When I entered the US Pavilion at the 2010 World’s Exposition in Shanghai, I anticipated the presentation of the nation’s character to its predominately Chinese audience and hoped to deconstruct its message. I wondered what virtues, ideas, personas, landmarks and struggles would, in the brief experience of Expo, encapsulate the entity I have dedicated my career to studying.

Recent ambitious global expansion maneuvers by China's State media have brought both acclaim and suspicion, especially in Western nations, whose observation of the Chinese media landscape has been mostly shaped by their understanding of State-owned media.

A superpower is generally understood to be a nation, empire, or civilization that can project power globally; that is, a nation that possesses economic, political and cultural or "soft" power along with overwhelming military or "hard" power. It's certainly not hard to appreciate China's emerging economic power.

These videos are part of the series CPD Video Conversations: National Branding at Expo 2010 Shanghai.

>> For viewers in China, follow this link to watch the video

Ideas and good writing may be fun, good music can be soothing, the cinema and theater are certainly entertaining, and sports and video games are heart-racing. All that is good and well, and all are the flesh and blood of the soft power that many countries try to build and whose management the United States has possibly mastered.

While European leaders squabbled over the right kind of deficit reduction and whose country boasts the finest football side, Barack Obama used the recent G20 summit of leading economic powers in Toronto to make a different case: that the United States is dedicated to building a closer relationship with Asia.

Accompanied by a trade mission of over 30 senior executives and leading companies from South Africa’s mining, metals and capital equipment sectors, the first of four sectors to be profiled during the promotion, the delegation has arrived in Shanghai to introduce investment opportunities in South Africa, identify opportunities in China and enhance existing trading activities.

Delhi University, while realising the importance of an international exposure, is keen on casting its net wide. It has signed many MoUs with universities and colleges abroad for student and faculty exchange programmes.