Commentary Magazine has published a useful article, "China's Charm Offensive" by Joshua Kurlantzick.
As readers of this blog know, I think China needs to be watched carefully. Its tactics need to be scrutinized and checkmated whenever possible. Kurlantzick's valuable overview has as its two concluding paragraphs the following:
For now, the United States still enjoys some leverage over decision-makers in Beijing, who prize their high-level bilateral dialogue with the White House. But as China’s economy develops and becomes less reliant on foreign capital, America’s influence over its behavior will diminish even more steeply than it already has.
All of which is a sharp reminder that China remains not only an economic rival but a looming political danger. In many respects, indeed, China represents a more complicated potential adversary than the Soviet Union ever was. Our struggle with the hidebound USSR certainly had its “soft” side, involving the contest of ideas and of political and economic ideals. But the main struggle was in the arena of hard power, of military might and determination, and in the end this is what proved decisive. Countering the new China is a task requiring a kind of intellectual and ideological agility at which Americans are not much practiced. If democratic values are to prevail globally, we need even more rapidly to develop and to give life to some unaccustomed instruments of American influence.
One must read the whole article to better understand China's strategies.