News stories by Analysis by Antoaneta Becker

China’s response to calls from the West to join an oil embargo penalising Iran for its nuclear programme so far has been to choose the middle course typical of its non-interfering foreign policy of the last 30 years — denouncing sanctions on one hand yet working to protect its national interests on many fronts.

For much of last year world politicians and market watchers dreamed of China coming to the rescue of a stumbling global economy while Beijing mandarins sat on the fence fretting about high inflation and social instability inside their country. As China prepares to greet the Year of the Dragon later this month, many predict more gloom and doom, and some are expecting that the battle to stave off recession will be fought closer to home.

If Chinese detractors of liberal democracy and unbridled market development ever needed more fodder for their attacks on the West, then last week's Greek farce provided plenty. But behind the headlines announcing 'the collapse of Europe' there is little sense of ideological triumph. Instead Beijing is busy drawing up contingency pans for the break up of the eurozone and absorbing the lessons of welfare state excesses.

For a populist premier like China’s Wen Jiabao, the irony of landing in a European capital celebrating the art of one of the Chinese communist party’s most outspoken critics who had been imprisoned by Beijing for months was never lost.

The Chinese Communist Party likes claiming credit for the success of the country’s model of steady rule and economic prosperity. But as it prepares to celebrate its 90th birthday on Jul. 1, the party has seen the attractive China brand lose appeal with once enthusiastic followers abroad and being outright rejected by violent protests at home.

The Chinese boycott of the Nobel Peace Prize, which this year was awarded to a jailed Chinese dissident, has evoked unflattering associations with brutal regimes that imprisoned political opponents and refused to acknowledge their popular sway.

The western world sees China erecting trade walls. But China sees a throwback to an era of plundering and forceful western politics that followed the Opium wars of the 19th century and precipitated the collapse of the Chinese empire.

When China's new ambassador to Bulgaria assumed his post in mid-September he made headlines reminding the nation of a fact that may have been intentionally neglected by Bulgarian governments in the post-communist years of reform. Bulgaria was only the second country after the former Soviet Union to recognise the People's Republic in 1949, and that historical legacy was destined to endure.

China’s imperious behaviour in recent territorial spats with its edgy neighbours has touched a raw nerve. Anxiety about its intentions and the future outlook loom large as leaders of the 16-nation East Asia Summit gather this weekend in Hanoi to discuss regional matters.

China's display of largesse towards debt-ridden European nations has divided observers, inviting comparisons on one side to a Chinese Marshall plan for Europe, and to a Chinese communist takeover of the continent on the other.