connected with the Chinese world, but certainly not unilaterally impose their views on China. Beijing and the West, as co-architects of the world order, have to learn to make joint decisions. Through dialogue and negotiation, they can reach this goal.

Tibet and Taiwan

In March, riots in Tibet have legitimately caused concern. Everything has to be done to avoid the repetition of such tragic events. A constructive way to help Tibet's modernization would be for the Western companies to invest in the autonomous region, (the corporate social responsibility should not only be the object of academic discussions in business schools,) and for Western institutions to conceive, in coordination with the Chinese Government, genuine cooperation projects (modest but concrete actions are more effective than grandiloquent speeches and spectacular communication). But, Chinese and Western efforts to bring development in Tibet will have to be articulated with the adaptation of a Buddhist society to the changes induced by socioeconomic modernization.

Media have, among other things, the responsibility to introduce China's transformation to the Western world. Journalists have to be open to the Chinese world's significant developments. Often, they fail to do that. The relatively limited coverage of the new dynamics between China's Central Government and Taipei is a good illustration of this incomplete reporting. On March 22, Ma Ying-Jeou was elected "president" of Taiwan. A rapprochement between Beijing and Taipei followed. On April 12, Chinese President Hu Jintao met Taiwan's "Vice President-elect" Vincent Siew in Boao on Hainan Island. On April 29, Lien Chan, the Kuomintang's Honorary Chairman, met with Hu in Beijing. These encounters pave the way for the intensification of the economic links between China's mainland and Taiwan and boost regional dynamism. Western audiences deserve to be adequately informed on these important changes.

The current French administration did choose to lead the protest against what it framed as China's "crackdown" in Tibet. In March, Bernard Kouchner, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared that the EU should consider the idea of boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. It was a mistake. In general, this French Government did not follow what Hubert Vedrine, former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, recommended in his Report for the French President on France and Globalization in September 2007. "More modesty on this point [human rights] would more conform to the reality and would not weaken our concrete efforts to support human rights." In July, Paris will take over the rotating presidency of the EU. This presidency has to serve the vision of a positive triangulation between Brussels, Washington and Beijing. In November 2007, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, "My ambition is to make 2008 a great Euro-Chinese year." This is a laudable project that has to be implemented.

Sino-Western synergy vital

China will, of course, greatly determine the quality of the Sino-Western relationship. Under the current circumstances, the Chinese society should remember that tranquil confidence is a very effective tool to neutralize all kinds of provocative agitations. The Chinese people also have to know that there are large segments of the West, which welcome China's renaissance and comprehend its contribution to the world.

In August, not only Beijing but also Qingdao, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang, Qinhuangdao and Hong Kong will organize one of the most successful Summer Games ever. They will manage to do so not because the Chinese people will be forced to stage a propagandistic show, but because they will take great pride and pleasure to contribute to the success of a global event. Those who are still calling for the boycott of a part, or even the totality of such an event, are only demonstrating their ignorance or shortsightedness.

The Games of the 29th Olympiad, and in two years, the Shanghai World Expo, are two events that illustrate a more fundamental reality: China's renaissance offers the world as much as the world brings to China. Sterile and bitter confrontation will not stop creative Sino-Western synergy.

The author is director of the Academia Sinica Europaea at China Europe International Business School, Shanghai, and founder of the Euro-China Forum. The opinions expressed in this article represent neither those of the Academia Sinica Europaea nor the Euro-China Forum