“China? Let that giant slumber, the world will tremble when he awakens!” Napoleon Bonaparte’s interesting comment foresaw the return of a people having one of the world’s longest histories, to the front ranks of today’s world.

From the time of Sun Yat Sen, China progressed slowly for the few years before the Japanese imperialists invaded. Some 15 years of war followed, the Chinese Republic was on its knees. But as one of the “Big Five”, recognition had arrived.

The northern end of the Japanese war front was, from the Chinese side, operated by the communists with considerable help from the Soviet Union. With peace at last, the northern end saw continued activity by the communists. The Kuomintang very much still on its knees following the 15 years of war, was no match for the communists and the Soviet Red Army. The collapse was rapid and total. The retreat to newly restored Taiwan provided the last vestige of the first Chinese Republic.

The new Red China was very much a surrogate of the Soviet Union. The situation was far from peaceful. Friction from both sides was a permanent situation. Tibet, Vietnam, then Laos and Cambodia (Kampuchea) were invaded and possessed or surrogate regimes established.

Then came Gorbachev and the Soviet suzerainty waned.

With the collapse of the Iron Curtain, new vistas opened on the Chinese horizon.

After 11 September the choices, internationally, for the undecided were stark. Red China saw the Gorbachev example, which confirmed that those vistas were real.

The People’s Republic became a propaganda name. China, in any form, has not had much contact with democracy. But the stirrings of international diplomacy and contact were emanating.

As these stirrings were vast at home, so developed a need for whatever was lacking inland.

So the advent of Chinese cheque book diplomacy needed a launching and who better than Hu to do it.

But beware of economic strings. Strings make knots and knots tie up. The Gordian knot has never been unravelled. Will the new Chinese knot be of the same unsolved problem?

I bet against the odds.