Is the UK's role on the world stage a decades-long story of managed decline, including the orderly withdrawal from a once vast empire? Or is it the story of a medium-sized power whose standing in the world reflects the new global reality?

On April 16, Singapore kicked off its inaugural East Asia Summit Symposium on Religious Rehabilitation and Social Integration, a counterterrorism meeting designed to share best practices — including Singapore’s own comprehensive approach — with like-minded states.

Sanctions have become as sacred to western armouries as nuclear bombs were 50 years ago. No one dares question them for fear of being thought a dove or a wimp. They cost little to the aggressor but make them feel good. They repress trade rivals. They attract macho adjectives, such as tough, meaningful, targeted and smart. They are chiefly aimed at domestic consumption. Only the poor (and a handful of rich) in the victim states suffer.

What are the implications of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank for the next U.S. president? (...) Currently, 57 countries are confirmed founding members. The United States stands alone.Critics of the U.S. decision not to join see Washington sidelined as allies jump on the AIIB bandwagon. 

Peng Liyuan, the celebrity wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, has played a key role in successfully projecting the Communist giant's soft power abroad through her public diplomacy, according to a study on the country's first lady.

Despite China’s impressive build-up of hard power from its manufacturing industry to an ever-increasing number of fighter jets and submarines, the country’s soft power or its inherent cultural or ideological appeal is in short supply. Many people remain suspicious or even fearful of a resurgent China.

Yet it seems that the Chinese are the most devoted students of Nye. In fact it is not too much of an exaggeration to say the Chinese have become obsessed with soft power.