Premier's flurry of meetings indicates creative regional strategy, say analysts In a flurry of diplomatic activity in Singapore this week, Premier Wen Jiabao made new friends, cemented old ties, talked lofty ideas and struck down-to-earth deals. He even managed to relay a few useful messages back to his home audience. China is demonstrating a diplomatic sophistication that doesn't come naturally to the ruling Communist Party. Analysts say Beijing is pursuing proactive and engaged diplomacy more keenly in its own neighbourhood than anywhere else. Participation in a multitude of regional mechanisms, as evidenced this week by Mr Wen's attendance at the trilateral summit with Japan and South Korea, the Asean plus three summit and the East Asia Summit was meant to signal that the rapidly rising power was willing to submit itself to regional constraints. Beijing has tried hard to refashion its diplomatic image from 'a maverick dragon' to 'a responsible stakeholder' willing to work within existing structures and seeking win-win relationships, said Yang Dali, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. It's a hard sell in a region where China had or still has bitter territorial disputes and the dominant sentiment towards its supercharged growth not long ago was a mix of fear and suspicion. But Beijing has decided to charm rather than intimidate, combining economic seduction with non-interventionism. Emphasis has been placed on 'harmony' - a rhetorical spillover from domestic politics. The basic motivation was simply that China could not afford to underestimate the region's strategic importance, Professor Yang said. For one thing, oil from the Middle East has to pass through the Strait of Malacca. As Mr Wen tirelessly repeated during his visit to Singapore, he's seeking to enhance 'good-neighbourly friendship'. Japan and India, arguably China's two most potent counterparts in the region, are viewed in the spirit of 'mutually beneficial strategic co-operation'. Southeast Asian nations, most of whom enjoy surpluses in their trade with the world's fourth biggest economy, are wooed with promises that the best is yet to come. 'We should increase our road, railway, airlines and information telecommunications links to meet the demand of growing business ties,' Mr Wen said at the China-Asean summit. Asean countries' relationship with China had undergone 'deep changes' over the past decade, Professor Yang said. The bloc, which had traditionally viewed its rise as a threat, started to change their views after the financial crisis of 1997, when China provided aid to Thailand and Indonesia and refrained from devaluing its currency. Beijing has built on the momentum, launching almost 30 Asean-China mechanisms in recent years, compared to seven US-Asean bodies which meet infrequently. China is Asean's fourth-largest trading partner, after the US, Japan and the EU. With a free-trade zone connecting the two areas tantalisingly close, the bloc is seeing more opportunities than threats. 'To most observers in Southeast Asia, the Chinese are out-thinking, out-enthusing and out-flanking America's more sedate and settled diplomatic efforts,' said John Lee, a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney. Compared to the high-handedness and unilateralism of the US, which remains the backbone of the region's security structure, the Chinese sounded practical and more relevant, Dr Lee said. Where President George W. Bush rambled about the second front in the 'war on terror', Mr Wen spoke about domestic stability and confronting local problems. By addressing a long string of domestic issues on the fringes of the summits, ranging from underground banks in Shenzhen to rising domestic oil prices, Mr Wen was seen to be at pains to reassure his Asian counterparts, as well as his home audience, of China's commitment to sustainable development. Aware of deeply rooted scepticism about China's rise, Mr Wen delivered a speech at the National University of Singapore, titled 'Only an Open and Inclusive Nation Can Be Strong'. 'China is branding itself an Asian partner sensitive to the priorities and problems of Asian nation-states and employs a language that sells in the region,' Dr Lee said. Beijing, largely silent on Myanmar's junta, politely addressed the issue. Mr Wen urged the country to move 'towards national reconciliation'. However, China was appropriately silent again after Asean abruptly withdrew an invitation to UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari to discuss his talks with Myanmar. Beijing is eagerly promoting itself as a responsible representative of developing countries' interests regarding climate change. At the East Asia Summit, Mr Wen vowed to keep China's carbon emissions at 2005 levels and offered to host a climate change meeting for Asian countries next year. 'Chinese diplomacy was once seen as ham-fisted and clumsy; it is now recognised as urbane and creative,' Dr Lee said. 'Beijing has become skilled at flattery, localising messages and promoting regional rather than global agendas.' While urging new Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to realise bilateral relations were 'at an important turning point', Mr Wen swiftly confirmed a top-level bilateral economic forum early next month, Mr Fukuda's first visit by year's end or early next year and President Hu Jintao's reciprocal state visit next spring. The visit would be the first by a Chinese president in a decade. Beijing once again exercised flexible diplomacy with India. The world's two most populous countries have huge claims on each other's territory, but Beijing has started to set aside disputes and allow relations to improve in other areas. Immediately after Mr Wen met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Singapore, the announcement came that the countries were to hold the first war games between the neighbours who fought in 1962. A bilateral leadership meeting next year in Beijing is also under discussion. These diplomatic efforts aim to dispel suspicion and even arouse enthusiasm for Chinese regional leadership, analysts say. 'Behind all of this diplomacy lies a hardened but creative application of realist strategy,' Dr Lee said. 'Multilateral strategic logic is China's best hope for achieving regional influence beyond its military capacities.'