"China's rise" and the "US decline" have been hotly discussed among politicians and scholars. How does China's rise influence the US? Is the US really in decline? How will the Sino-US relationship develop in the future? Global Times reporter Wang Wen interviewed American political scientist Joseph Nye, former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University on these topics.

The United Kingdom has been given the world’s top rating by the international magazine Monocle for its use of Soft Power... The magazine singles out everything from Harry Potter to the new James Bond movie to give Britain its top ranking. By contrast it says the United States has slipped from number one because of an introspective year caused by internal politics and the US elections.

Earlier this month we took a look at what Hu Jintao’s political report to the 18th National Congress had to say about cultural policy in China — specifically, the focus on building China as a “socialist cultural power” (社会主义文化强国) to offset perceived Western cultural dominance. A report in today’s People’s Daily summarizes the discussion...

A recently unearthed video shows that President Obama has greatly shifted his views on how to address terrorism, advocating for a “soft power” approach in 2004, to employing drone strikes and targeted killing of terror suspect during his Presidency.

What is the American counter-move? The Obama administration devised a scheme for a proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership that would exclude China. This magical sleight of hand is grounded in the imaginations of American policy-makers but not in reality.

Issues including whether the humanities have a place in 21st-century nations will be among those discussed at the British Council's Going Global conference next year, it has been announced. The conference, which will be held on 4-6 March in Dubai, will have the central topic of universities' role in creating knowledge economies.

That was the message that China sought to convey to President Barack Obama as he completed his eight-hour visit to Yangon (Rangoon) on November 19,2012, during which he met President Thein Sein and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and addressed the students of the Rangoon University.