India has appreciable soft power from spiritual philosophies to Bollywood movies to food to yoga to cultural imprints in South East Asia. Not to forget India as the clichéd “world’s largest democracy” [...] Or does it? The 2015 “The Soft Power 30” a global ranking of soft power by ComResGlobal doesn’t seem to think so – India isn’t in the top 30 countries with soft power.

China’s top security official has informed Washington that Beijing is looking forward to working with the Trump administration on cybersecurity, a delicate and thorny issue in China-US ties, state media reported. [...] Public Security Minister Guo said cybersecurity cooperation had become “a new highlight in bilateral relations” between the US and China after Xi and Obama created a mechanism for the two nations to discuss crimes in cyberspace.

Building the systems and structures to manage that, particularly in managing a potentially messy and dangerous confrontation in the Baltic states or South China Sea, is going to be a challenge. Other more subtle forms of communication -- unacknowledged direct telephone calls, messages delivered through spies, envoys and allies -- have also not gone away. But they will now be taking place at the same time as what could be frantic social media changes. 

Japanese authorities now want to tap this soft power for tourism, amid an ambitious drive by the Abe administration to double burgeoning foreign tourist arrivals to 40 million by 2020. [...] The association, working with industry members and local governments, wants to create a whole suite of services and products, from shuttle buses to merchandising, to boost the experience for visitors - and bring in the yen.
 

The 3rd World Internet Conference(WIC), which was held between Nov. 16 and 18 in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, has drawn wide public attention. Themed on "Innovation-driven Internet Development for the Benefit of All - Building a Community of Common Future in Cyberspace", it has attracted over 1,200 representatives from governments, international organizations, enterprises, research institute, technical communities and civil groups to discuss common issues in global internet development. And the debate on cultural exchanges was the spotlight of the event.