When China's State Council Information Office director Cai Wu agreed to appear at Australia's National Press Club last week, many journalists expected a rare chance to learn why China felt obliged to censor the internet, imprison journalists and muzzle reports on serious health issues.
Mr Cai, on the other hand, was expecting a rare opportunity to persuade western journalists of the peaceful intent behind China's increasing economic and military influence - developments which he said had 'caused widespread international concern - the so-called China threat'. A recent Pentagon quadrennial review argued that a Chinese military build-up could be a negative for Asia if it put the regional military balance at risk, and that 'the outside world has little knowledge of Chinese motivation and decision-making'.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, put these concerns to the Australian government when she visited last month. 'We've said that we have concerns about the Chinese military build-up,' she said. 'We've told the Chinese that they need to be transparent.'
Indeed, a driving purpose behind her Australian visit was to engage in 'triangular dialogue' with America's close allies, Japan and Australia, about this rising Chinese influence. Japan's foreign minister, Taro Aso, has labelled China a 'considerable threat'.
Dr Rice argued that: 'All of us in the region, particularly longstanding allies, have a joint obligation to try and produce conditions in which the rise of China will be a positive force in international politics, not a negative one.'
Mr Cai said China's rise was a big positive, and that China would 'promote world peace through its own peaceful development', and the chance to feed and clothe its 1.3 billion people. He said it was in China's own interests to achieve a 'peaceful and stable international environment ... Peaceful development is our long-term choice'.