The Wall Street Journal
May 16, 2009

The year 2009 will go down in history as a
watershed for the expansion of China's global
clout. The world financial crisis may have dealt
the Chinese economy a blow, but it has hardly
deterred the Chinese Communist Party leadership
from aggressively projecting both hard and soft
power. This has been made possible by not only
China's fast-growing economic and military might
but also the decline of America's international
influence in the wake of the Iraq war and the
meltdown of its financial institutions.

President Hu Jintao, who heads the CCP's Leading
Group on Foreign Affairs, is pushing "quasisuperpower diplomacy" ...