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The Chinese locomotive builds a head of steam

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WITH all humanity talking about China as a superpower in the making, Beijing has needed little prodding to try for a major role on the world stage.

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And make no mistake about it: China is taking up the part on its own terms, with the dramatic gestures and high-pitched tones of Beijing opera, a style which might seem strange and frightening to the rest of the world, but a form of political and diplomatic drama with which we are bound to become more familiar over the coming years.

No one put the issue of China's emerging superpower status more forcefully than the French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe after the Conservative government of Edouard Balladur sought last year to make amends for the previous Socialist government's weapons sale to Taiwan.

Do we place our bets on a country with 20 million people, or one with 1.2 billion people? Mr Juppe asked. Especially when the latter has been, and is set to continue, enjoying the highest economic growth rate in the world, and has earmarked billions of dollars for investments in mega projects from roads and railways to airports and power stations, most of which will require foreign help.

For France, as for the rest of the world, the answer was clear. Mr Balladur visited Beijing in April, only one of a host of world leaders who paid tribute to China this year.

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As these foreign officials and leaders discovered, China was brimming with a confidence not felt since the decay of the Qing dynasty last century, a China willing and eager to take on the West even over the issue of human rights, the cornerstone of the industrialised nations' China policies following the 1989 crackdown on student protesters.

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