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.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that Ellen DeGeneres has been named as a Special Envoy for Global AIDS Awareness. In this role, Ms. DeGeneres will use her celebrity platform to raise awareness about the global fight against AIDS.

Click here to watch Ban Ki-moon’s talk, “Using New Data to Understand Emerging Vulnerability in Real Time” scheduled at 2:45pm (EST).

Sesame Workshop provides a top-notch creative model...for conducting public diplomacy. But the real significance of this program is that it appropriates the power of citizen diplomacy to the youngest of the youth population. In a country like India, with 160 million children under the age of six, this is no small feat, and it’s a unique means of empowering a new generation of citizen diplomats.

U.S. embassies in Africa have created new models for public diplomacy, models which are already producing significant advances. Wharton... described the “Kampala model” of public diplomacy...at the U.S. Embassy in Uganda, according to the Secretary, PD is in the lead.

China’s state-owned broadcaster has launched an aggressive international push to extend the country’s influence, opening a new headquarters in Washington that will broadcast English-language programming from the heart of the US capital. CCTV has also built a studio facility in Nairobi...and plans to open a broadcasting centre in Europe.

The recent arrival of a Chinese navy hospital ship...to treat the needy in Jamaica flew mainly below the radar of mainstream American media. But the “Peace Ark” mission highlights the delicate balance China is seeking to strike as it tries to show off its growing global military capability and boost its influence in regions once exclusively dominated by the U.S. military, without triggering suspicion and alarm in Washington and elsewhere.