The U.S. culture of openness and innovation will keep this country central in an information age in which networks supplement, if not fully replace, hierarchical power. The United States is well positioned to benefit from such networks and alliances if our leaders follow smart strategies. In structural terms, it matters that the two entities with per-capita income and sophisticated economies similar to that of the United States — Europe and Japan — are both allied with the United States.

The Chinese have been growing their media presence in Africa in recent years as part of a "soft diplomacy" strategy — using culture and information to spread its influence and counter what it views as unfair treatment in global media. A paper on this topic by Yu-Shan Wu at the South African Institute of International Affairs describes soft power, or ruanshili to use the Mandarin term, as an "important instrument to help a state achieve its most desired goal with the least objection".

he so-called six-party talks — the on-again-off-again international mechanism by which the US, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear aspirations — are often cited as an example of multilateral diplomacy.

To increase China's highbrow soft power, the Chinese government could initiate more scholarly exchange programs with other countries, set up more Confucius Institutes abroad, and increase government-sponsored and government-involved people-to-people exchange programs.

The overall measure of Australians' "warmth" towards China is captured in the Lowy Institute's "thermometer," a gauge measuring how positively people feel towards a range of countries. Last year China was ranked eighth with a warmth of 59 degrees out of a possible 100, just under Malaysia and just above India.

India’s answer to those in America who are egging on the Obama administration to get into a trade war with this country is going to be typically Oriental: New Delhi is to soon embark on a major mission to spread the country’s soft power in the US and capitalise on it.

As we prepared recently for this week’s Scottish launch of a British Council-commissioned report by Demos into the role that culture plays in the race for soft power in the 21st century, I thought back on that episode at the LHC; how culture, like the sciences, really does bring people together – even those with very different world views.

As a current citizen of Berlin, I was aware of the large-scale relief effort the U.S. mounted after the Soviet Union had blocked all land supply routes into West Berlin in June 1948, in what became known to the world as the Berlin Airlift. In this context, I had also heard the story of American pilots dropping candy from their C-54s when flying into Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin. I could not, however, have spoken with certainty about the origin or the scope of the candy dropping operation, even though by now whole books have been written on the subject.