Putting aside the problematic use of terms, what we learned from US citizens abroad was that our public diplomacy strategy was paralysed. But this was not entirely true, considering the new smart marketing and public relations campaigns the US was engaged in under Charlotte Beers’ innovative leadership as Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

Then the question is going to come up, people said this is sport and not politics, but everyone knows the sport is part of any public diplomacy program that any country takes these days, especially like the Olympics - the UK is going to benefit from the Olympics to promote the culture, the politics, what have you.

Japan’s presence in the international community appears to be fading. Even during last year’s euro crisis, while China’s response drew much interest, there was almost no mention of Japan. This isn’t to say that Japan has completely disappeared from view.

Beijing isn’t the only government talking about projecting “soft power” these days. TECO head Raymond Wang, Taiwan’s top representative in Manila, told the gathering that through international humanitarian efforts, particularly since Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan’s president in 2008, “the promotion of soft power has become one of the major policies” of their government.

Taken as a whole, one can surmise that despite acknowledging the 'Asian Century' we are not properly prepared for it. Our recent leaders faced and continue to face obstacles to their soft power producing real world positive results.

At USC on April 6, the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars held a conference on the Future of Public Diplomacy. Experts, academics, and practitioners gathered to discuss what lies ahead for the field of public diplomacy. There were a couple of major takeaways from the conference.

Sponsored by the NATO Public Diplomacy Division..."Your Ideas, Your NATO" policy workshop competition challenged students and young professionals to make recommendations on how NATO should support the long-term transition process prompted by the Arab Spring.