Cultural Diplomacy

December 27, 2011

China has broadened its engagement in Nepal, both at political and institutional levels. It has also initiated Track-II diplomacy with Nepal and invited Nepalis scholars to visit Chinese think tanks. Besides, China is promoting China Study Centres (CSCs) in Kathmandu.

From US soldiers introducing chewing gum to France in 1917 to a toothbrush from a trench and newfangled machine guns and shells, the first world war has been given a revolutionary treatment in a new French war museum near Disneyland Paris. It was the first move in France's new campaign to develop itself as the world capital of war tourism.

Back in October, Japan’s national tourism agency floated a plan that seemed an ideal remedy to boost flagging visitor numbers in the wake of the March 11 disasters. Free flights to Japan in 2012. A full 10,000 of them. However, whatever tourism authorities thought a good idea, Japan simply can’t afford it, the government’s budget planners have concluded.

Even though India is the only large country in Asia where Japan does not have any historical baggage, and Japan has been broadly viewed favourably in Indian public opinion, the reverse is less true. Clearly, this is an area for the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs to focus on.

UNAM hopes to upload everything it has — from 18th century newspapers and vintage films to hundreds of thousands of student theses and a still-to-be-gauged sea of classroom teaching items — and let the world have it free of charge. The project, called Toda la UNAM en Línea (All of UNAM Online), made its debut last month.

The liberal spirit of the reform and opening era in the 1980s reinvigorated western culture in China, and the quickly marketized economy in the 1990s seized onto the holiday's profitable potential. Now, Christmas is both a commercial and fashion statement...

The Government of Spain's Ministry of Culture - Casa Asia, the Cervantes Institute and the Spanish embassy in New Delhi joined hands to promote the Spanish 'cultural industries' in India through the third edition of “New Urban Cultures” programme.

My office, part of the State Department’s public diplomacy efforts, was responsible for enlisting museums to assemble art exhibitions that would be presented overseas, creating cultural links and displaying art that would “tell America’s story.”

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