Chinese think-tank asked to handle a delicate challenge

It began last December when Beijing blocked an international climate change deal, frustrating the United States and Europe. Then earlier this year, China was more than usually strident in its opposition to a U.S. arms sales deal with Taiwan. Other niggling issues have led Western commentators to pile on the invective, calling China 'cocky' and saying it was “bursting with hubris,” among other things. References have been made to Germany's rise as a great power in the 20th century and the two world wars that resulted.

Closer to home in Asia, China finds countries in South-east Asia becoming more inclined to hedge their relations with their giant neighbor by developing their ties with the U.S. and other emerging powers, such as India.

As China's rise has thrust it onto the center stage of the global community, it is finding a world more than a little fearful and anxious about its intentions.

So perhaps it should be no surprise that a new think-tank has been set up to brainstorm ways to ensure that China's rise — into a modernized, medium-level developed country by 2050 — is peaceful and smooth.

The brainchild of one of the country's policy formulators, Mr Zheng Bijian, the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy is so new that its office bearers did not yet have cards in its name when they were here last week. But its key actors have been busy pushing their ideas already, beginning last September with a forum on cooperation on clean energy between China and the U.S..

Its executive vice-chairman Wu Jianmin, a veteran diplomat, addressed the FutureChina Global Forum in Singapore last week, and spoke of some of his ideas for the think-tank. He expanded on them in a separate interview with The Straits Times.

A key idea is to build a series of communities of interests based on the concept of “peaceful rise.” First articulated in public by Mr Zheng in 2003 to counter international fears over China's growing economic and political might, it has since been taken up by Chinese leaders, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

Also known as “peaceful development,” the concept is based on three “nos”: no expansion — that is, China would not follow in the expansionist footsteps of the colonial powers; no hegemony; and no alliances. The doctrine asserts that China can thrive economically only in a peaceful environment and should serve as a catalyst for global peace.

“People everywhere talk about China's rise. We'd like to emphasize 'peaceful',” said Mr Wu.

He identified three key issues that China has to address. The first concerns the fear, apprehension and suspicion that the rise of a country with a population 1.3 billion has generated internationally, and how to dispel these feelings.

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