There has been a common assumption over the last couple of years that China is an emerging global power. That bit is easy. What is less certain is what sort of power it will become.
The anti-Japanese riots of this weekend - sparked by a Japanese textbook that calls the 1937 killing by Japanese troops of 300,000 people in the Chinese city of Nanjing an "incident", but seemingly supported by Beijing as it campaigns against Tokyo getting a permanent seat on the UN security council – suggest it wants to be the pre-eminent power in East Asia.
Simon Tisdall, the Guardian's foreign affairs columnist, wrote last week of mounting tensions between the two nations over an uninhabited Pacific reef. The outcrop could give Japan control of the economic resources of a vast part of the ocean, or China the stretch of sea that links Taiwan to the US naval base on Guam.
The forecasts are not just war-orientated. A post on this blog in February argued the EU-US dispute over arms sales to China was less about Washington and Brussels than Washington and Beijing competing to have the EU onside. Joshua Kurlantizick wrote in that month's Prospect on China's growing soft power, something he had strong warnings about if the developing world chose Chinese authoritarianism over the US's rights-based democracy.
When it comes to economics, China's booming economy means we will perhaps get used to more British businesses, like Rover, seeing their fortunes depend on Chinese capital. Today's Washington Post returns to the military theme: it reports that Beijing is building a stronger and smaller military that could threaten the current regional balance of power weighted in favour of the US. This, of course, will have the biggest impact on Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, and threatens to attack if it declares independence.
Despite this, the US needs China. Its strategy at present appears to be to court Beijing in order to help it contain North Korea (and to boost its own security, as this piece argues), but then also to turn India into a world power to counterbalance China. India and China replied yesterday with a stragetic partnership after the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, went on a charm mission to South Asia to reassure its neighbours it will not become a regional danger.
The Asia-Pacific region is potentially rich, but potentially volatile. As Beijing's differing relations with New Delhi and Tokyo this week show, it is not easy to predict. A lot will depend on what sort of power China becomes.
