Taking advantage of activity surrounding the Chinese American Film Festival (Oct. 25-Nov. 30) and American Film Market (Oct. 31-Nov. 7), Asia Society Southern California staged its third U.S.-China Film Summit at UCLA Covel Commons, with three panels of U.S. and Chinese film entrepreneurs in co-production, globalization of talent and investments.

Real ambassadors for China over coming decades will be the Chinese people, says scholar. China foreign policy expert Zhao Minghao believes the current world order is in a "plastic" moment. The research fellow at the China Center for Contemporary World Studies, the Communist Party of China think tank, argues many of today's international institutions emerged in the aftermath of World War II and now need to be reshaped.

In “China Stands Still at the Crossroads”, CMP Director Qian Gang shared his thoughts on the issue of political reform as it was reflected in President Hu Jintao’s political report to the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. But what does Hu’s report have to say about culture (including media), which has had a bigger political profile in China ever since the term “cultural soft power” made its debut in the 2007 political report?

Times are changing and so are the Chinatowns across the world. Starting off as ordinary trading outposts that attempted to satisfy to the culinary needs of overseas Chinese communities, these towns have evolved to become major soft power assets and representative symbols of the modern and resurgent China.

The European Patent Office is a great European success that should be seen not only as a centre for patent granting excellence, but also as a means of generating European soft power across the world. So says the office’s current president Benoît Battistelli.

Easily overlooked amid the flurry of reforms in Myanmar, a diplomatic retooling is taking place at the US Embassy in Yangon. Cubicles that were once empty have found new occupants, relationships that had turned cold during two decades of political isolation are thawing and public diplomacy is flourishing.

Over the weekend in Doha, Syrian opposition figures reached an agreement to form a group called the National Coalition for Revolutionary Forces and the Syrian Opposition, amid calls from the United States and European and Gulf countries for a show of greater unity. This is another example of American soft power influence in the region.

Blogs are gradually emerging as mainstream media in India... Niche blogs in the space of culture, technology, and hobbies wield significant clout. ‘Category blogging,’ as I may call it, actually presents an additional engagement opportunity for state-sponsored public diplomacy initiatives.