Chinese students with foreign college degrees are coming home in ever greater numbers. Some are drawn by the new opportunities that China's rapidly expanding economy is opening up to highly educated, internationally minded young people.

We believe that, at a time where citizens everywhere are more connected and more informed, governments acting alone cannot solve the problems which confront us or seize the opportunities which surround us. We are working hard to find new and innovative ways to expand and strengthen the relations between the people of the United States and people all over the world.

During the Cold War — when the U.S. and the Soviet Union raced to find allies — you were viewed as a way to exert soft power and build friendship with countries susceptible to communist influence.

Ask many Americans to name the bloodiest war since World War II and chances are that most would not know the answer. If you told them it was in Africa, they might guess Rwanda or the ongoing conflict in Sudan. They'd be wrong. By far, the deadliest conflict was in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1998 to 2003.

But quietly, India has been embedding itself as a soft power through its prophet of non-violence. In the last decade, statues and busts of Mahatma Gandhi have been installed by scores of cities -- from Trujillo in Peru to Osnabrueck in Germany -- to honour what could arguably be India's greatest export: Gandhian philosophy.

In 1941, celebrated animator Walt Disney went on a diplomatic mission to Latin America. The creator of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck became a good will ambassador. The U.S. had not yet joined its allies in war, but feared growing Nazi and Fascist influence in the Americas.

The term “public diplomacy” is problematic, born out of bureaucratic wrestling in the mid-1960’s as the “struggle for minds and wills” gave way to counting tanks, bombers, and missiles. It’s very use today continues to signify something that is different, but it is not a separate line of activity that is discretely separated other “private” or any other diplomacy.

From clerics to AIDS activists, Africans applauded Pope Benedict XVI's suggestion that condoms could be used in limited situations to protect partners - a shift that could make a dramatic impact in a continent that is both battling an HIV pandemic and is the fastest-growing region for the Roman Catholic church.