Secretary of State Hillary Clinton love using soft power whenever the situation calls for it, like, say, retooling the State Department’s catering services to serve delicious food from celebrity chefs whenever she hosts visiting heads of state. And no, spectacular food is not a froofy detail, “Tough negotiations take place at the dining table.”

The Confucius Institute has now been established for eight years, and there is a new global wave of interest in studying Putonghua. Nowadays, Chinese society realizes the cultural power of Confucianism, and Confucius' name constantly comes up in the context of Chinese culture.

Lu Cairong, deputy director of China International Publishing Group (CIPG) said at the opening ceremony that friendly exchanges between Esperanto circles of the two countries have helped boost bilateral people-to-people exchanges, and served as a unique way to promote bilateral ties.

The International Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy in Africa will offer perspectives on how cultural diplomacy policies can assist in strengthening existing and future sustainable development policies and, in particular, how cultural diplomacy practices are necessary to express and mediate the rationale behind investment in sustainable development during this challenging period.

In these cases of chronic crisis, recurring shocks erase development gains and set local populations back into urgent need over and over again. With many in the Sahel still struggling to recover from the region's last food crisis in 2010, they now face a new crisis of food access.

This creates a tension between immediate, sometimes kinetic responses to security challenges that the military typically delivers and “soft-power” solutions that take a longer-term view toward resolving the underlying political, economic and social development causes, the ambassador noted.

Some people say we're trying to export Chinese films to the United States," he said. "That does not reflect our real thinking. What Chinese films lack is content and concepts, not [distribution] channels. The U.S., especially Hollywood, is so strong for film production. So if we're going to produce films, we need to work together.

“Showcasing favorite cuisines, ceremonies and values is an often overlooked and powerful tool of diplomacy,” Mrs. Clinton wrote, “The meals that I share with my counterparts at home and abroad cultivate a stronger cultural understanding between countries and offer a unique setting to enhance the formal diplomacy we conduct every day.”