Companies are snapping up US film studios, which all want a piece of the mainland’s booming box office. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, warn observers. [...] The US$3.5 billion agreement [to buy Legendary Pictures]  is the largest cultural takeover by China, with American studios keen to capitalise on its burgeoning cinema market at a time when Beijing is pushing entertainment as a source of “soft power”.

Initially screened once a week, the show quickly captivated mainstream Australian viewers as well as Chinese-speaking migrants, so that now, due to popular demand, it is screened three times a week. SBS’s online promotion for the show says, ‘With a viewing audience of up to 50 million per episode, this popular Chinese dating show is a cultural phenomenon’.

The Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Nigeria, Mr. Liu Kan said the Chinese government is committed to ensuring formidable bilateral ties with Nigeria, [...] Liu said that with several projects spanning the previous few decades, Africa has always been cherished as the ‘foundation of the foundation’ in Chinese diplomacy.

Featuring the works of Mohammad Atif Khan and Zaira Ahmed from Pakistan, Li Yanbo from China and Sarah Hopkins from the United Kingdom, the collaboration between Satrang and the residencies programme has entered its third year as a cross-cultural exchange programme facilitating interaction between local and international printmakers.

Women’s empowerment may not replace climate change as the next top priority on the global agenda. But behind the emergence of politicized gender issues, reshuffled coalitions of political and economic interests among major powers are underway. China will undoubtedly be an active leader for designing international governance focused on women’s empowerment.

In 2009, the author and food historian Andrew Coe published the book Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States. From the first Americans to travel to China in 1784 through widespread anti-Chinese sentiment in the 19th century, Coe traced how it took the United States quite some time to develop a taste for Chinese cuisine.