On April 6, Under Secretary Tara Sonenshine welcomed Special Presidential Representative Mikhail Shvydkoy at the State Department to discuss future plans for collaboration in the areas of education, media, sports and professional exchanges.

China has been cultivating its image around the world as an attractive, rising power that is non-threatening and non-confrontational. China's endeavor to promote its soft power involves shifting the focus from purely economic cooperation to other more subtle areas such as culture.

"China has developed its economic and political prowess, but still is relatively weak when it comes to culture in the global arena," he says. But what China really needs to do is to ensure that its cultural exports promote creative cooperation and are also in sync with what the rest of the world wants.

The Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars at USC has their annual conference tomorrow, April 6, 2012. The conference will provide a discussion on new technologies and emerging actors in the amorphous “thing” sometimes called public diplomacy.

Political, economic, social and cultural factors have increasingly become a part of the safety equation. These parameters, named ‘soft power,’ have been added to the ‘military power,’ leading to the concept ‘smart power,'

While public diplomacy may be the preferred field of U.S. foreign engagement in the future — promoting democratic principles and practices through example, cultural exchanges, consultation and support — efforts to win over hearts and minds in the Middle East have hit a roadblock.

She will serve as the Department’s senior public diplomacy official, overseeing the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Public Affairs, and International Information Programs, and participates in foreign policy development.