In addition to formal public diplomacy mouthpieces like Russia Today and Sputnik, Russia employs armies of paid trolls and botnets to generate false information that can later be circulated and legitimated as if it were true. Then, in 2016, Russian military intelligence went a step further, by hacking into the private network of the Democratic National Committee, stealing information, and releasing it online to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy. 

Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election, and its suspected hacking of French President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign servers, should surprise no one, given President Vladimir Putin’s (mis)understanding of soft power. Before his re-election in 2012, Putin told a Moscow newspaper that “soft power is a complex of tools and methods to achieve foreign policy goals without the use of force, through information and other means of influence.”

The CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the parent organization for the Voice of America, told a panel commemorating World Press Freedom Day that there is a war of information happening in the world. The BBG and George Washington University's School for Media and Public Affairs organized the panel in Washington on Monday to discuss the challenges of international journalism, the rise of fake news and how media can establish credibility.

In one of the most remote communities in Australia, young filmmakers are sharing their stories and the world is watching. [...] Their videos capture snippets of life in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, in central Australia. It's a closed Indigenous community, open to few visitors. There's also no mobile phone reception and few homes have access to the internet. Leo says the short clips have captured the attention of viewers in many far off places.

Taiwan should be the regional leader in soft diplomacy as well. It has plenty to offer the world. Taiwan is the only Chinese-speaking democratic nation in the world, its press is unrestricted, and its citizens enjoy total online freedom. Add into this the fact that it has consistently punched above its weight economically and Taiwan has plenty to take to the wider world to counter-weight the obvious diplomatic difficulties that they face.