Hu's on first?

• Author: Kurlantzick, Joshua
• Position: Rising & Resurgent Powers - Hu Jintao - Editorial

IN RECENT issues of The National Interest, there have been a series of articles that take China's rise to both regional and global pre-eminence as a given) But it is worth stepping back to take a sober look at some of the very real challenges China faces--and in particular, how China's neighbors assess these developments. Sometimes the view from Washington and New York can be a bit overly optimistic.

Of course, over the past six months, that confidence about China's continued progress was shaken as governments across the world witnessed an explosion of terrifying stories about Chinese exports. News reports detailed toothpaste tainted with poisons, fake baby formula and pet food packed with illegal substances. Though China vowed better safety standards--and executed the head of its own food and drug administration--it also stonewalled in many cases, blaming complaints on overaggressive foreign news reporters and claiming that American exports also can be dangerous.

For leaders in Southeast Asia, the problems of China, its giant neighbor, can have a more immediate impact--as they found out when the SARS crisis, initially covered up by China, quickly spread across Asia and decimated the region's economies. Over the summer, Southeast Asian reporters learned of another terrifying outbreak of disease in China. A mysterious illness in Guangdong province was causing pigs to bleed to death. Gruesome foreign TV and newspaper reports described bloody pigs staggering around, panicked Chinese farmers trying to sell their hogs en masse and rivers filled with pig carcasses. Southeast Asian officials worried about whether the pig disease would spread into their nations. Yet once again, the Chinese government did almost nothing. In fact, in China itself, few people even seemed to know about the pig illness. Chinese state media had not reported on the Guangdong disaster, and even well-informed businesspeople in Shanghai had heard little about it.

The cover-up and finessing of the pig debacle is hardly unique. In recent years, China has made enormous strides in its relations with Southeast Asia and with many other parts of the developing world. Using more sophisticated diplomacy, a growing aid program, and trade and investment, it has boosted its global profile and smoothed relations with neighbors, who a decade ago clearly feared the rise of China's military and economic power. China is even eyeing a regional leadership role in Asia, playing a key part in the run-up to the first East Asia Summit (EAS), mediating some intra-regional disputes and taking the lead away from Japan in driving regional trade initiatives. As one Philippine official said, "China has mastered the diplomacy, but Japan and the United States, they've not mastered the art of talking like their partners."

But as long as China remains so opaque that other nations cannot hold it accountable or even understand how its domestic politics operate, it cannot become a regional--or global--leader. Indeed, within Southeast Asia, many nations warming to China also have maintained close relations with the United States--not a popular actor in this part of the world these days--primarily because Washington still offers some degree of transparency. "When you have a problem with China, who do you call?" asks one Southeast Asian official. "You never have any idea."

TEN YEARS ago, few Southeast Asians would have believed that China could claim regional leadership. In the mid-1990s, commentators in the Thai, Malaysian and Philippine media warned of the economic threat from China, whose booming manufacturing sector threatened...