The creation of the prosaic-sounding Asian Infrastructure Investment Development Bank (AIIB) has landed the biggest blow to America’s superpower status in the post-war era.  Such is the verdict of former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, one of the West's foremost public intellectuals and a man whose voice reverberates around the corridors of the world’s chancellories.  

Engaging with hostile governments while meeting core strategic needs would better serve American interests than unending sanctions and isolation, the president argues. The administration’s policies reflect his confidence in diplomacy and his trust that openly engaging with other nations will be effective.

For the first time, a Taiwanese TV drama will be aired in the Latin American region in an effort to promote bilateral exchanges in the field of pop culture, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Saturday.

There’s a vintage example of American exceptionalism in the Financial Times this week, by the paper’s US editor Gary Silverman. The article is about the appointment of Trevor Noah to the vacant Jon Stewart berth on The Daily Show. But Noah’s controversial Twitter history isn’t what concerns Silverman. Instead, he sees Noah’s career arc – growing up bi-racial in Soweto, where “my existence itself was a crime”, emigrating to America, working his way up in short order to the most prestigious satire gig in the country – as a classic tale of “American soft power”. 

Surpassing France, China has become the third largest destination for international students in 2014. According to the latest figures from the Chinese Ministry of Education, there are over 337,000 international students studying in the mainland, which account for 8 percent of all international students across the world.

Fake news stories. Doctored photographs. Staged TV clips. Armies of paid trolls. Has Putin’s Russia developed a new kind of information warfare – fought in the ‘psychosphere’ rather than on the battlefield? Or is it all just a giant bluff?

Washington’s long-awaited nuclear deal with Iran prompted relief in Tehran over an end to international isolation, anxiety among Middle Eastern allies over the United States’ “Persian pivot,” and skepticism in the U.S. Congress, given Iran’s long-standing sponsorship of terrorism. The framework agreement will also have wider repercussions — for Asia.

At the end of last year, China introduced a draft law that forbids foreign NGOs that engage in activities contrary to "Chinese society's moral customs." In Russia, organizations that receive foreign funding must register as "foreign agents." Egypt, Bolivia, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe have passed similar measures. These governments see malign motives behind many of these foreign-financed initiatives. Are they right to be worried?