Welcoming international students used to be one of the key ways that Britain developed long-term, soft power relationships to aid trade and wield political influence. (...) A 2011 report by the Home Affairs Select Committee was highly critical of the government’s approach to welcoming international students and expressed concerns that more regulation of visas could have serious unintended consequences.

President Xi Jinping stressed increasing China's "soft power" by promoting exchanges with other cultures, he said in a written instruction to the China International Culture Exchange Center on Wednesday.

The Toronto District School Board’s vote to cancel plans for a Confucius Institute marks the latest setback for China’s language- and culture-based soft-power initiative.

Concert promoters, artists and curators said China was a culturally diverse country, its people citizens of the world, and their contemporary culture needed to be presented in a global context.

To make things worse, Europe’s self-proclaimed soft-power leadership—which some observers praise as complementing U.S. hard power in a supposed informal division of labor—has reached its limits. Europeans failed to foresee and contain trouble in their own backyards, East and South alike.

Throngs of Cambodian students from various Chinese schools flocked to see the fifth edition of a Chinese book fair on Monday, seeking reading books which are helpful to their studies.

In the US there is growing disquiet over China’s attempts to exert ‘soft power’ by claiming a footprint on university campuses.  In the space of a week, two US universities, Pennsylvania State and University of Chicago, have decided to shut down their Confucius Institutes amid concerns over threats to academic freedom.