"Deepening cultural exchanges with foreign countries, and promoting Chinese and foreign cultures to learn from each other" has been listed as one of the major tasks of the Chinese government in 2012, says the government work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao at the opening ceremony of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

Putin perceives Russia as being the target of constant and mostly unfriendly pressure – from military challenges such as NATO enlargement to the imposition of social changes through media campaigns and other “soft power” elements...Success is only possible if based on use of power and this must be real 'hard' power.

To be successful and competitive in the long run, the private sector must manage global issues with numerous geographic and geopolitical challenges with creativity and dexterity, re-defining traditional notions of global engagement and public diplomacy along the way. A hybrid form of Smart Power on steroids.

On her graduation day at the prestigious Kennedy School at Harvard, Yang Jia’s dean called her “China’s soft power”. A decade later, Yang, 49, has probably become more than that — in a country which has the largest population of the disabled in the world, visually impaired Yang is now its symbol of hope.

“She has made people all over the world more respect, appreciate and understand America,” says one of her predecessors, Madeleine Albright. “She has made very clear what American values are while at the same time understanding other countries’ national interests.”

Hong Kong-based Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Ltd will receive an unspecified level of financial support from Bank of China Ltd to boost the development of China's cultural industry, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

On the opposing side, there are those who cite Kuwait in the sixties, seventies and a substantial part of the eighties when its leadership in development, business, foreign aid and cultural production afforded it a soft power influence many times its counterparts.

Unlike Augustan Rome, the Song Dynasty that inspired Qingming Shanghe Tu exerted a different kind of power.... Its entrepreneurs and scholars invented technologies still in use today, technologies that enabled widespread education, encouraged trade and travel, inspired artistic excellence and not only tolerated but encouraged diversity and openness.