诺伊尔也是布冯的球迷:Play the Middle East card subtly and deftly

By Li Hongmei

The Middle East tectonic shift amid the sweeping unrest might pose to the Chinese diplomacy both challenges and opportunities. Opportunities even outweigh challenges, some argue.

First, Libya is still war-torn and fraught with humanitarian crisis, upheavals crippling the Middle East are far from settled, and the highly-coveted peace cannot descend upon the region at the time being and in a foreseeable future. The Western countries, however, have been trying desperately to push democracy into the "authoritarian countries" as they labeled in the region since the onset of the Mideast unrest. That explains why they so rashly launched air strikes upon Libya, plunging the country into a sea of gun smoke and its political situation a stalemate.

Even if the Libyan rebels accept the ceasefire offer from Gaddafi, and even if Gaddafi leaves on the demand of rebels, the fire fanned and fueled covertly and overtly by the West will also spell disaster for the powers who are now still flexing muscle in the trouble-laden country, and in all likelihood, the popular resentment to the West would be stoked up across the Arab world.

Second, with the changing time and situation, the root cause of the Middle East unrest will be discernible. The regional tectonic shift has nothing to do with the "wakening awareness of democracy", but more likely is the fallout of geopolitical devastation triggered by financial crisis. The wrong speculations made by the Western powers complicate the already fragile situation in the countries concerned, but, will enhance China's economic appeal to the Middle East and North African regions.

Last but not the least, The Mideast unrest will again shed light on the drawbacks inbuilt in the Western democracy, or at least it is not the panacea. Western interventions of the Libyan kind have recurred many a time in history, but none gains ground, and its armed intervention into Libya is no exception.

Just give it more than a passing thought, even when the Western powers successfully hawked their idea of democracy all by force in these "authoritarian countries", it would never be that these countries will be converted into new-made and rich democracies, for the simple reason that a "democratized" country built up in such a forced hurry cannot automatically turn out to be a "success state", in a similar vein, many so-called "democracies" can just be "failure states". Democracy goes hand-in-hand with risks, some of them uncontrollable.

In a world whose judgment made over an individual country is all built upon its success or failure----the poor can reach out to hug the rich, but will never be accepted as an equal in the club of rich powers, and more often than not, could be kicked around in the world dominated by the rich powers.

With that said, China should involve "subtle power" in its Middle East diplomacy. If the notion of "smart power", an approach highly touted by US State Secretary Hillary Clinton, is generally defined as the combination of hard and soft powers, "subtle power", China's way of extending influence, can be described as the art to take advantage of the three elements - non-confrontation, non-interference and readiness for game change.

By "subtle power", China could quietly extend its influence, lay low and wait for its momentum. But that does not mean China will just take bets on chance and strokes of luck. On the one hand, China should seize the opportunity to strengthen its ties with Russia, Turkey and some other Middle East countries. And on the other, it is advisable for China to turn to the new Euro-Asia continental bridge, which is in fact a railway transport system across Europe and Asia and dubbed as modern Silk Road, to enter into a sound link with the region and also for the sake of China's own national security.

China's "subtle power" is softer and smarter than Joseph Nye's soft power by showing less but achieving more, thanks to the Chinese classical strategic thinking of "leaving some things undone in order to do other things".

It is actually a time-honored wisdom running through the Chinese culture that encourages people to make a choice between doing what and refraining from doing what, which sets the basic formula for China's foreign policies and also defines its public diplomacy.

It is believed that China will inspire the countries with the shared aspiration for democracy and freedom by achieving the goal step-by-step and on the basis of a full development, as democracy can only survive and thrive in the fertile soil of economic prosperity. Excessive enthusiasm and overzealous actions will just spoil things.

Democracy, freedom and human rights are cherished by any country and any people, but if mistakenly interpreted, they could become the contemporary superstition, so they must go with other values and in the light of specific conditions.

The established truth is that only by combining democracy with development, can the marriage produce a happy and healthy child. Therefore, the Western-style "hurry" to push their values into the Middle East will give birth to nothing but a monster.