China's Superpower Debut at Copenhagen

The new global diarchy has taken some time to be recognised because of the delusions of power in Brussels, Moscow, Delhi and Tokyo. We in India see ourselves as China's equal. But Beijing's view of the China-India hyphen is rather similar to our view of the India-Pakistan hyphen: something artificial concocted by a superpower for its own purposes.

China's emergence as a power player in global negotiations was delayed by the erosion of its diplomatic capacity brought about by the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution. One could see that Chinese diplomats and civil servants educated and trained during this period lacked not just the language skills but also the confidence to handle the subtle needs of multilateral diplomacy. They tended to leave the talking to more loquacious countries like India. This is changing. A new generation of well-trained Chinese officials, confident in the reality of their power, is taking charge and leading from the front.