A report this morning has a Shanghai academic advising the PRC to “make the U.S. feel that China is willing to help defray the costs and shoulder the burdens of leadership.”  It is in the larger context of China emerging as a global player.  His advice for the US government is not to treat China’s rise as a threat.

There are interesting echoes of a lot of popular and academic work in the story, and the advice seems to be visible in many of the policies I observe in China.  “China is willing to help defray the costs and shoulder the burdens of leadership.”  What an interesting way of putting it.  I read “defray the costs” as offering to ‘put some of your debt to work solving global problems.’  It will be interesting to be on the lookout for examples of how China helps to “shoulder the burdens” of global leadership.  The example in the story is China sending naval vessels to the Indian Ocean to help combat piracy.

Pirates.  There’s always pirates.

The professor portrays the Chinese citizenry of being very reluctant to be involved in foreign affairs, and he acknowledges that there is a lot of work still to improve the standard of living in rural and western areas.  Still, I like his tone, and the overall tone of the story.  It clarifies and validates some of my own observations.
By the way:  the woman in the photograph that accompanies the story isn’t just ‘riding through Pudong.’  She’s a street food vendor–her kitchen is on the back of her trike.  If I had to guess, she either pan fries potstickers or makes the giant crepes whose name I can never remember, but the making of which you can view here.