Beijing isn't satisfied simply with controlling domestic TV news and the Internet. It wants to control the Chinese cultural diet. And the appetite goes outside China's borders, as well. Beijing wants more "soft power."

He urged support of Indian diaspora in promoting India as a hub of innovation, qualified medical experts, and R & D to make the country a great soft power. There is need for exchange of medical professionals among countries, he opined.

...western media have taken Hu’s remarks as a sign China’s rulers are principally concerned with the corrosive influence of western soft power, Pirates of the Caribbean outshining the state-backed Founding of a Republic.

Pentagon officials talk about “demilitarizing” US foreign policy, which one can understand after the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the conventional wisdom now puts too much weight on “soft” power. We should not overestimate how much the world loves us because of our virtues, nor underestimate how much our influence still depends on hard power and our ability to provide protection in a pinch.

The U.S. force size in Asia-Pacific will increase...not to prepare for some Cold War-style showdown with a rising China... Obama seems to mean it when he talks about America's "Pacific Century," and putting a military presence there is a great way to extend U.S. hard as well as soft power.

Europe’s mastery of soft power seemed destined to eclipse military might in the post-Cold War age. The building of a continent “whole and free”...These days the European dream seems to be turning into a nightmare. The prospect of the euro’s collapse.

The film, “The Flowers of War...is Mr. Zhang’s take on the Nanjing Massacre. At the moment, no other cultural product or artist better embodies the hunger by the Chinese state and its citizens to create culture that can attract foreigners, bolstering China’s “soft power”...

A Chinese scholar recently said that China is catching up to the U.S. and is becoming a superpower. But according to a media survey, most Chinese don’t think so...The Chinese public’s pessimism about China’s rise as a superpower is shared by Chinese intellectuals...