Xi Jinping wants to be loved by the global south

“Very fewChineseBRIBRIBRI ” know about the ruthless side of Zheng He, the Ming-dynasty explorer and eunuch admiral, a scholar once observed to Chaguan, unexpectedly, over tea in a Beijing courtyard house. Pouring fresh cups, the scholar—a member of China’s national-security establishment—warmed to his theme. In China, he explained, Zheng He is seen as a 15th-century “Santa Claus”, leading his fleet to Africa, Arabia and Asia to hand out porcelain and silks on behalf of his mighty, far-off emperor. But in such places as Sri Lanka, Zheng He is remembered as a terror, who punished local rulers for defying his imperial writ and shipped some of them back to China as captives. The Chinese public is “blissfully ignorant” about that history, sighed the scholar, blaming his country’s desire “to be loved”.Much the same desire suffused the Third Belt and Road Forum, held in Beijing on October 17th and 18th. The forum commemorated the first ten years of the Belt and Road Initiative (), a lending and infrastructure scheme that has seen China build dams, bridges, ports and more on four continents. In part, the opening speech by Xi Jinping, the Communist Party chief, was a guide to how the is changing. With China’s growth slowing, and many existing projects mired in debt, there is less emphasis now on billion-dollar loans and on pouring concrete, and more on promoting Chinese standards and technologies, notably in green and digital infrastructure, and on “small yet smart” grassroots projects. In larger part, though, Mr Xi’s speech was a call for China to be loved.