China is in unapologetic mood. Not so long ago Beijing routinely protested its anxiety not to disturb the established international order. But a rising China has now become a risen China. Past inhibitions are being shed. Beijing looks as if it is formulating an east Asian version of America’s Monroe Doctrine.
The effort to organise a boycott of the Nobel peace prize ceremony is a small part of this new assertiveness. During a few days in the Chinese capital I must have been told more than a dozen times that the democracy activist Liu Xiaobo was a common criminal. Awarding him the prize had been a calculated provocation. The Nobel committee, apparently, is no more than a pliant tool of western governments.
There is more to the change in the atmosphere than a burning resentment at the west’s admonitions about universal values. China is drawing sharper distinctions between its own and others’ national interests – something seen in its responses this year to the rising tensions on the Korean peninsular.