BEIJING - If 2006 established China firmly as the world's fourth-largest
economy, it also delivered Beijing the means to discard the late Deng
Xiaoping's maxim that the communist country should not take the lead in
international affairs until it has grown economically strong.
The year saw China's holdings of foreign-currency reserves, the yields of
fast-growing exports, reach US$1 trillion - a sign of enormous financial clout
that is now beginning to spill over into
other spheres. More than two decades of solid economic growth, which averaged
10% annually, now point at the probability that in the not so distant future -
25 years from now according to Citigroup - China would command the world's
largest economy.
As China's confidence grows in tandem with its economic might, the country's
leaders are also more willing to share the limelight with other world powers
and exert more influence in international affairs.
This has found manifestation in several gestures of forward policy, such as an
increase in the Chinese troop contingent in United Nations peacekeeping
operations and Beijing's willingness to bolster economic and political ties
with developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The recent appointment of Margaret Chan, a former Hong Kong civil servant, as
the head of the World Health Organization - the first Chinese national to lead
a UN agency - also heralds the arrival of an era where more and more prominent
Chinese voices will be heard at multilateral bodies of global reach.
Until recently, Chinese politics were defined by the need for economic
development above all. Having suffered at the hands of foreign powers in the
past two centuries, Chinese leaders were determined to right the historical
wrongs by transforming the former imperial laggard into a modern, economically
strong country.
But the astonishing change in the country's economic fortunes has forced
Beijing to rethink some of its foreign-policy tenets and seek more exposure on
the world stage to boost its global influence.
China's willingness to abandon Deng's admonition of self-restraint in
international affairs stemmed also from the realization that it could use
international bodies for furthering its own diplomatic goals, said Wu Miaofa,
researcher at the China Institute of International Studies.
"The current economic and political order is not perfect but we can work with
the available international mechanisms and make it more just and reasonable,"
he said.
That much was evident when Prime Minister Wen Jiabao announced in September
that China was ready to increase its contribution to the international
peacekeeping force in Lebanon to 1,000 troops. The proposed increase of troops
by more than 800 represented China's biggest single deployment since Beijing
began participating in UN peacekeeping operations in the late 1980s.
It was also a sign of China's eagerness to enhance its standing in the
conflict-ridden but oil-rich Middle East.
Since it first sent People's Liberation Army Blue Helmets to Cambodia in 1992,
China has deployed military or police teams involving some 6,000 people on 15
peacekeeping missions around the world, including Liberia, the Democratic
Republic of Congo (Congo-Kinshasa), Namibia, Haiti, East Timor and others.
Today, China is the largest contributor of peacekeepers among the five members
of the UN Security Council, according to Wu Miaofa. "We feel there is a
responsibility out there to fulfill the expectations of developing countries,"
he said. "As the biggest developing country, China [has] taken this upon its
shoulders and it is acting accordingly. It is not a surprise that the scope of
our UN operations is growing bigger."
China has also pledged US$3 million to the UN Peace-Building Fund. Announcing
the contribution in September, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said the money was
meant to further the interests of developing countries.
Beijing continues to emphasize the need for developing nations to band together
and protect their interests in face of globalization and from the inroads of
the industrialized West. These days, though, China's initiatives are propelled
not by ideology but by efforts to secure natural resources and political
influence.
In Africa and Asia, as in many other parts of the developing world, Beijing is
providing countries with financial support and diplomatic backing to gain
leverage over their emerging markets, while also ensuring that their leaders
are closely aligned with China's interests internationally.
China has so far written off the debt of 31 African countries and given an
estimated $5.5 billion in assistance to the world's poorest continent. Beijing
has also pledged $100 million to the Asian Development Fund and the Africa
Development Fund.
In Africa, China has overtaken Britain to become the continent's
third-most-important trading partner after the United States and France,
according to a report, "The New Sinosphere: China in Africa" published recently
by Britain's Institute for Public Policy Research.
In November, Beijing hosted an ambitious trade, investment and aid summit with
the leaders of 48 African countries, at which Chinese leaders pledged to double
aid to Africa from its 2006 level by 2009.
But given its insatiable demand for raw materials and natural resources to fuel
its industrialization, China has been accused of neo-colonial political
indifference toward the human-rights abuses and corruption of African regimes,
like Angola, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
And even as it strives to burnish its reputation as a military power through
the expansion of peacekeeping operations, Beijing is facing questions about the
purpose of its military buildup. The US has warned that its army's rapid
modernization has altered the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region.
"The outside world has little knowledge of Chinese motivations and
decision-making or of key capabilities surrounding the People's Liberation Army
modernization," noted a Pentagon report in May.
