Whatever became of President Barack Obama’s vaunted foreign policy czars, who were to transform America’s international relations through soft power diplomacy? The answer is nothing good. One by one the czars have fallen by the wayside, leaving a trail of bureaucratic irritation and diplomatic failure behind them.

China has cultivated a delicate foreign policy toward the Southeast Asian region over the years. It initially followed soft-power diplomacy...This "feel-good factor" paid dividends as it helped China to sign a code of conduct on the dispute of the South China Sea with the contending parties.

More than 300 of the Communist Party’s most powerful leaders met in Beijing and discussed ways of boosting the nation’s “cultural soft power”: an admission that for all the country’s economic prowess it lacks the magnetic draw of a country like America.

Now, as senior Republican on a key appropriations panel for foreign operations, Graham is trying to stave off funding cuts for a softer kind of power exercised by diplomats, civilian training corps and U.S. contractors who help other governments battle AIDS, modernize schools, instruct police, clean water wells and enhance their armed forces.

“In a world where soft power is so important, the United States is counterproductively compromising its position in a forum that really matters,” said Ronald Koven, who monitors Unesco for the World Press Freedom Committee, an American nongovernmental organization.

Evidently, China has cultivated a delicate foreign policy toward the Southeast Asian region over the years. It initially followed soft-power diplomacy by providing economic aid to various infrastructure projects and opening its domestic market for Southeast Asian manufactured products without antagonizing the region politically.

[The EU] allows for members to deal with major cross-border issues such as migration and criminality and trade more effectively... It is a prime example of "soft power"; it has brought peace and stability.

A Chinese navy hospital ship called the Peace Ark sailed on Friday into Havana Bay in Cuba, reflecting good relations between the communist allies and China's expanding global presence.