soft power
The news that the ABC is to establish an ‘online portal’ in China that will allow it to ‘represent and sell media content across China’ has been greeted with understandable enthusiasm by the ABC.
The soft-power age has almost ended. The key players of global politics no longer use their soft power to influence other states, nor the general route of international politics. Worse, there are not many actors with the ability to perform decisively at the international level.
Despite much diplomatic effort, the situation in Ukraine worsens. A coordinated Russian campaign, including an invasion threat, special operations destabilization in eastern Ukraine patterned on the Crimea model, and warnings of gas cutoffs document ever more clearly Vladimir Putin’s aim to cripple the Ukrainian government and control much or even all of this strategically vital European country.
In May 2012, the law school at George Mason University hosted a forum billed as a “vibrant discussion” about Internet search competition. Many of the major players in the field were there — regulators from the Federal Trade Commission, federal and state prosecutors, top congressional staffers.
As Friday's curtain came down on this year's Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), a public diplomacy event, the lasting effect on China should be progress and reform. It is fair to say that the four days of the conference, covering sixty topics and attracting over 3,000 global figures from all walks of life, were a good example of public diplomacy itself.
"Will China invade its neighbors?" This is a question I tend to be bombarded with whenever I present lectures or attend talks on East Asian affairs. From Tehran to Tokyo, one can sense the growing anxiety towards China's international influence.
On April 7, Bruce Gregory published the 69th and most recent edition of his periodic public diplomacy reading list. "Bruce's List" is a compilation of books, journal articles, papers, and blogs on a wide variety of PD topics, and features a number of CPD scholars. Highlights include:
Despite a mild economic slowdown amidst China’s economic rebalancing and the U.S. Federal Reserve tapering—and despite a dip in Indonesian shares following asurprisingly weak performance by the favorites in Wednesday’s parliamentary election—the general direction of Indonesia’s economy seems clear: onwards and upwards.