About 20 U.S. high school students enjoyed Japanese pop culture together with Japanese university students on Tuesday in Tokyo’s Harajuku area, known as a center of youth culture. The American students are the winners of the National Japan Bowl, a Japanese language competition created by the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C., in 1992. 

GIX, a graduate institute jointly run by the University of Washington and prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, will start receiving applications this fall for the first class of students for a dual master’s degree program to begin on its campus in 2017. The first on-the-ground project of a Chinese university in the United States, the program aspires to educate “the next generation of innovators” through “project-based learning.” 

China’s growing control of the movie industry also exists downstream. AMC Theaters is owned by the Dalian Wanda group, whose board members have ties to the communist government. AMC is currently finalizing a merger with Carmike Cinemas that will make it the biggest movie chain in the United States with more than 8,000 theater screens. 

Through a State Department-created internship program, students can create data visualizations for embassies around the world or design apps or websites for agencies in a 10-hour-a-week commitment that spans an academic year. This program, called the Virtual Student Foreign Service, is helping to coordinate remote internships for more than 30 agencies this year. 

The famed American Museum of Natural History opens an exhibition this fall that its scientists say breaks new ground on multiple fronts. [...] In keeping with the newly relaxed relations between the United States and Cuba, scientists from both countries have broken through more than a half-century of restrictions in place since the Cold War.

The U.S. Department of State plans to send circus experts, acrobats or clowns to schools in Turkmenistan as part of a cultural exchange program. [...] “Through this program, Turkmen students and faculty of the Circus Arts Department will have a chance to work and learn from American professionals in a series of master-classes,” the grant summary says.

Central Europe continues to actively court Chinese investment. But increased coziness with Beijing comes with tradeoffs, including a loss in influence for the region’s traditional ally, the United States. [...] The question is: How much is Chinese investment worth, in terms of domestic politics and international goodwill?