EDINBURGH: The G8 summit this week has illustrated Chinese President Hu Jintao’s balancing act — to edge closer to superpower status while not giving up the traditional role of a developing country.

On the superpower side of the ledger, China’s economy is the seventh-biggest in the world and, having expanded at an average 9 percent pace a year for the last two decades, it is now a crucial factor in driving global growth.

A diplomatic campaign is also winning Beijing friends across Asia, Africa and Latin America, and China’s rapidly modernising armed forces could end up giving it more heft in world affairs.

Hu’s presence representing the largest of five developing nations invited to the Group of Eight meeting in Scotland shows that Beijing is willing to take on more global responsibility.

After Thursday’s bombing attacks in London that killed more than 50 people, Hu stood shoulder to shoulder with G8 members in denouncing terrorism.

Beijing has also played a key role in shaping a more active role for poorer countries in resolving one of this G8 summit’s key issues, global warming.

“We can see more clearly that the developing countries, with China in the lead, are quite prepared to act as equals with the G8 to control climate change,” said John Kirton, director of the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto.

“That’s a fundamental change,” Kirton said.

But China has its share of problems, too.

Tens of millions of Chinese people remain mired in poverty and the country’s Communist rulers are tightening their grip on the media and political debate.

Surging exports of everything from strawberries to shirts are causing alarm in the United States and Europe and sparking calls for tough barriers against Chinese goods.

And there is growing concern among some Western policy makers over Beijing’s cosy ties with countries like Zimbabwe and Sudan, which are drawing criticism for widespread human rights abuses.

Hu’s pre-G8 visit to Russia and Kazakhstan, where concern was voiced about the US presence in Central Asia, showed China was in no rush to join the ranks of liberal democracies.

“They realise that they can be much more powerful in the socialist camp than they can on a level playing field,” said David Wall, associate fellow at the Asian programme at Royal Institute of International Affairs.—Reuters