I feel like a spy. I'm at the first ever International Culture Summit in Edinburgh, where I've just blustered my way into a semi-private meeting of the world's arts and culture ministers. The seats are festooned with instant translation devices. It's cultural diplomacy in action.

Culture Minister Lung Ying-tai arrived in Washington, D.C. Saturday from New York where she will deliver two speeches to promote Taiwan's soft power. On Sunday, Lung will discuss cultural diplomacy and cross-Taiwan Strait cultural issues in two interviews organized by the Voice of America and the international news agency Reuters.

Charhar public diplomacy conference 2012, China's most influential non-governmental public diplomacy conference, kicked off in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, on Aug. 18. Nearly 200 high-ranking government officials, business leaders, diplomats, experts on international relations, media and other related fields, and top media representatives are attending the two-day conference.

This debate is broadly about American power. But power is a nuanced concept. It manifests itself both through military muscle and cultural influence. The candidates’ stump speeches rarely delineate this distinction. But global publics do. Recent opinion surveys suggest that people outside the United States question American hard power and increasingly embrace U.S. soft power.

“One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Beijing-backed Confucius Institutes, which promote Chinese culture internationally, have been no stranger to controversy since their launch in 2004. Critics have charged they are platforms for Chinese espionage and propaganda—a salacious if still unsubstantiated charge

...the ceremony was an entertaining celebration of British culture.  London had a tough act to follow after Beijing’s stunning ceremony in 2008. Yet, not only did London surpass expectations, but its display of self-confidence and soft power made a more powerful statement than Beijing’s mighty effort.

China’s ability to get what it wants through attraction and persuasion rests on a number of factors: its culture (witness the Confucius Institutes it promotes); its values (particularly a successful growth model); and its foreign policies (for example, the pledge not to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries).