Late last year, a senior official from the Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing announced that there were now over 40 million foreign learners worldwide studying Chinese.

If you're wondering whether this a joke -- it indeed is. But it also isn't. The Global Times is not in the business of emulating The Onion, the popular online spoof newspaper, but in the serious business of exercising Chinese soft power by providing its take on news around the world.

Israel's Minister of Public Diplomacy, Yuli Edelstein, recorded a special message for Yisrael Sheli’s Online Ambassadors. In the video, the Minister gave a few tips about how to best represent Israel.

Women's rights issues in Taiwan rank fourth in the world and number one in Asia. That's according to a domestic survey based on United Nations methodology. Premier Wu Den-yih attended a national conference for women's issues on Monday. Wu said that these impressive statistics are a result of long-term efforts by the government.

If you are an American academician specializing in Asian affairs, you may have noticed that an organization called the "Confucius Institute" has sprung up on a nearby US college campus.

The unexpectedly rapid expansion of China’s Confucius Institutes since their inception in 2004 has prompted many to consider them a soft power success story. But such a quick rise is bound to lead to a certain amount of scrutiny...

Not long ago when Zhang Guomiao wanted to see a film, he'd head for the village square. There, itinerant cinema operators would unfurl a canvas screen, set up some static-filled speakers and show a grainy movie in the open air.

The Taiwan International Orchid Show 2011 opened Friday at the Taiwan Orchid Plantation in the southern city of Tainan. Addressing the opening ceremony, Vice President Vincent Siew said the orchid is one of Taiwan's most important agricultural exports and is also a symbol of the country's soft power.