The fun and joy that Xinhua is searching for reflects a quandary facing China’s leadership: As Xi navigates a difficult phase of his administration, his messaging machine — for decades one of the Communist Party’s most crucial levers of power — has been struggling to make itself heard.

London has been anointed the city with the highest “soft power,” beating out contenders like New York and Paris. Its ability to create high-skill jobs and attract an international diverse group of business talent has led Deloitte to name the British city as the “soft power capital of the world."

Radicals don’t wake up one day and join Isis or Al Shabaab. Extremism fills a gap; preying on people who feel lost, confused and excluded from society. For some without hope, extremism can offer something different: a future of freedom, adventure and purpose. It also provides food, clothing and protection. [...] We must recognise the importance of soft power to address hard-hitting issues. 

Sometime in March last year Kenya’s diplomatic corps, attending the 17th Biennial Ambassadors and High Commissioners’ conference in Mombasa, bemoaned negative press reports and said this was frustrating their diplomatic initiatives in missions. The envoys noted that the local media’s fascination with “negative” narratives of insecurity, crime and corruption painted a bad image of the country abroad. 

Blocked by Beijing from maintaining diplomatic ties with most of the world and barred from many global organisations, Taiwan is turning to museum diplomacy to boost its international standing and highlight its history as a regional entrepôt rather than a province of China.

A Chinese panda couple will arrive in Korea for the first time in 22 years. Chinese President Xi Jinping had promised a gift of pandas to Korea during a summit with President Park Geun-hye in July 2014. [...] China has long practiced "panda diplomacy" whenever it establishes diplomatic relations with foreign countries.