Several schools aiming to foster cultural understanding between U.S. and China have turned to virtual exchange programs between American and Chinese schools. Such schools received financial assistance from Hanban, a Chinese institution affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education, as well as the Confucius Institute at Michigan State University.

A group of senior U.S. coaches and sports administrators will visit Afghanistan in February to conduct training and mentoring for Afghan sports officials as part of a sports diplomacy effort co-sponsored by the International Security Assistance Force and the U.S. Embassy.

Flashy pop culture figures and sports icons may not negotiate an armistice or prevent war, but they could be valuable levers to get top diplomats into the right place at the right time while lowering the stress of high-stakes diplomacy.

“I'm taking on another big writing project, so I won't be able to give the BBG the time it needs and deserves,” he said in a resignation letter sent Friday to the agency, which oversees U.S. international broadcasting, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

The U.S. Department of State has designated January 2012 as 21st Century Statecraft month. Twenty-first Century Statecraft complements traditional foreign policy by harnessing and adapting the digital networks and technologies of today’s interconnected world.

Odeke and three other Ugandan basketball coaches were part of a delegation visiting UCLA on the back end of a cultural exchange tour of the United States that included a stop at the Basketball Hall of Fame ...The U.S. State Department helped fund the project, which was conceived by Texas Tech sports science professor Jens Omli, the trip's promoter and the founder of International Sport Connection.

The dominance of western brands in China has long been a sore spot for the country's leaders. You can't walk through a Chinese commercial district without bumping into an Apple or Prada store occupying the city's finest prime real estate.

The friendship has solidified further after the Great East Japan Earthquake last year, according to Ann Stock, the Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy at the U.S. State Department. After the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan, the U.S. provided weather and nuclear expertise...