China Looks to APEC Summit to Reinforce Position on World Stage


        Next week's Asia-Pacific summit in Shanghai is the most significant such gathering on Chinese soil since New China was founded in 1949, and Beijing is keen to ensure it boosts the country's image as a key global player.

        For its curtain call on the world stage, China is to host a summit of leaders from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

        Despite the body's traditional economic focus, the agenda next week will be topped by an international response to terrorism following the attacks a month ago on New York and Washington.

        US President George W. Bush will attend the summit despite the terror crisis and his cancelled trip to Beijing after APEC. In going ahead with his trip to the APEC leaders' meeting on October 20 and 21 - the first big international summit since the attacks -- Bush will give a notable boost to Beijing's diplomatic ambitions.

        This effect will be magnified because the US leader is keen to revitalize APEC, created in 1989 as a mainly economic talking-shop, and use the Shanghai summit to outline before assembled grandees his global plan against terror.

        "China hopes the summit will reinforce its image as a major Asian power, one which is moderate and well integrated into the world economy," said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, director of the Hong Kong-based French Centre for Research on Contemporary China.

        The meeting comes as China basks in a series of diplomatic success stories over recent months, such as its imminent entry to the World Trade Organization and Beijing's successful bid for the 2008 Olympic Games.

        Previously, China has hosted some modest gatherings.

        In October 2000 it organized the China-Africa ministerial meeting. This was followed in June by a summit of the Shanghai Co-operation Group, which groups China and Russia with four ex-Soviet Union central Asian countries.

        To guarantee a successful APEC, Chinese authorities have spent months planning the event down to the tiniest detail, hopeful that Shanghai, the country's eastern powerhouse of economic reform, will be a positive shop window for the modern China.

        "It is a way for China to show it is capable, and also to integrate more fully into the international community," said one Western diplomat.

        "China wants to show its skills in managing multilateral relations," said Joseph Cheng, a political analyst at Hong Kong's City University.

        China became an APEC member since 1991.

Annotation:

forum: n. 讨论会，论坛
agenda: n. 议事日程
top: vt. 居于首位
revitalize: v. 使有新的活力
reinforce: v. 加强,增强
ministerial: adj. 部长的,内阁的
multilateral: adj. 多边的