The power of cultural relations is in evoking rather than projecting values. We create openness and build trust. Ideologies which require violence and oppression to thrive are threatened by this work. The soft power of cultural relations is often most valuable in the hardest of locations.

Libya should become an occasion for the exercise of soft power. We should have an active embassy and offer the transitional national council advice on how to forge a new government. We should establish intelligence links with the new authorities and offer military aid. We should be willing to help them institute a new constitution, build political parties, and rewrite its school curriculum.

In these times, it's apt to project a Chinese global narrative through increasingly sophisticated media, and while China is promoting Mandarin in more than 300 Confucius Institutes all over the world, it is also increasingly attracting more foreign students to its universities.

Now, scores of brands with sagging fortunes in the United States are reinventing themselves as must-have luxury items in the Far East, a strategy they've adopted with particular fervor in the wake of the global economic downturn.

Chinese-U.S. co-productions are on the rise, and Christian Bale, Kevin Spacey, and Keanu Reeves are among the stars who have sought projects here. So eager are American studios to crack the Chinese market that MGM recently edited Chinese villains out of the remake of Red Dawn, replacing them with North Koreans.

Yet again we are confronted with a dilemma: when is culture an instrument of soft power? We talk about cultural diplomacy, cultural exchanges and even cultural influence. What is less discussed is how cultural paraphernalia connect to, integrate with, and ultimately enhance a nation’s soft power capital.

The best way to diffuse a sense of injustice for those people involved in the Arab Spring is through improving material circumstances, London said. British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in a speech before delegates at the British Council in London said the British government has committed more than $180 million during the next four years to development in the Arab world.

While government officials have been rushing to relate achievements of various sectors with “improving Korea’s image globally,” many citizens still remain unsure of just where the sources of nation branding come from or what the term even means. The Presidential Council on Nation Branding (PCNB) is hoping to enlighten citizens on this issue through the “Korea Nation Branding Convention 2011”.