China Breaks Out.(China's new role in international economy)

Scheduled for just 20 minutes, the meeting went on for two hours. U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans had traveled to China to meet with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and press a stern message: Beijing's "unfair" trade practices and refusal to revalue its currency were "undercutting American workers." Wen heard him out during the November sit-down but, according to a Chinese diplomat familiar with the meeting, had a retort at the ready. Surely his American visitor realized that most of China's foreign-exchange reserves were in U.S. Treasury bonds. If China acted precipitously in revaluing its currency, it might be compelled to sell those bonds, which could create instant problems for U.S. financial markets. Wen reportedly told Evans: "China's a very big economy moving ahead very, very fast. If it stumbles and falls, it could make others fall, too."

Not long ago few Chinese leaders would have been comfortable riffing on trade surpluses and T-bonds. But as Wen kicks off an official visit to the United States this week, he represents a new government team, a new sophistication in Beijing--and, in some ways, a new China. Almost as soon as Wen and his boss, President Hu Jintao, took over China's top government jobs in March, they launched an international charm offensive. Globe-trotting from Bali to St. Petersburg, the relatively young duo--each is 61--have promoted a diplomatic style that is eliciting adjectives like "nimble," "subtle" and "nuanced"--words virtually never before used to describe China on the world stage. At a moment when the United States is perceived to have become more unilateralist, China has ironically shown a new appreciation for multilateral agenda-setting--brokering the six-party talks on North Korea, proposing a free-trade agreement with ASEAN and becoming a more active member of the U.N. Security Council. "They feel less vulnerable internationally than did their predecessors," says Boston College China scholar Robert Ross. "After 20 years of hearing people talk about the rise of China, they're witnessing it happening. It gives them a degree of confidence their predecessors didn't have."

In the old days, Beijing was hot on rhetoric but cool toward everything else. Chinese diplomacy was marked more by its passivity and ideological rigor than any true inventiveness. While occasionally lambasting the United States for its "hegemonic" strategy to "contain" China, Beijing over the past 20 years focused on domestic economic concerns. To the degree China took a leadership role, it was usually as a rallying point for some of the weakest countries in the developing world. That came naturally for a diplomatic corps that practiced chip- on-your-shoulder diplomacy more in touch with the humiliations of a century ago than the challenges of the day. "For decades China's power largely resulted from the fact that they could be obstructionist across a whole range of issues," says Evan Medeiros, a Sinologist at the Rand Corp. in Washington, D.C.

No longer. With the turn of the millennium, especially after 9/11, Beijing has been on a roll, joining the World Trade Organization, winning its bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games, even catapulting an astronaut into space. On the diplomatic front this year alone, Chinese officials have organized dozens of high-level international trips, issued a flurry of white papers and proposed deeper cooperation among Asian militaries. After the failure of the trade talks in Cancun, WTO chief Supachai Panitchpakdi suggested that China could be the key player in saving the current round of negotiations. And although it remains a work in progress, Beijing's willingness to strong-arm Pyongyang to the negotiating table has already been roundly praised and is seen by one leading Chinese scholar as an "unprecedented breakthrough for Chinese diplomacy."

How will the Comrade of the East get along with the Cowboy of the West? Wen Jiabao's 100-watt smile will go down well with some Americans. But his trip won't exactly be a cakewalk. "This visit will test the extent to which both sides can compartmentalize concerns over trade or ...