America secretly popular in Asia

There’s a front-page story in today’s WaPo about Hillary Clinton’s listening tour in Asia. Not often reported, but included toward the end of this story, is a bit of data well-known to Asia watchers:

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs conducted a survey last year in the four countries Clinton is visiting this week — China, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia — and found that the United States outperformed China in political, diplomatic, economic and human capital “soft power,” a favorite Clinton buzz phrase. Indeed, the survey concluded that the view of the United States in these countries, even majority Muslim Indonesia, is “largely positive.”

So how do we capitalize on this asset? Dan Twining, previously an Asia hand at the State Department, has some detailed and insightful thoughts.