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SYDNEY - The dragon has flexed its muscles. Chinese President Hu Jintao came to the Apec summit with a mission, and left with the world in no doubt that Beijing was a great power.
In a fortnight Hu will preside over the five-yearly Communist Party congress, on which
his authority is expected to be stamped through changes in the nation's leadership and a new package of reforms.
Apec's summit demonstrated clearly that the rest of the world will feel their impact.
China put its weight behind the United Nations' climate change programme and the bid by the United States and Australia to seek measures outside the Kyoto round was rolled.
At the same time, Hu made it clear that developing countries will not countenance climate change targets that damage or inhibit their growth. He also threw China's weight behind the increasingly desperate scramble to breathe life back into the Doha round of World Trade Organisation negotiations.
He is steering China with a compass fixed to a new polarity.
It was reflected in one-on-one talks with Prime Minister Helen Clark, during which Hu indicated Beijing backed the present free trade negotiations with Wellington at the highest level and, with one more round to go, should sign the pact by next April's deadline.
With Prime Minister John Howard, he signed a new security dialogue, agreed to work more closely on the environment and signed a series of agreements on energy, resources and trade, including a A$35 billion ($41.9 billion) natural gas contract.
And Hu's language would fit easily into the manifestos of Western conservatives. "Problems such as growing imbalances in the world economy, rising trade protectionism, mounting pressure on energy resources and the increasingly acute issue of climate change pose challenges to all countries and regions," he told the Apec business summit.
China's environment remains deeply polluted, but in the past five years measures including economic restructuring and improved energy efficiency have prevented more than 8500 million tonnes of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere.
It intends, by 2010, to cut energy use by 20 per cent, increase the share of renewable energy to 10 per cent of national primary output and to boost forest cover by 20 per cent.
With example tied to muscle, Beijing now carries a very large stick.
