Is China Ready for World Leadership?

[Valin]

Asharq Al-Awsat:

Amir Taheri

3/8/13

 

With the United States adopting a neo-isolationist posture under President Barack Obama, could China fill part of the gap left by America’s declining influence in sensitive regions such as the Middle East?

 

The question has been debated here and elsewhere since the start of Obama’s first term in 2009. This week it was posed with greater urgency as China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) convened in Beijing.

 

The NPC is a peculiar beast.

 

Stripped to its core it is a plenum of the Communist Party and the backbone of a one-party state. By rubber-stamping decisions taken by the Politburo, it provides the pseudo-legalistic fig-leaf needed to legitimize the regime. However, it also functions as something of a parliament because, over the years, it has obtained the right not only to vet legislation proposed by the government but also to table new laws. At the same time, the NPC operates as interface between government and civil society with non-governmental organizations admitted as observers and allowed to lobby on a range of issues. The NPC is also a kind of jamboree in which a who-is-who of Chinese political, economic, military, and cultural elites come together to network and to perpetuate the illusion that they have a say in governing the People’s Republic.

 

The latest session is remarkable for a number of reasons.

 

(Snip)