...In his three decades of foreign service, the US ambassador to the United Arab Emirates has learned that art can play a powerful part in diplomacy, communicating in a way that transcends culture and language.

While India has consciously sought to promote a ‘soft’ image, Pakistan, on the other hand, have spared no effort, deliberately perpetuating a negative ‘hard’ image of ourselves. As citizens strain under the daily task of survival and an incompetent government struggles to stay in power, the ‘soft image’ continues to elude us.

American Voices, incorporated as a nonprofit in 1993, has been operating summer youth performing arts academies, workshops and concerts in dozens of countries around the world. In St. Louis, this organization conducts "cultural diplomacy," which involves exchanging musical expertise between Americans and countries often hit hard by conflict.

The question of government involvement in the arts is hardly uncontroversial. Anxiety about competing with the West has made cultural matters a priority for China’s Central Committee, which has recently introduced measures intended to boost international awareness of Chinese culture and continues to invest in high-profile cultural production.

Brand USA, a non-profit, public-private partnership, is to launch a global advertising campaign next month, as part of the country’s concerted effort in marketing tourism to the world. As its core mission, the organization, created in 2010, is to “encourage and inspire travelers to explore America’s boundless possibilities.”

Sun Media Group has set up a new private equity fund aimed at pouring up to $800m into Hollywood films. The venture is the latest move aimed at exploiting Hollywood studios’ hunger for the fast-growing but closed Chinese movie market and Chinese ambitions to play a meaningful role in the global film industry.

The growing ranks of other Korean American performers recruited by management companies like SM Entertainment and JYPE in U.S.-based talent searches — aren’t just a random act of globalization. They’re the secret weapon in Korea’s next push for worldwide youth-culture domination.

India and Bangladesh are holding a special three-day film festival titled-’Bangladesh War of Liberation in Celluloid’ here to promote cultural diplomacy bilaterally.