Rising clout gives China new muscle at 'G2' talks with U.S.

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It was a tactic that might have worked a few years ago, back when the United States was the world's only superpower and China just another country seeking its favour.

Thirty brave Chinese citizens gathered in Beijing's snow-covered Temple of the Sun park and dared to complain about how they are treated by their government. Such protests are usually broken up quickly, but they were betting the Communist government wouldn't dare do the usual just days before U.S. President Barack Obama was set to visit.

"We are here because Obama is the president of a free and democratic country [and]he is coming to China," said Yang Qiuyu, a housing-rights activist. Others in the small clutch of demonstrators started shouting their grievances, speaking quickly as if they knew they didn't have much time to make their cases. Several complained to a television camera present that they had been unjustly evicted from their homes. Others claimed they had been arbitrarily detained or beaten by police.

But soon, the blue-uniformed police who had been watching the demonstration decided that they had seen enough and moved in to disperse the crowd and make arrests. As a woman with short hair and oval eyeglasses was led away to a waiting paddy wagon, she silently opened her winter coat to reveal a white T-shirt underneath that simply read: "I want human rights."

The whole scene lasted only a matter of minutes.

Once upon a time, the visit of a U.S. president would bring concessions from a Beijing leadership grateful for the attention and affirmation. Ahead of Bill Clinton's 1998 trip to Beijing, China released two high-profile dissidents, Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan, into exile in the United States.

In remarks televised across China during his visit, Mr. Clinton praised the Dalai Lama as an "honest man" and condemned the loss of life during the 1989 crackdown on demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. After nearly a decade of isolation, Jiang Zemin's regime welcomed Mr. Clinton to Beijing on Mr. Clinton's terms.

Not any more. This time, as Mr. Jiang's successor Hu Jintao gets set to host Mr. Obama, who arrives in China tomorrow on his first visit as president, Beijing is ready to trade Washington's list of demands for an equally long list of things it wants to see the American administration do.

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an American president is heading into what could be described as the first post-Cold War superpower summit. The U.S.-China relationship is important enough - in areas as critical and diverse as the global economic crisis, nuclear proliferation and climate change - that many now refer to Washington and Beijing as the G2.

During three days of talks in Shanghai and Beijing, Mr. Obama is expected to press for action on China's undervalued currency, the yuan, as well as the staggering trade imbalance between the two countries, the North Korean nuclear crisis and the need for a global climate-change deal. Issues like China's repression of dissent and free speech are likely to be raised only quietly, if at all.

Mr. Hu is expected to politely listen to Mr. Obama and then hit him up with Beijing's own list of concerns. China wants Mr. Obama, who recently postponed a meeting with the Dalai Lama, to make a statement recognizing its sovereignty over Tibet. It will also be seeking an end to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, an island it considers a renegade province, and an end to perceived American protectionism, including a recent move to slap tariffs on imports of Chinese-made steel pipes.

"I think [the Chinese leadership]has been angry and anxious before, but never more assertive than what we're seeing in the weeks leading up to [Mr. Obama's visit] I don't see aggressiveness, but I see a self-confidence and self-certainty," said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based analyst of Chinese politics.

While Chinese leaders have been hesitant to embrace the concept of a G2, the state-run media made it clear that the Middle Kingdom now sees itself on equal footing with the United States.

It's a change that Asia-watchers say has taken place in the past eight years. The United States, knocked sideways by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, became distracted by its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Asia fell off the Bush administration's agenda, just as China's economic clout and military might gave it new sway over its neighbours.

Chinese strength and America's struggles during the global recession have emphasized that the balance of power is shifting.

"China is not yet ready to enjoy the title of [belonging to]a G2," said Jin Canrong, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Renmin University in Beijing. "But on the other hand, with the growth of Chinese power, it cannot help but bit take on more responsibility."

Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, recently voiced the unease that many in the region feel over China's rise when he warned in a speech in Washington that no Asian country, not even Japan or India, could hope to match China's growing might. "So we need America to strike a balance," he said.

But others argue that Mr. Lee was simply pointing out the new political reality in Asia. China in recent years has tightened political and economic links with Southeast Asia and even the strongest U.S. ally in the region, Japan, is now reconsidering its post-Second World War alliance with Washington and looking for ways to improves ties with Beijing.

"America overlooked Asia [after Sept. 11]and China has filled in the vacuum," said Huang Jing, an expert on Chinese politics at the National University of Singapore. "China's leaders now realize they are someone who can't be overlooked, and who play a very important role, at least in Asia."

Some of China's neighbours are nervous about Beijing's new swagger - backed by the cutting-edge military hardware it paraded last month as the Communist Party celebrated 60 years in power - and they are looking for Mr. Obama to make a statement that the United States is back and engaged in Asia for the long haul.

Speaking yesterday in Tokyo, the first stop of his nine-day, four-country tour that takes him today to the Asia Pacific Economic Conference summit in Singapore, Mr. Obama set out to deliver exactly that message.

"I intend to make clear that the United States is a Pacific nation and we will be deepening our engagement in this part of the world," he said at a press conference alongside Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. "The United States will strengthen our alliances, build new partnerships and will be part of multilateral efforts and regional institutions that advance regional security and prosperity. We have to understand that the future of the United States and Asia is inextricably linked."

Mr. Obama has described China recently as both a partner and a competitor. Which type of relationship the two superpowers will develop, now that they are on increasingly equal footing, remains to be seen, but it's unlikely ever to be as hostile as the one the United States had with its last superpower rival, the Soviet Union.

"In the past 20 years, the U.S. and China have developed an irrevocable interdependence in their economic relations," Prof. Huang said. "That economic interdependence means it would be a disaster for both countries if they got into a confrontation."