China turns to damage control in its diplomacy

December 26, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times

BEIJING

Now for the damage control.

After taking a pounding in the court of world opinion in recent months, the Chinese government hopes to repair an image tarnished by the public relations fiasco of the Nobel Peace Prize and a series of foreign policy gaffes.

Chinese President Hu Jintao is to be received by President Barack Obama on Jan. 19, with an official state dinner and Oval Office meeting scheduled. China has toned down its blatant public support for North Korea, urging Pyongyang to accept nuclear inspections and to refrain from further threats to South Korea.

“At the end of the day, Hu needs a successful summit,” said Michael Green, a former top Asia adviser to President George W. Bush and now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He added, however, that “it might be tactical, rather than a forthright recognition that China needs to compromise.”

For a leadership that sailed through the global financial crisis with nary a misstep, the Chinese have proved surprisingly inept at diplomacy. Beijing’s assertive — critics say thuggish — behavior in the international arena has undermined an image it had long cultivated as a gentle giant whose prosperity would only enrich its neighbors.

Carefully nurtured relations with the United States, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and many European countries have seemed in danger of unraveling with alarming speed.

“We need to do some repair work,” said Shen Dingli, an international relations specialist at Shanghai’s Fudan University. “China has to be humble and courteous about appreciating America’s help in its development and should not use rising power to make friends upset.”

Among the many sore points are Beijing’s manipulation of its currency to give its exports an edge over those of its trading partners’, and its seemingly unconditional support of North Korea, particularly after the Nov. 23 shelling of a South Korean island in which four people died.

Favorable views of China among South Koreans have sunk from 66 percent in 2002 to 38 percent, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. A few days after the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, 92 percent of South Koreans surveyed said they were upset with China’s response, and nearly 60 percent said they would risk economic relations to lodge a protest.