The initiative, which was launched by the William Sisters, Serena and Venus, during their recent visit, is set to go from school to school, inspiring girls to take the front row in sports and develop an indomitable and tenacious spirit that will help them challenge and conquer stereotypes and other traditional impediments to their success.

SOMETIMES China flexes its soft power without really having any idea it has done so. That appears to be what happened on November 27th when the People’s Daily Online, a website of the Communist Party’s English-language mouthpiece, republished an article by the Onion, a satirical version of an American newspaper, declaring North Korea’s Kim Jong Un the “Sexiest Man Alive”.

Deserting debt-laden, recession-racked North Atlantic and Japan for the fast-growing emerging market world may have been irresistible for some investors but many others still remain timid. Why? It may be a case of "hard power" versus "soft power".

Two state-owned Chinese film companies are aiming to list shares on Shanghai's stock exchange, as Beijing champions the growth of a homegrown film industry to rival Hollywood... Chinese policy makers see a vibrant film industry as an extension of what is called soft power, giving the nation cultural sway on par with its status as the world's No. 2 economy.

The Confucius Institute at Liberia University, which was jointly established by Changsha University of Science & Technology in China and the Liberian government, through the University of Liberia (UL) nearly 4 years ago , has made some landmark achievements in the area of cultural exchange program.

Monocle may call it 'soft power', but there's nothing soft about the economic dividends that sharing culture can bring. Our own 10 Country British Council research shows that sharing English, education, and culture helps build trust for the UK worldwide, and that trust translates into people worldwide wanting to study in the UK, visit, and do business with us for mutual benefit.

"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.