The New York Times looks at the multifaceted personalities of a China on the rise:
In one sense, there’s nothing surprising about a rising power finding subtle ways to handle complex problems. But before China’s breakout from poverty to arguably the world’s No. 2 economy, its default position on foreign policy was to restate the principle of non-interference in other nations’ affairs and focus largely on its neighborhood.
That was before it had the military resources and the incentive to start thinking of how to secure and defend interests around the globe. Today, its interests include access to oil in places like Sudan and Iran, safe shipping around the Horn of Africa, the ability to manipulate its currency for its own gain.
And for the first time, the world is seeing a distinct range of behaviors, from aggressive to passive-aggressive to diplomatic, in places that 20 years ago China’s leaders rarely thought about.
What American diplomats and analysts now have to figure out is what drives China’s actions and responses, how to try to shape them and, some would argue, what limits to try to set.
