China's banner year felt abroad

China's promise of continued investment in Southeast Asian nations takes some of the sting out of the region's loss of jobs from Chinese competition. How long this tributary appeasement will last is an open question. Still, Beijing's call for a free-market zone in Asia by 2010 caught the Japanese so off-guard that they immediately held their first ASEAN minisummit early in December in Tokyo to create their own new bilateral free-trade ties.

Soft power as applied to China does not imply exactly what it does in the American case. The term originated in the waning years of the cold war to describe how Western films, celebrities, clothing styles, and other popular culture influenced the opinions and aspirations of people around the world. In the case of China, soft power tends to suggest more a respect of or fascination with China's recent success - and an accrual of clout as a result.

With the exception of authoritarian or communist states like Burma or Vietnam, however, few experts feel Asian states are trying to emulate Beijing. And China is not yet regarded as a dynamo of popular commercial styles. Beijing doesn't export boy bands, for example.

Chinese leaders currently seek to meld China's national identity and its ancient traditions with its hierarchical authoritarian political structure and economic successes as a way to create pride and legitimacy, experts point out.

"The [Communist] regime in Beijing is legitimized, in part, by foreigners looking to China for lessons about the future. This trend should continue for the foreseeable future," argues Mr. Friedman.

Yet as a diplomatic "soft power" in Asia, the past year also recorded China's joint Coast Guard exercises with India, something inconceivable five years ago. Beijing took a central role on the Korean nuclear crisis, even referring to the "six-party talks" as the "Beijing process." It has just finished a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - designed to keep its influence percolating in Central Asia.

The exercise of soft power was evident when Korean President Roh Moo Hyun visited Beijing last year. Mr. Roh, whose small state represents the world's 11th largest economy, brought with him a vision of South Korea as the future "hub" of Asia trade and culture, a vision Roh gets great affirmation for at home. Yet in Beijing, Roh was politely heard out, then found himself treated to a different vision. "The Chinese basically said, 'So you are the hub? Excuse us, we are the Middle Kingdom,'" said a source close to the meeting.

"China is being a very reasonable power in Asia as a short and midterm strategy," says one analyst at a politically unaffiliated Asian think tank. "What happens in 10 or 20 years, if China dominates the region, I don't know. The best you can say is, 'the jury is out.'"

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