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gling style, and the underlying hardness of principle, of Chinese positions on such issues as Cambodia, Afghanistan and Korea. all these I think it fair to say - so long as the super-powers themselves are set on the containment of tension - China need be in no hurry to find peaceful solutions, and will certainly not want to compromise any significant national objectives as a price to pay for them.
19. In handling "outer regional" issues, there is an interesting, and still evolving, duality in policy. In some regions, and on some issues, China can still (though decreasingly) hope to get away with her traditional line as the non-imperialist, peace-loving champion of the Third World. On others she is already starting to behave in the spirit of her "top table" role, adopting (rather self-consciously) responsible positions in concert with other powers and foregoing the short-term gains which sole use of the old rhetoric might bring. The South Pacific is a good example of the first case and the Iran/Iraq conflict (leaving aside a continuing quirk over arms sales) of the second. There are some cases where the Chinese line has been a matter of rhetoric so far, but where China could perhaps be drawn into a more responsible role through her membership of the Security Council, or as a result of an increasing taste for policy coordination with the Europeans, or both: the earliest examples might include some functional rather than geographical issues, such as cooperation against terrorism and piracy in the air.
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20. Chinese foreign policy today is Sinocentric. It is essentially interest-driven and therefore in a way never quite seen before - also in great part reactive, open to. reshaping as the many other forces and relationships surrounding China evolve in their turn. It is for the most part highly professional in style and execution, with lapses into passion now. rare, except on the most sensitive issues of sovereignty such as Taiwan and Tibet, and into rhetoric becoming rarer.
21. But when I say "Sinocentric", I do not mean either isolationist or static. In a period of concentration on development, the promotion of China's interests, and the assertion of her status, demand an approach which is active and evolutionary. China's objectives all require an adjustment of the status quo and advancement of her position, albeit by peaceful means. alone is good reason for us to watch developments closely.
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22. Again, to call China's policy interest-driven is not to say that it is now unprincipled. On the contrary, China's external and internal goals today are more than ever part of a coherent whole, subordinated to the basic objective of making China. rich and strong as quickly as possible. The machinery of policy-making reflects this, with Deng Xiaoping taking personal and often overt responsibility for many foreign policy decisions and an inter- departmental committee under Ji Pengfei responsible both for the presentation of agreed recommendations to the State Council and for the coordination of action on its decisions.
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