Currently, multi-polarity is emerging as a new world order due to the growing influence of state and non-state actors at national, regional and international level. [...] Therefore, West is viewing BRICS as a competitor to its status-quo. The yardstick on which west is gauging BRICS as a threat is composed of both power factors; Hard Power and Soft power.

Beijing has sought to improve its public image through a soft-power strategy meant to show Zimbabweans that the dragon has a soft, charming underbelly. In 2006, China opened a Confucius Institute at the University of Zimbabwe to spearhead the teaching of Mandarin and the propagation of Chinese culture. Students are keen on mastering the language, seeing it as a passport to new horizons on the international job market.

Gail Dexter Lord -co-founder and co-president of Lord Cultural Resources– and Ngaire Blankenberg – senior consultant at Lord Cultural Resources -proposed an update of the concept of soft power, by operating in particular a displacement of its scope (Cities, Museums and Soft Power, The AAM Press, 2015).

In introducing Manzoni, Nefkens described the UK as a world leader in the “digital transformation of government”, a model even for similar schemes in the USA and Australia. Furthermore, New Zealand has used Gov.uk source code - it’s based on open standards and is open source - to help build out own digital services.

In the past two months, India must conclude, sadly, that its story on Nepal is not winning and its soft power is being eroded on a daily basis. This weekend’s events, with the temporary detention of 13 Seema Sashastra Bal personnel by Nepal’s Armed Police Force personnel and the Nepal government’s decision to take Indian channels off air, only drive the point home that Nepal is rejecting India’s power, both hard and soft.

In its trumpeting of Britain’s global “soft power” influence, the government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) unveiled on Monday contains a glaring contradiction. [...] Twenty pages on, the document says the UK will continue to work with close allies, including “vital partners, such as Saudi Arabia, in the Middle East”.