For sajha international affairs/China enthusiasts. China, Shy Giant, Shows Signs of Shedding Its False Modesty By JOSEPH KAHN Published: December 9, 2006 BEIJING, Dec. 8 — China’s Communist Party has a new agenda: it is encouraging people to discuss what it means to be a major world power and has largely stopped denying that China intends to become one soon. In the past several weeks China Central Television has broadcast a 12-part series describing the reasons nine nations rose to become great powers. The series was based on research by a team of elite Chinese historians, who also briefed the ruling Politburo about their findings. Until recently China’s rising power remained a delicate topic, and largely unspoken, inside China. Beijing has long followed a dictum laid down by Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader who died in 1997: “tao guang yang hui,” literally to hide its ambitions and disguise its claws. The prescription was generally taken to mean that China needed to devote its energy to developing economically and should not seek to play a leadership role abroad. President Hu Jintao set off an internal squabble two years ago when he began using the term “peaceful rise” to describe his foreign policy goals. He dropped the term in favor of the tamer-sounding “peaceful development.” His use of “rise” risked stoking fears of a “China threat,” especially in Japan and the United States, people told about the high-level debate said. Rise implies that others must decline, at least in a relative sense, while development suggests that China’s advance can bring others along. Yet this tradition of modesty has begun to fade, replaced by a growing confidence that China’s rise is not fleeting and that the country needs to do more to define its objectives. With its $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, surging military spending and diplomatic initiatives in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Beijing has begun asserting its interests far beyond its borders. Chinese party leaders are acting as if they intend to start exercising more power abroad rather than just protecting their political power at home. “Like it or not, China’s rise is becoming a reality,” says Jia Qingguo, associate dean of the Beijing University School of International Studies. “Wherever Chinese leaders go these days, people pay attention. And they can’t just say, ‘I don’t want to get involved.’ ” Itself a major recipient of foreign aid until recently, China this year promised to provide well over $10 billion in low-interest loans and debt relief to Asian, African and Latin American countries over the next two years. It invited 48 African countries to Beijing last month to a conference aimed at promoting closer cooperation and trade. Beijing agreed to send 1,000 peacekeepers to Lebanon, its first such action in the Middle East. It has sought to become a more substantial player in a region where the United States traditionally holds far more sway.