There’s also a strong likelihood that Chinese interest in Africa’s infrastructure will wane in time. This is because China is not in Africa out of magnanimity, but rather to extract resources and boost its soft-power reach. Once those are secured, there will be less reason to invest in infrastructure.

Today’s NATO suffers from a public diplomacy overload rather than an image problem. Far from being a panacea to its democratic deficit, the dominant influence of public diplomacy strategies and their advocates on Allied decision-making is arguably part of the problem.

“In terms of public diplomacy, it is always more interesting if members belonging to the local population express your message. The French won’t believe what the emir of Qatar tells them, but they will believe the director of a start-up in the French suburbs,” said Pelletier.

“To elevate Korea’s national branding, we must spread our traditional assets to the world.” Lee said in the introduction of the book. “Economically, we are one of the global leaders, as the seventh largest exporter in 2010. But our image, or our nation branding, is far from matching this economic status.”

The authoritarian Government prefers the docile, cuddly panda as the national insignia, and uses the iconic endangered species as highly successful soft power diplomatic gifts, with the most recent pair sent to Edinburgh Zoo.

Yue-Sai Kan reckons that the Miss Universe competition is as good a vehicle as any for China to project soft power...Kan has made a great effort in the past 20 years to modernize the image of China that is projected to the world, much of it through television.

Li Changchun praised CRI's 70 years of service in a congratulation letter, urging the station to build a world first-rate broadcaster with increasing global influence. Li urged CRI to create favorable international opinions about China and constantly boost China's soft power by further enhancing its news coverage.

Increasing diplomatic and economic relations between Turkey and Serbia in recent years have boosted Turkey’s positive image within Serbian society, making the cultural similarities between two nations more visible.