The Taiwan Pavilion at the World Expo 2010 Shanghai will begin a trial run on April 20 and open on May 1 as scheduled, an organizer said Thursday.

As the East Asian states are forming an economic bloc, Taiwan should avoid being excluded by pursuing free trade agreements with leading powers worldwide and taking part in that process is the country's diplomatic priority.

APDS Blogger: Di Wu

This is the first of what I intend as a series of occasional postings about public diplomacy and soft power in and towards Asia, focusing principally on the People's Republic of China. This site is understandably concerned with western approaches to, and practices of, public diplomacy, especially as they relate to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the challenges of international terrorism. My aim is to draw attention to non-western perspectives that acknowledge, but are not dominated by, events in the Middle East.

Without firing a shot, China is winning its "war" to gain de facto incorporation of Taiwan into the mainland orbit. That's a tortuous way of saying that it may not be long until Taiwan is no longer a de facto state.

SHANTOU, GUANGDONG PROVINCE, CHINA

In China there’s been a year’s worth of growth in the few months since my last dispatch.

You name it, and it has grown in China. Some examples: the Chinese trade surplus, the Chinese trade surplus with the U.S., and the Chinese trade balance with the rest of Asia, which has gone from deficit to surplus.