As a non-profit public institution, the Confucius Institute links up with worldwide universities, colleges and secondary schools providing teachers and materials for their Chinese education at different levels. The conference, held in the first higher-learning institute established in the Western world in 1088, gathered the heads of 72 Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms from all over Europe. The Old Continent can be considered "mature" for the institution's development, Xu said.

The third Nepal-Africa Film Festival is being organised at the Russian Cultural Centre of the Capital from 18 to 20 June. A total of 14 films (both Nepali and African) would be featured during the festival. Director of Nepal-Africa Film Festival, Dr Manju Mishra, said at a press meet that the festival would highlight Nepal and Africa's art, culture and positive developments.

In Beijing, the country’s leadership was recognizing the importance of soft power. Meanwhile in Hollywood, DreamWorks was given the green light to a movie called Kung Fu Panda. I would love to tell you that we did this as part of a very shrewd strategy to gain entrée into China. It wasn’t. We just liked the idea of a film about a panda who wants to do kung fu.

Taipei, June 10 (CNA) One of the driving forces behind the increased number of exhibitions and cultural activities organized by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) over the past three years in Taiwan will soon be leaving the country for a new assignment. Sheila Paskman, who took up the post as the AIT's public diplomacy section chief in July 2010, is coming to the end of her three-year term in Taiwan and recently looked back at her efforts to promote cultural links between the United States and Taiwan.

The United Arab Emirates is participating in this year’s Venice Biennale, which kicked off earlier this month with a solo exhibition Walking on Water by contemporary Emirati artist Mohamed Kazem. Curated by Palestinian Reem Fadda, the UAE's third consecutive national pavilion introduces the Venice Biennale audience to home-grown art from the country.

Public diplomacy humanizes the economic, cultural, and political relationships we are working to build. As Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, I work to extend avenues of opportunity to those affected by our policy. And that is the first point I’d like to make: that people – citizens – today are increasingly driving global events, and must therefore be front and center in formulating and executing policy. You need policy and public diplomacy.

Western critics tend to focus on the media and cultural components of this push while ignoring the rest. At a time when anxious prognostications about China’s rise dominate media headlines, deriding China’s soft-power strategy -- in particular, its failure to grasp the global appeal of the free press and the free market -- has become a popular act of reassurance for Western academics and media analysts.