In the past 30 years, China has created an economic machine that has lifted more people out of poverty in a short space of time than any nation in history. It has built world-class factories, vast modern cities and a continental highway system. Now it wants to build something less tangible: soft power.

My answer is best summarized in the words of Joseph Nye... "Even the best advertising cannot sell an unpopular product. Policies that appear as narrowly self-serving or arrogantly presented are likely to prohibit rather than produce soft power."

Sanctions are a hard form of economic power that Joseph Nye discusses in chapter three of his new book, The Future of Power, and a topic that is discussed widely today in relation to Syria. Many policy makers are pondering whether sanctions will be useful in convincing President al-Assad to stop killing his people.

Joseph Nye observes: ''A key lesson of 9/11 is that hard military power is essential in countering terrorism by the likes of bin Laden, but that the soft power of ideas and legitimacy is essential for winning the hearts and minds of the mainstream Muslim populations from whom al-Qaeda would like to recruit - a 'smart power' strategy does not ignore the tools of soft power.''

Now is the moment for the cynics to drop their all-or-nothing criticism of sanctions, and to see them instead as a limited but useful tool. Because of their value in signalling and soft power; because they are often the only relatively inexpensive policy option; and because smart sanctions can be applied flexibly, they remain an important policy instrument.

I would introduce another working definition that culture is observable worship or work. It is the sum total of the core beliefs expressed through action of one’s perception of reality... Using the above as a platform, the nearly missed opportunity of cultural exchange of the African reality this year is plausibly understandable.

As international borders become more porous, nations must use soft power to build networks and institutions to respond to shared threats. In this sense, power becomes a positive-sum game. It is no longer sufficient to think exclusively of wielding power over others. We must instead think of using power to accomplish goals with others.

He's the US professor who moves between academia and politics with ease, and whose term 'soft power' defines diplomacy in the Obama era. Mary Dejevsky wonders why Britain doesn't have its own Joe Nye