Chinese Internet users were split on how to interpret the sudden appearance of IMF managing director Christine Lagarde on Sina Weibo, the country’s dominant Twitter-esque microblogging service. Others...choosing instead to welcome Ms. Lagarde with warnings not to use the service to solicit China’s help in solving the financial mess in Europe.

The technological and informational revolutions that have spurred (and continue to spur) globalization and interconnectedness between cultures make it impossible for tyrants to rule for the entirety of their lifetimes while mercilessly subjugating their peoples to lives of servitude with no prospect of ever tasting the true meaning of freedom.

Cross-cultural tensions on the American campus may still increase because...it’s fundamentally a clash of civilizations. Chinese and Americans have fundamentally different values, norms, and worldviews, and Chinese students on U.S. campuses is merely the first front of the inevitable struggle between the hegemon and its challenger.

Just as in relationships between people, states generally treat different categories of other states differently: With friends they appeal to loyalty and shared values; with allies they appeal mainly to shared interests; with clients or subordinates, they also appeal mainly to shared interests, but with a twist given the power equation.

Networks are becoming increasingly important, and positioning in social networks can be an important power resource. Coercion remains an important aspect of power in this global information age, but policy answers will often depend on the context of each market and its asymmetries of vulnerability.

"Aalu Anday" or "Potato and Eggs" starts innocently enough but soon launches into a tongue-in-cheek attack on the country's political establishment and its conservative, religious underpinnings. The song has not only made waves in Pakistan, but across the border in India, where the plight of Pakistan's beleaguered liberals has won a lot of sympathy.

The Central Committee has declared that focusing on China's cultural development is part of its plan to increase the country's "soft power" and defend its "cultural security." While the government continues to fund projects to promote Chinese culture abroad like the Confcius Institutes, behind these tired slogans are policy guidelines sure to doom any possibility of a Chinese cultural renaissance.