It is not easy to understand why China is apparently prepared to confront the United States at this time on the two issues -- arms for Taiwan and Obama’s plans to meet with exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama. Washington has been selling armaments to Taiwan for 61 years since the communists drove the old Kuomintang government from the mainland onto the offshore island then known as Formosa. The Americans are also trying to find some sort of settlement between the Tibetan exiles and Beijing, which seized control of Tibet in 1950.

The $6.4 billion arms deal, involving defensive missiles and helicopters for Taiwan hardly alters the balance of power. Taiwanese investors have become increasingly involved in China’s economic boom, transferring technology as well as cash. The government in Taipei has no interest in threatening its mighty neighbor, with whom it now shares the goal of ever-greater prosperity. Moreover, on Tibet, the Dalai Lama has been consistent in his disapproval of violence and his insistence on a peaceful settlement for Tibet.
China’s political role on the world stage still needs to catch up with its burgeoning economic power. The vision until now has been overwhelmingly pragmatic — dominated by trade and the country’s voracious appetite for raw materials. Thus to the fury of the West, it has been prepared to deal with any state. It has also demonstrated a firm opposition to sanctions motivated by political considerations of Washington. By and large its international behavior has been consistent and predictable. But this needs to evolve. The big question is how Beijing chooses to engage more fully in international affairs.
Thus far its major problem is that it has been reactive rather than proactive. Outside criticism of its human rights — Google’s end to its search engine filters being only the latest manifestation, irks the Chinese government, as does the lofty Western presumption that every state should be driving toward full representative democracy.
Beijing however has failed to explain the historical reasons why China has needed strong central control to flourish and has always succumbed to internal strife when that leadership failed. Nor has it argued effectively for the success of its extraordinary economic model — which according to some Western economists is not supposed to fly. Yet like a bee, it does.
What China needs to become proactive, is a clear vision of its place in the world and the willingness to put that vision into practice. Despite its outstanding growth to become the world’s preferred manufacturer, there is a sense that still lurking within the Chinese psyche is that xenophobia which caused the country to turn its back on the world for 500 years after the epic voyages of Ming dynasty explorer Zheng Ho at the start of the 15th century.
Without a clear policy of international engagement, Beijing risks being dragged from one crisis dispute to another without the world understanding what it really wants. The Beijing Olympics were a stunning display of China’s new-found power, but new-found power to do what