Foreign military interventions seldom run a smooth course; they have been particularly messy, if not counterproductive, in the vast swathe of lands stretching from the Maghreb to Indonesia.

China is not getting its message across effectively to the rest of the world, said Zhao Qizheng, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Taiwan's private sector is trying to involve more industries in its effort to promote medical tourism, with the latest trial balloon drawing interest from a local airline, according to a local travel agency.

Given China’s decisive influence on the global economy, and its increasing ability to project military power, understanding the sources of Chinese conduct has become a central issue in international relations.

At the beginning of the year, few would have predicted that Britain and the United States would be involved in another military intervention. Britain, the United States and European nations were – and still are- cutting their defence budgets.

Smart bombs, clandestine special forces operations, high-profile defections and, now, the arrival in London of a high-ranking Libyan envoy sent by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator’s son, to negotiate the possibility of the family fleeing into exile.

Japan is increasingly turning to other countries for help as it struggles to stabilize its tsunami-stricken nuclear plant and stop radiation leaks that are complicating efforts to recover the bodies of some of the thousands swept away by the towering wave.

Jan Melissen, Head of the Diplomatic Studies Program at the Clingendael Institute of International Relations and Sook Jong Lee, President of the East Asia Institute, have just released a new volume, Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia by Palgrave Macmillan in the series on Global Public Diplomacy.