Taiwan’s famous stinky tofu made its debut in Washington’s Smithsonian Museum. The occasion was the result of Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau’s New York Representative Office cooperating with the Smithsonian Museum to hold a Taiwan Night Market. The S. Dillon Ripley Center at the museum was filled with red lanterns, snacks and all the sights and sounds of a Taiwan night market—including stinky tofu.

The EU has said it will increase investment in technology and put in place stricter guidelines for its member states to help combat the threat of attacks by hackers and other cyber criminals. [...] The organization said it will use law enforcement and national resources to stop EU countries being attacked.

Dalian-based Haichang Ocean Park Holdings, the mainland’s largest marine theme park operator, has implemented a go-global strategy, with plans to build overseas amusement parks along the beltway of countries that make up China’s new silk road trade initiative.[...] Beijing has been striving to export its cultural heritage and increase the projection of Chinese “soft power” amid the country’s increasing economic might.

France struck a blow in the battle for influence in the Middle East today as it unveiled the Louvre’s €1 billion outpost in Abu Dhabi. The project, which will open to the public on November 11, is being hailed as the Arab world’s first universal museum and an instrument of French soft power.

The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research hosted a symposium in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday devoted to confronting the threats of extremism and terrorism. [...] The event is part of a larger struggle led by the UAE to use education and religious messaging as a way to confront terrorism in the region and the world.

In a rare mark of respect for the country’s religious minorities, and an even rarer choice to preserve a piece of the country’s Jewish history, the Egyptian government has pledged to repair the building as part of a 1.27bn Egyptian pound (roughly £55m) package to restore eight monuments.

The Qatar crisis raises two issues in the field of international relations today. The first is to disprove the mainstream Cold War-era view that small states cannot play a significant role in global affairs. The second is that big powers always use hard means to take control of ambitious, small states in order to preserve the status quo.

In the not-too-distant past, museums and the arts were agents of hard power. Wards initially of royal courts and then nation states, museums were repositories of hard power—safeguarding the spoils of war and human conquest of nature.