Amid China's bumpy rise, Xi faces delicate moment at UN

  descriptions that China’s state media rolled out ahe of leer Xi Jinping’s speech Tuesday at annual garing of world leers at United Nations were hardly unexpected.

Xinhua news ncy lauded him as as a “champion of U.N. ethos,” and commentaries laid out his expectations and plans as he prepared for virtual meetings with his colleagues at U.N. General Assembly.

All of propaganda was peppered with assertions of China’s long history as a paragon of world cooperation, and of Xi as a leing voice of reason on international st.

But scattered clues suggest some unease as China looks to man its staggering — and staggeringly complex — military, ecomic and political rise while confronting aggressive containment strategies of world’s current superpower, United States, and its friends and allies.

“Xi Jinping has his work cut out for him at General Assembly,” said Mike Mazza, a China analyst at American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He pointed to tensions with Europe over tre and investment, climate and human rights, in dition to Trump ministration’s more consistently confrontational approach to China.

Xi has failed to lever ill feelings between many European leers and U.S. President Donald Trump, while a potential detente with Japan has stalled. Relations with Australia have sedived over allegations of spying and political manipulation and calls for an investigation into Chinese origins of coronavirus outbreak, Mazza said.

Despite distancing itself from Washington in favor of Beijing in recent years, Philippines recently backed away from a threat to cancel a key military pact with United States, ar setback to Beijing’s push to dominate region.

se troubles are, “by and large, problems of its own making,” Mazza said of China.

As aggressive as Beijing can seem to its neighbors when using its fast-expanding military and powerful ecomy to carve out what it sees as its natural sphere of influence in Asia, this is a fragile moment in what's often seen as China's inevitable rise as a superpower.

Beijing has faced criticism over continuing fallout from coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China late last year. Some say Beijing initially attempted to cover up outbreak before seeking to take vant of its response for public relations ends.

re's outr over China's severe restriction of civil rights in Hong Kong following its imposition on semi-automous city of a sweeping national security law, and over widespre accusations of mass detentions and cultural gecide against Muslims in Xinjiang region. And re's wariness also over China's rising pressure and military threats against Taiwan, self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory.

Meanwhile, China’s moves to claim nearly entire South China Sea have led to friction with United States and with Beijing’s neighbors to south, while a deces-long border dispute with India erupted this year into dely brawling between rivals' troops and firing of shots for first time in deces.

All this has undercut arguments that favor engment with China as a tre war between Beijing, world’s second-biggest ecomy, and Washington, biggest, continues to simmer.

“Xi will find a very mixed international environment when he dresses UNGA. Most of democracies which h previously been very supportive of China’s modernization and development are getting uncomfortable with how Xi is steering rise of China," said Steve Tsang, director of China Institute at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

Xi, in prepared remarks released before a meeting to commemorate 75th U.N. anniversary, took veiled but unmistakable aim at Washington.

“ country has right to dominate global affairs, control destiny of ors, or keep vants in development all to itself,” Xi said. “Even less should one be allowed to do whatever it likes and be hegemon, bully or boss of world. Unilateralism is a de end."

This could just as easily be describing China’s Asian neighbors' feelings at what many see as Beijing's aggressive foreign policy.

“Beijing is incapable of ackwledging that its own actions may have been at root of various problems so, to extent problems are ackwledged, source will always be someone else," said Ralph Cossa, president emeritus of Pacific Forum think tank in Hawaii.

United States and China are w “locked on a collision course that could potentially result in dangerous military conflict,” said Brookings Institution China analyst Cheng Li. An immediate goal of Xi’s will be to “showcase how China has stepped up to plate to call for multilateralism and dress global concerns — from ecomic reopening and pandemic relief to climate change and international peace-keeping — while United States has increasingly left a gaping void in global leership.”

While many in world have mixed feelings about China's rise, ors will see it as a model of COVID-19 recovery and assistance — in “glaring contrast” to United States, said Brantley Womack of University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

Xi will also likely be appreciated at U.N. by countries looking for investment and debt relief under China’s massive Belt and Ro infrastructure initiative and by states such as Russia.

“Just as global financial crisis in 2008 set st for China’s entrance as a global ecomic power, COVID crisis provides a new spotlight for China as a global political power,” Womack said. “In both cases, China’s presence is ackwledged but t necessarily welcome, and China’s diplomatic challenge is to put its best face forward.”

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Foster Klug, AP's news director for Koreas, Japan, Australia and South Pacific, has covered Asia at annual UNGA meetings since 2005. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/apklug