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Trump’s election has China’s former critics looking to it to defend globalization — willingly or not

By Jonathan Kaiman and Jessica Meyers, Los Angeles Times
Published: November 27, 2016, 8:54pm

BEIJING — Just months ago, world leaders were worried about the threat posed by an increasingly assertive China.

The Chinese government oversaw the biggest crackdown on dissent in nearly three decades. The Chinese built, and then militarized, islands in disputed waters of the South China Sea. They tightened controls over the internet, freezing out foreign firms while allowing their domestic competitors to prosper. Then the United States elected Donald Trump as president.

Now some of those same countries are looking to Beijing to defend international cooperation on matters as diverse as trade and climate change, propelling China to new heights on the world stage. And yet China doesn’t sound particularly enthused about its elevation.

The Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, last week called it “beyond imagination to think that China could replace the U.S. to lead the world.”

The 21st Century Business Herald, China’s leading business newspaper, referred to the country as “a promoter, a reformer, not a revolutionary.”

China “wants to be a force of stability,” said Min Ye, an associate professor at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. “But it’s not into changing the global order. It’s a big responsibility . China still sees itself as a growing power.”

China, whose leaders’ greatest concern is domestic stability, is also battling a slowing economy and income inequality at home.

“Factor one is whether China has the capacity to be leader, and factor two is whether China has the willingness to be leader,” said Chen Dingding, professor of international relations at Jinan University in Guangzhou. “If the U.S. — No. 1 power — not interested in global leadership, why should China be?

The election of a U.S. president who takes an inward and sometimes contradictory approach to foreign policy has already given China major geopolitical victories, analysts say.

The president-elect’s promise to block President Barack Obama’s signature trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership has drawn some countries closer to China’s economic orbit.

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