Over the past decade, China’s economic and military might have grown impressively. But that has frightened its neighbors into looking for allies to balance rising Chinese hard power.

Over the past two years, in a departure from the policy of reassurance it adopted in the late 1990s, China has managed to damage relations with most of its neighbors and with the United States. Mistrust of Beijing throughout the region and in Washington is palpable.

Contending forces—be they from the ruling class or activists organizing from below—make strategic choices based on the quantity and type of the resources they have at their disposal.

In the realm of public diplomacy reports, there are too few that should be on your required reading list. “Social Media Strategy: Bringing Public Diplomacy 2.0 to the next level” (820kb PDF) is an exception.

Strongly condemning the desecration of the Holy Quran in Florida, the United States, Ulema on Friday urged the Muslim Ummah to adopt a comprehensive strategy to help check such incidents and to avoid confontration among the followers of different religions.

On 12 March, the Arab League called on the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal contends that “American liberals and the Western European chattering classes,” are the people mainly complaining about US presence in the Arab world, not Arabs. While the Obama administration, plagued by “American self-abnegation,” relies on the international community to intervene in the Libyan conflict, the United States may be losing the confidence of the Arab street.

Almost 11 years after the tragic events of 9/11, there is little agreement on defining an effective public diplomacy, and outlining public diplomacy goals, according to the blog Public and Cultural Diplomacy. The failure of the Bush administration’s public diplomacy strategy, followed by the current administration’s intent to restore America’s credibility abroad signal America’s willingness to adopt more collaborative relations with the Muslim world in tackling global challenges.

US diplomatic cables suggested Canadian TV seeks to “twist current events to feed long-standing negative images of the US." Not really, say Canadian producers and officials. Watching state-run television here [Montreal], you might get the feeling that Canadians seriously loath their big southern neighbor. At least, that's the impression that some US diplomats got.