China's worrying friendships

摘要

A mere seven months ago it was possible to say that the terrible events of September 11th at least provided China and the United States with a chance to put aside their differences and use the war against terrorism as a unifying theme around which to reconfigure their relationship. That view may now look to have been too optimistic. This week, Hu Jintao, China's vice-president and likely successor to Jiang Zemin as the nation's leader, left for his first official visit to the United States with plans to meet President George Bush and the vice-president, Dick Cheney. On April 24th, in a stopover in Kuala Lumpur, Mr Hu made what looked like a sideswipe at his American hosts. While not mentioning the world's only superpower by name, he said in a speech to a Malaysian think-tank that China "opposes the strong lording it over the weak and the big bullying the small." China, by contrast, "has long pledged not to seek hegemony" in its region.