Chinese diplomacy generally comes in all sizes and shapes, but until relatively recently the size was small and the shape a question mark. Decades of international isolation did little to nudge many nuances into its foreign policy.

It was an American — Harvard dean Joseph Nye — who coined the term "soft power," but the Chinese have taken the concept to a whole new level. More recently, however, China has taken a different path, with its public persona seeming to become more shrill, even arrogant.

Amid a pre-event torrent of child-friendly animations of China's upcoming world's fair —expected to draw 70 million visitors—and images of the Expo's fingerless blue mascot, called Haibao, Israel's seashell-shaped pavilion has garnered more than its share of attention.

The figures confirm the exponential growth in commercial ties between the two countries, which were almost non-existent 15 years ago, when trade volumes amounted to just 400 million dollars.

For millions of Chinese, the USA pavilion's show at the Shanghai World Expo will be the closest they'll ever come to an experience of America. What they'll get -- apart from long waits -- is a warm welcome and a dose of Hollywood-style entertainment.

The closure of Google.cn will damage China, from discrediting its soft power campaign to rattling foreign businesses to upsetting a key constituency of educated and white-collar Chinese. Google is naive if they think they can close or force the closure of Google.cn and still retain any sort of a positive relationship with the Chinese government.

The Indian government has taken a leaf out of Chinese diplomacy — the great dragon has been teaching Chinese language in India for years — and has launched the first course of Hindi-to-Chinese at the Indian embassy's cultural centre in Beijing.