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"ALTHOUGH few governments care to admit it publicly, Western nations are now re-evaluating their China policies.
The exercise may not result in radically different policies, but it could lead to a more nuanced approach towards Beijing in the months to come.
Relations between China and Western countries have seldom experienced so many ups and downs in such a short period of time. They reached a low ebb in March and April, when the Tibet riots led to unruly protests during the Olympic torch relay in London and Paris.But then came the Sichuan earthquake, which revealed another face of China, that of a nation united in bereavement but ruled by a government determined to protect its citizens.
The intensity of the Sichuan rescue effort and the relative openness in reporting the disaster impressed Western public opinion.
Criticism of China stopped just as suddenly as it had begun, and the same Chinese leaders which a CNN journalist only recently dismissed as 'a bunch of goons', are now being regarded as heroes.
'Grandpa Wen' - as Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao who directed much of the rescue effort came to be called - received almost as much adulatory coverage in the West as he did in his country's Internet chat rooms.
The difficulty of managing a relationship which now resembles a roller-coaster was evident this week, as the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, continued his tour of Europe.German Chancellor Angela Merkel - who last year received him with much pomp - was nowhere to be seen.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown arranged a meeting with the Dalai Lama on neutral grounds, rather than at his official residence.
'The Dalai Lama - An Inconvenient Guest' is how a British newspaper summed up the situation. There is a wide consensus in Western capitals that the old policy of publicly shaming China has not worked. But what troubles Western politicians most is the emergence of a new Chinese nationalism to which there seems to be no immediate answer.
Such nationalism was again in evidence this week when, immediately after the three-minute silence for the quake victims, ordinary people in Tiananmen Square erupted in chants of 'Go China, Go', the refrain made popular during the Olympic torch confrontations last month.
For many years, Western analysts dismissed China's surging national pride as just a by-product of official propaganda.
But now there is a growing realisation that this nationalist tendency is both genuine and permanent, and that it has assumed a clear anti-Western bent, which could start influencing China's foreign policy in the years to come.
What is to be done?
'We must persuade the Chinese people that justifiable pride in their country is perfectly compatible with friendship to the West,' mused a French diplomat during recent discussions on this topic.
In theory, that is clearly the best answer. But no Western country knows how to do it.
One practical outcome, however, is already evident: experts on Chinese nationalism are now being recruited by all Western governments. "
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Not an original comment and certainly not a constructive one. If so, what is the next step? As Kay rightly put it, (9 April 2008)
Perhaps Layton is one of those who does not want it to work.
For a helicopter view of the site, click on the object below (sourced from Youtube). (Visit http://www.sievxmemorial.com/ )
