From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

Is China's new charm offensive doomed to fail?

Hello again, I'm Warren Alney, and this is To the Poet from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues Americans care about most. China's new president, Xi Jinping, will be running an economic powerhouse with an

inferiority complex about its lack of cultural influence. He says, just as China needs to learn more

about the world, so does the world need to learn more about China. But can he develop China's

soft power in the face of political censorship,

limits on foreign tourism, and military saber-rattling?

We'll hear about the contradictions that make the world's second most powerful nation

harder to understand and more frightening than it wants to be.

On reporter's notebook later on, will Kickstarter change Hollywood?

First, here's the news.

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Hello again, Warren. I'm oni, back with To the Point.

Very little is known about China's new president Xi Jinping installed formally yesterday to run the world's

second most powerful country. We do know that he wants the world to know more about China.

Why is it such a mystery? What are the obstacles to spreading China's cultural influence along with its economic and military power? We'll talk about that today. On reporter's notebook, 30,000 fans of the canceled TV series Veronica Mars pledged $2 million on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter in a single day. Seed money for a new movie. Is Hollywood paying attention? First, this news update,

less than a week before his first visit to Israel as president of the United States, Barack Obama

told an Israeli TV station yesterday that Iran is not all that close to building a nuclear weapon.

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