In its latest strategic move, billed smART Power, the State Department is sending abroad on Americans’ behalf not more Foreign Service officers but a cadre of elite artists. Their mission: to use visual arts as a medium for winning the hearts and minds of foreign populations all over the globe.

A U.S. attempt to smooth relations with Pakistan using a bit of hip-hop diplomacy hit a speed bump Wednesday when the Pakistani military briefly detained an American music group accused of taking photographs of sensitive installations.

The selection of Indonesia as the main theme for the youth organization Center of Children’s Diplomacy Peace Gong was a clear indication of world’s increasing interest in Indonesia...the Indonesian Embassy will always keep on maintaining and supporting activities involving Indonesian-related topics as an effort to promote Indonesian culture amongst Ukrainian youths.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour announced a new initiative called the China Design Program. It will be a kind of cultural exchange that sends American designers to China to learn about manufacturing, marketing, and other aspects of the fashion business there—and a Chinese designer spends time in the U.S.

The award’s sponsors are professors and academics who say they are independent of the government. While the government has enthusiastically embraced the need for more robust cultural links to enhance China’s “soft power,” it wants that charm campaign to stay under the firm direction of the ruling Communist Party.

The tough times have seen Irish business rediscover Germany as an important trade partner. It is a given here to have access to and interest in Irish culture, thus cultural diplomacy can have a great reach. Ireland’s cultural chief...sees a need to give Germans a sense of Ireland’s contemporary cultural landscape, particularly as the debate over the future of Europe draws us closer together.

In the case of a decades-long conflict between India and Pakistan, citizen diplomacy has the potential to counter a negative way of thinking about each other through people to people interaction. The Indian and Pakistani governments can help create a better environment for future official relations by supporting the unofficial citizen diplomacy already occurring.

A star-studded...cultural forum that brings the likes of organic-food advocate Alice Waters, filmmaker Joel Coen and cellist Yo Yo Ma to Beijing this week...is a response to the sclerotic environment surrounding China policy in Washington D.C...a “class trip” that would create “some fund of common experience [between the two sides] where you’re not always arguing.”