Despite its advocacy for Beijing's controversial and important position in the disputed South China Sea, the Institute for China-American Studies (ICAS) -- the only Chinese think tank based in Washington DC -- has been unable to rise from obscurity. Google their initials and they come up on the third page, behind the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, the International Council of Air Shows, and the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, a tribe in Alaska. It has all of 43 Twitter followers.

Last week, as news of Brexit broke, foreign ministries throughout the world took to social media to comment on the UK’s decision to leave the EU. The German foreign ministry responded by changing its Twitter profile picture/cover photo from an image of the foreign minister to the EU flag. [...] An intriguing question is how do MFAs use their Twitter profile pictures/cover photos. Are these used to promote the national brand, or to project a certain institutional image or perhaps to make political statements as was the case with the Germany’s foreign ministry?

The government has adopted "Creative Korea" as the new national slogan of Korea. The new slogan integrates values of Korea coming from traditional and contemporary culture and suggests a direction for the future, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced Monday. The government will televise the promotional video through international media outlets such as CNN and BBC. 

The flags of the member states of the European Union flutter outside EU institutions, recent beehives of activity as top officials gathered from around the continent to respond to Britain’s momentous choice to leave the bloc behind. [...] And now it’s up to EU leaders to recalibrate and stop a further breakup, not only by delivering concrete results to citizens, like jobs, but also by making sure their case for unity is heard over the storm of criticism coming from Euroskeptics poised to take advantage at a turning point.

As the double barrels of hard power are increasingly regulated by intergovernmental agencies, nations are expanding their influence through the more pacific work of cultural promotion, and at the forefront of promoting Korean culture is the former diplomat Lee Si-hyung. When Lee was appointed the new president of the Korea Foundation last month, tasked with promoting the national brand overseas.