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This may have been true for some time, but it is only since it surged ahead through the economic crisis - the US-European downturn, not strictly a global event - that it has realised it has this capacity. This year, it is starting to act on it.

A classic example is the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. These days, the organisers of such events find it crucial to attract prominent Chinese participants.

And increasingly they turn up - but on their own terms.

Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, the feisty new-generation leader and premier-in-waiting, whose visit three months ago helped relax some of the tensions in the Australia-China relationship, was the high-powered Beijing representative at the WEF event.

Last weekend, Deutsche Bank chief...