It is not just in the realm of hard power that the United Kingdom is becoming dangerously weakened; many of our most important soft power assets are also being reduced. This ignores a very important and unchanging fact: ultimately it is power that underpins the prosperity and freedoms that so many of us take for granted.

Like the economy itself—though less noticed abroad—Italy’s ancient monuments and cultural heritage are crumbling. At stake is not just sentimental attachment to national monuments. Italy draws more than 45 million visitors every year, making tourism the country’s primary industry. Italy, as a brand, doesn’t just denote quality and beauty, but translates into euros.

The potency of mangoes — and their — mythical reputation in Pakistan and many other parts of South Asia, was brought home to me last week when, as it does most years, the Pakistani embassy in Brussels held a ‘mango extravaganza’ in a prestigious local hotel whose chef has finessed the art of turning mangoes into pieces of culinary magic.

Hu Yuandong of UNIDO...says the focus of the project is job creation, poverty alleviation and environmental protection. Xiao has made clear that the $3bn investment is not coming from the Chinese government, but rather from various funds "around the world" - even from the Middle East. But it would be difficult not to see this as a smart move by China and an extension of its soft power.

Turkey is a bridge between East and West, the only Muslim member of NATO... It is also a free market success story and a geopolitical “soft power,” an agent of moderation, reconciliation, peace and stability in a volatile region stretching from the Middle East to Afghanistan/Pakistan and from the Mediterranean to the Balkans and the Caucasus.

Yang also touted the benefits of the administration's flexible diplomacy, which he said avoided competition or direct confrontation with the mainland and relied instead on Taiwan's economic and democratic soft power to create opportunities for Taiwan in the international arena.

The link between football, identity, unity and nationhood is so strong that many newly-found states, or states divided by war, have used the soft power of football to achieve hard political aim.

With rising Sinophobia and calls for an anti-China boycott, the Philippines has openly spurned China's earlier soft power, trade and investment-oriented advances. Whether those sentiments materialize into concrete anti-China policies and actions is unclear.