This week will see the Korean Association of International Studies and the Korea Foundation host an international conference on the role of middle powers in the 21st century. The significance of the conference being held in South Korea is twofold ― it marks Korea’s prominence as a source of innovative and influential scholarship on middlepowerism, and it marks Korea’s growing acceptance of middlepowerism as a national role.

The move to set up representative offices, despite decades of severed diplomacy and strong mutual distrust before 2008, will make life easier for the millions of tourists and investors who hop across the 99-mile wide Taiwan Strait from China to Taiwan. De facto consulates also would be the highest-level official presence by one side on the other.

Educational exchange programs remain one of the strongest links between two countries. Over the last twenty years, thousands of Georgians have come to the United States for education, and over 3000 Georgians have participated in a U.S. professional or academic exchange programs.

Patrick Ho says Americans' distrust of China can be melted by reassuring skeptics that China is a nation of "peace-loving people". "We want to do away with what is called China bashing," said Ho, deputy chairman and secretary-general of the China Energy Fund Committee. "Having a big GDP doesn't mean we carry a big stick. A big GDP means we're prosperous."

While recently on a cultural diplomacy adventure across Central Asia on an American Music Abroad tour—the State Department’s flagship musical exchange program that American Voices administers—with the bluegrass band Della Mae, I had the opportunity to encounter the public diplomacy space that are the State Department’s American Corners.

Did you know Yemeni Kurds support Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s peace efforts with the Kurdistan Workers Party? The March 6 tweets from Yasin Aktay, a prominent pro-Justice and Development Party (AKP) pundit, say they do.

I was recently invited to attend a Wilton Park round-table discussion titled "Applying soft power: the Brazilian and British perspectives" in São Paulo. Wilton Park is a think tank funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to explore policy issues that affect the UK in various ways.

Plans were announced Monday morning in Ottawa for a two-and-a-half-week tour the National Arts Centre Orchestra will make to China next fall. From Oct. 4 to 20, the 70– member orchestra will perform in seven cities (including Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai), give eight major concerts, interact with hundreds of Chinese musical students in 80 educational events, and generally spread the excellence of Canadian music-making to one of the fastest-growing audiences for classical music in the world.