Ms Sonenshine has been using her new office of Public Diplomacy to engage groups of Pakistani and American media people in a series of joint outreach seminars with Ambassador Rehman over the last few weeks in Washington.

The initiative, a key diplomatic effort by the State Department, aims to engage young girls and women on how success in athletics can develop important life skills and improve academic achievement. It also is designed to increase cross-cultural understanding between international participants and Americans.

Skeptics around the world question the motives of countries including the U.S. that take their music or theater abroad. But veteran diplomats say there's ample evidence that cultural exchanges pay off, that exposing other nations to American culture and nurturing cultural institutions in other countries are important elements of foreign policy.

Not long after becoming secretary of state in 2009, Clinton took up the cookstove cause, one of what she describes as “smart power” issues — though skeptical veterans of American foreign policy tend to deride them as soft more than smart.

What the U.S. should do is incorporate the space program into strategic communications and public diplomacy. For the PRC, space is seen not only as an arena for industrial policy but as a diplomatic and public relations tool. By contrast, NASA has a level of name recognition and positive association known the world over, but it underutilizes it.

Chinese leaders are obsessed with their nation's rise, and see it reclaiming its historic position as a dominant world power. Many Chinese strategists also believe the U.S. is in decline. But their opinion splits on what this means.

An initiative of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Center Stage brings compelling contemporary artists from Haiti, Indonesia and Pakistan to the United States to engage Americans in cultural diplomacy as a way to create opportunities for greater understanding.