COURTESY OF DAVID GOSSET

Most of the media reports will not present a thorough and balanced analysis of the situation in Xinjiang, a vast region whose stability and development are not only strategic for the People's Republic of China but are also key elements of Central Asia's fragile equilibrium. Therefore, 16 months after the violence in Tibet, Urumqi's tragic clashes may affect China's image in the West. With the backdrop of a global financial and economic crisis that is not conducive to serenity, the understanding gap between Beijing and the West is widening. It is urgent to reverse this trend.

On the road toward comprehension and cooperation stands a serious obstacle: An invisible wall of mistrust, ignorance and fear is separating the West and China. Without any objective physical location, less spectacular than the "Iron Curtain" or the "Berlin Wall," more difficult to define also, it is an intangible construct of the individual and collective psyche that has to come down.

For a long period of time, China's Great Wall has been the symbol of an isolated and declining empire whose elites were incapable of adjusting changes. Today, the Great Invisible Wall could refer to the West's inability to fully appreciate the extent of China's transformation and how it is rearranging the 21st century distribution of power. For the analyst, the discrepancy between the paucity of Western responsiveness to the new historical conditions and the magnitude of the shift induced by China's return to centrality is a source of perplexity.

In one generation, 500 million Chinese citizens have been lifted out of poverty and by 2020, moderate prosperity will characterize a more harmonious Chinese society. Despite China's social, economic, political and geopolitical challenges proportionate to its size and diversity, one can not deny the overall progress accomplished by one fifth of mankind over three decades.

After 30 years of revolution under Mao Zedong, and 30 years of evolution (reform and opening-up) inspired by Deng Xiaoping, it has become impossible to conceive of a world order without including Beijing as a stakeholder or as a co-architect. By leaving Italy earlier than scheduled to coordinate the Central Government's response to Xinjiang's tensions, Chinese President Hu Jintao downgraded the G8 summit, although technically China is not a member of the group. To a certain extent, China's difficulties are the world's problems, and vice versa.

Objectively, one should acknowledge Beijing's achievements, welcome a reliable partner and rejoice to expect a promising future. However, one often suspects China's intentions, succumbs to sarcastic China-bashing and even conceives maneuvers to contain China's reemergence.

Some data indicate that China's image in the West is deteriorating. In a 2006 survey realized by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 34 percent of Americans considered China as a minor threat and 47 percent as a major threat. In the 2008 Pew Global Attitudes Project, 72 percent of French and 68 percent of Germans had an unfavorable opinion about China. Just before the Beijing Olympics, the same institute asked the Chinese people whether they were satisfied with their country's evolution: 86 percent of the Chinese said yes, while it was 48 percent in 2002. The contrast between the two dynamics is striking.

Confronting the West's incapacity to give China the credit it deserves and also what is perceived as unfair treatment and, in some instances, as hostile behaviors, some segments of Chinese society are developing anti-Western sentiments. The fenqing, or angry youth, denounce various forms of Western Sinophobia and formulate, for example in Unhappy China, a book published in March, an extreme and dangerous nationalism.

If nothing is done, there is a risk of entering a vicious circle of incomprehension and mutual exclusion. It is by fighting prejudices, by looking at the facts, by intensifying communication and, above all, by tirelessly nourishing the vision of a concrete universalism that one can hope to gradually bridge the gap and defeat the invisible wall. The French statesman Léon Blum rightly said in his essay For All Mankind, "When a man gets perplexed and discouraged, he has just to think about humanity."