Dev Patel, the Hollywood star, is to front a £100m advertising campaign promoting Britain to young, Asian tourists ahead of the Queen's diamond jubilee. Actor Rupert Everett and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver also appear in the adverts. Designed to lure more overseas tourists to the UK, the adverts are being complemented by short films from each celebrity, shot in a location of their choice.

But if China wants to use sport to boost its soft power, Li's win is a good place to start. That she is not in the mould of most of its athletes – her thank-yous in Paris did not include her country – works in her favour overseas. "She is right up there with [basketball's] Yao Ming in her ability to help people look at China in a different light," said Rhoads.

There has been a renewed focus on soft power, especially after the global publicity garnered by the British royal wedding in April. "We've got an extremely active British Council here," Mr Warrington said. "There are over 50 schools teaching the British syllabus. They're all taking British exams. There are more British universities than any other universities.

The new top diplomat described the United States and European Union as essential partners to Egypt, he adding, noting that he believed more in Egypt's soft power, thus he will seek to enhance the cultural and developmental dismensions in the foreign policy.

It was the dismal failure of Egyptian leadership in the region that was at the heart of the Arab predicament and the deep admiration of Turkey’s growing soft power. With the Arab Spring and particularly Egypt’s revolution, Cairo is now slowly re-emerging as the most likely candidate to fill the vacuum of strategic leadership in the Arab world.

Investing in sports like tennis is also important for China's global image and "soft power"....China has dominated some sports... so much so that some of the competition rules have been changed in order to "prevent" China from taking all of the medals, and to encourage other nations to participate.

Turkey is the topic of interest: meetings are being held to discuss it, and writers, journalists, bloggers and even tweeters write incessantly about the lessons the Turkish model holds for Egypt at this crucial juncture while the country readies for a democratic transformation following the great uprising...

Even non-resident Indians (NRIs) in the USA somehow influence the US citizens by projecting Indian power in the South Asian region. They use soft power i.e. colorful culture of India like yoga, films, and India shining publicity which covers up the rampant poverty, hunger, crime, human rights abuses especially in Kashmir and Naxalite-Maoist areas, Muslim massacre in Gujrat and Christian massacre in Orisa etc