Soccer could provide a vehicle to improve China’s soft power and succeed where previous attempts have struggled. [...] There are two standout advantages soccer has over other mediums of soft power for China. One is football’s global resonance and accessibility. [...]  Another plus is that relative to the arts or education, there is less opportunity for the product to be diminished due to interference from the state as soccer does not actively communicate a message beyond the realm of sport. 

Last night, Republican front-runner Donald J. Trump secured a decisive win in the Indiana primary. [...] International scholars, journalists, and policymakers have started to take this “political outsider” more seriously as a candidate bidding for the most important job in the world. China is no exception; Chinese media even published a series of reports analyzing the rise and popularity of Trump.

Last month, multi-national telecommunications company Huawei renewed its sponsorship of Wellington Phoenix. It is the largest sponsorship deal in the history of New Zealand football. Though the deal is vital for the club, it is also significant for Huawei. So significant that Huawei global CEO Guo Ping made the official announcement when Prime Minister John Key was at the company's Beijing headquarters as part of his latest China visit.

When China’s economy slows, as it has recently, Apple’s revenues are inevitably hurt. But Apple also got a perhaps more worrisome sign for the long term just days before its quarterly earnings report, when China blocked its citizens from accessing iTunes Movies and iBooks—just the latest move showing that the country’s response to U.S. tech companies’ ambitions will be to fortify its borders.

Encouraging more American students to study Chinese and study abroad in China will ensure Sino-American relationship grows and flourishes in the future, U.S. educators have said. "The goal is to strengthen the overall U.S.-China relationship by ensuring very strong people-to-people ties," said Travis Tanner, vice president of 100,000-Strong Initiative Foundation, a non-profit U.S.organization that leads the Chinese language education initiative called "1 Million Strong."

 However, India’s larger objective is to woo its neighbors through soft diplomacy. The Indian government has formulated a grand plan to promote tourism in places which are part of its "Buddhist Circuit." Accordingly, all of the relevant sites will have airports so that visitors will be able to travel between them with relative ease.