What this brief overview argues is that Turkey has consistently tried to avert recourse to intervention and war in the Middle East and to promote diplomatic approaches that rely exclusively on soft power.

More recently, with the resurgence of China as a global power, Vietnam has been subject to a Chinese “charm offensive,” as the country seeks to spread its soft power. Since the early 1990s, Vietnam has been engulfed in a Chinese “cultural tsunami” brought about by the overwhelming success of Chinese historical television series, music, movies and kung-fu novels.

Just as the Beatles and rock ’n’ roll helped bring down the Kremlin, Bollywood might yet prove to be the undoing of the most noxious brand of Islamic fundamentalism.

Peacekeeping provides a very useful soft-power tool for China, in the sense that [it] can help promote a positive reputation of the Chinese...Citing its commitment to non-interventionism, Beijing has never deployed combat troops, even in the midst of humanitarian disasters like Darfur.

In response to all this, some are recommending that China engage in more intensified cultural diplomacy. Indeed, one senior official told me that China should position itself like Germany has in Europe, letting its clout be neutralized by an Asian regional organization.

During the past several years, Chinese audiences have flocked to see American movies such as Kung-Fu Panda, much to the alarm of China’s political leadership, which has recently made clear that it is not inclined to surrender any terrain on the global cultural battleground.

This is about growing Brazil’s soft power on the international scale and raising Brazil’s role in the world,” said Matthew Taylor, a Brazil specialist at the American University’s School of International Service. “Brazil is taking on a bigger role in the hemisphere in terms of aid and finance, and by helping out Cuba they really draw attention to this new role they are playing.”

Over the past decade, governments have become increasingly aware of the importance of "soft" power ... as a complement to the "hard" power of traditional military and economic means of achieving foreign policy objectives. Today in Westminster Hall I will be debating how we can develop a foreign policy strategy that better integrates the different elements of hard and soft power.