“Taiwan’s pop music represents an important aspect of the country’s soft power, with cultural flair and business potential, and has taken the lion’s share of the Chinese-speaking market,” GIO Minister Philip Yang said at a news conference. “The tours will take the beautiful and diverse sounds of Taiwan to our neighbors,” he said.

Recently the International Monetary Fund confirmed what the average Chinese has long anticipated: China will soon have the world's largest economy, surpassing the United States. Some Chinese believe that passing this milestone will have automatic consequences for international politics, giving China more international influence. But as history shows, the path may not have a single destination.

In a stance that roughly paralleled that of President Theodore Roosevelt, who famously advised, “Speak softly, but carry a big stick,” General Powell said the U.S. should work through “soft power”—diplomacy, humanitarian aid and the like—to achieve its goals, using military action only as a last resort.

Americans have a complicated relationship with authenticity. We celebrate our national ability to reinvent our lives, to leave the past behind or get a makeover , but we simultaneously bemoan the absence of an authentic American culture.

Manchester is the city that tried to turn itself around by turning itself into a brand. The result has been an undeniable improvement. Here is the most astonishing fact about Manchester's regeneration: where residents were once desperate to leave the city, now, for the first time in 50 years, people are flocking back.

Changing American hearts and minds about Russia has been Voice of Russia's mission since it first went on the air in 1929, broadcasting from Moscow via short-wave radio. It still does use short wave but with the Internet, Facebook and Twitter, that seems like a blast from the past. VOR is turning to...a new studio in downtown Washington.

Powell said he remains convinced that the United States should use its political and economic influence, so-called soft power, instead of military might to achieve its goals. "We should use soft power as much as possible. But when hard power is necessary, we have to use it in the right way," he said.

Kane concluded that the Turkish “blend of Islam, democracy, and soft power is a far more attractive regional template than the Iranian narrative of Islamic theocracy and hard power resistance.”