Only a few people seem to have noticed that a significant shift in how the United States addresses China was floated during US President George W. Bush's recent Asia trip. Mr Bush, starting with his speech in Kyoto, moved away from lecturing Beijing to pointing the way forward for its advancement as a normal, democratic nation.
Religious freedom, trade issues and Taiwan were not addressed in a 'do-it-or-else' style: rather, moral suasion was applied through comparison. It was a subtle shift. Yet, from what I saw in Beijing during the visit, and in the days following, mainland leaders - rather than issuing the usual communist blather - were actually engaging Mr Bush on religious freedom. They took genuine umbrage at the suggestion that Taiwan was more moral and righteous.
The opening here is obvious. If Beijing wants to engage the world as an equal, then the arguments it puts forth to justify its form of government, trade relations and foreign policy are no longer subject just to its Politburo, but also to how China sees its place in the world.
Rather than have China follow a path laid out by others, maybe it's time we gave China the chance to be a world leader. Let's put China to the test of an old Virginia saying: 'If you want to sit on the front porch, you have to be able to run with the big dogs.'
Beijing has said that an Asian should be the next secretary-general of the United Nations. This is a meaningless statement, since Asia is next on the rotation anyway. But let's up the ante and make a Chinese citizen the next UN chief. Why not? Chinese make up more than half of East Asia's population. As for the objection that China is not a full democracy, that is an argument we should have on the world stage. Think of the irony of a Chinese secretary-general arguing for democratic reforms in Africa.
The UN would be reinvigorated, as certainly no one could call a Chinese boss a US stooge. Western nations would not be able to sleepwalk through UN sessions, as the views of a secretary-general from a non-democratic nation could have a strong bearing on the status quo and moral stance of the UN.