The Chinese government is keen to build up its “soft power” to compete against the globally dominant cultural exports of the US. But there’s just one problem. After years of trying, China has yet to develop its own popular versions of Mickey Mouse, the Marvel Comics heroes and the other globally-known characters and products that allow Disney to market “Disneyland” as an immersive, universal experience.

Environmental diplomacy is part of the overall process of mediation that unifies the diversity in actions and views of certain universal environmental norms and local environmental values. The issue of the environment has a transnational characteristic and it requires various solutions, norms and even joint schemes to overcome it.

The soft power roadmap for what is needed is relatively clear. Seizing the moment requires the United States and international partners to give much higher priority to activities such as public diplomacy, sustainable development assistance, and exchange programmes.

In an ongoing decades-long conflict between the two countries, the diplomacy of citizens has the potential to correct the negative image that has embedded in the minds and to change the thinking about each other through face to face interactions. 

Country branding is the process of building (and managing) the way a country is perceived by the rest of the world. It is an important component to national development given its effect on global trade, investments, tourism and diplomacy. It also has a profound influence on our sense of identity and national pride.
 

Buhari must realize that public diplomacy in an era, when digital diplomacy has been added to international relations, such that presidents and governments now use social media to pass their messages to foreign countries, there’s need for circumspect

Under the Obama administration, U.S. policy toward North Korea largely has devolved into the president sitting in the Oval Office, closing his eyes, and hoping the nuclear monsters will go away [...] If Pyongyang is ever going to talk about human rights, it will do so only after it feels more secure. If there is any hope for evolutionary change within the North, such a process will be advanced by greater cultural and economic cooperation.