Real estate tycoon Pan Shiyi and his wife donated $10 million to Yale University on Wednesday, drawing harsh criticism from some commentators and netizens. Many have said: Why not donate to schools in China? (...) Pan's decision is a reflection of China's rising soft power thanks to the more than three decades of fast-paced economic growth.

APEC can take global leadership with a practical, comprehensive approach—call it a “Pacific Economic Partnership” for global growth, or PEP for short. This would consist of concrete, achievable components, many already in the works. It’s the closest thing APEC has to a shovel-ready growth strategy, but it requires both U.S. and Chinese leadership.

Implemented properly, a “new type of great power relations” could help the U.S. and China reframe their relationship.

The Internet has become so integral to economic and national life that government, business, and individual users are targets for ever-more frequent and threatening attacks.

To make things worse, Europe’s self-proclaimed soft-power leadership—which some observers praise as complementing U.S. hard power in a supposed informal division of labor—has reached its limits. Europeans failed to foresee and contain trouble in their own backyards, East and South alike.

“It is only when we contest (ISIS') presence online, deny the legitimacy of the message it sends to vulnerable young people and expose (ISIS) for the un-Islamic cult of violence it really is ... that (ISIS) will truly be defeated,” Allen said.

In the US there is growing disquiet over China’s attempts to exert ‘soft power’ by claiming a footprint on university campuses.  In the space of a week, two US universities, Pennsylvania State and University of Chicago, have decided to shut down their Confucius Institutes amid concerns over threats to academic freedom.