization has learned a profound lesson by witnessing the ups and downs of other cultures. The lesson is that a culture can be better sustained through openness and become stronger by including diversified external influences.

The Shanghai World Expo is a great investment in education for all citizens, has achieved great success and greatly improves China's soft power, said Serge Abou, E.U. Ambassador to China, when interviewed by reporters for China News Service recently.

China has pulled out of the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival due to a sovereignty issue over Taiwan and announced it will boycott other festival-related events. The head of the Chinese delegation, Jiang Ping, told festival organizers that the Taiwanese delegation must not attend the festival under the name Taiwan, but as "Chinese Taipei"...

Artists of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) performed here Sunday an adapted Chinese opera masterpiece to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the entry of the Chinese People's Volunteers (CPV) into the Korean front.

Despite no-expenses-spared efforts to boost its soft power, such as the Shanghai Expo and plans to open a Xinhua news agency office atop a skyscraper in New York’s Times Square, China’s image has taken a beating in recent months...