China has cultivated a delicate foreign policy toward the Southeast Asian region over the years. It initially followed soft-power diplomacy...This "feel-good factor" paid dividends as it helped China to sign a code of conduct on the dispute of the South China Sea with the contending parties.

Now, as senior Republican on a key appropriations panel for foreign operations, Graham is trying to stave off funding cuts for a softer kind of power exercised by diplomats, civilian training corps and U.S. contractors who help other governments battle AIDS, modernize schools, instruct police, clean water wells and enhance their armed forces.

Clinton’s 2009 trip is widely acknowledged as a high point in US public diplomacy efforts within Pakistan ... Her accessible manner, blunt talk and willingness to engage directly with different strata of Pakistani society earned her much respect and helped complicate the fiery, nationalist debate around the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation.

Called Viki, the Singapore-based web startup pools the linguistic talents of thousands of its users to help push world television content into markets historically impenetrable to all but a handful of foreign-language productions. The service relies on an active community of translators proficient in 158 languages to caption the footage.

A Chinese navy hospital ship...sailed on Friday into Havana Bay in Cuba, reflecting good relations between the communist allies...Military experts and China watchers say the ship is one of the ways in which the Asian giant is increasing its use of "soft power" to burnish its image...

But even Romney, a leading contender, has a chink or two in his foreign policy armor...He pledged to make full use of soft power -- diplomacy and leadership within alliances and organizations like the United Nations.

Bollywood is an industry that employs many, and is an important source of India's soft power. It is the government's responsi-bility to ensure that Bollywood is not put out of business by rampaging Hollywood moguls keen to capture the Indian market.

Nation branding is an increasingly important and influential field of theory and practice which attempts to measure a country's reputation and provide guidance on a country's image management around the world.