Excerpt: “If
you were to read Western media today, you would come away with the
impression that China’s image in the rest of the world has fundamentally
changed for the worse and that the rest of the world has seen the face
of Chinese assertiveness, and even perhaps the face of Chinese
aggressive behaviour. That, however, is not the reality. The reality is
that while some countries have been at the receiving end of China’s
assertiveness and even of China’s aggression, and there are other
countries in the Indo-Pacific region which have concerns about China and
these concerns have certainly mounted over time, in the vast majority
of countries of the world China still retains a more or less positive
image.
“That
is because of two reasons. First, because for the first time in maybe
two or three centuries, the rest of the world has an alternative source
of capital, technology and equipment for which they were entirely
dependent on the West, and for which they had to accept whatever terms
the West laid out. Now, China can provide all these to other countries
with lesser political strings attached. For most governments, because in
the 21st century most governments need to deliver to the people that
they govern, these instrumentalities are important for them. Therefore,
China automatically becomes favourable to them because their own
socio-economic objectives have to be achieved.”