Carol Giacomo, a member of The New York Times‘ editorial board, and David Andelman, editor of the World Policy Journal and former foreign correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News, join Martin Savidge for our weekly roundtable.

For more on the Obama and the World series click here.

Wednesday marks the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The aim was to defeat the Taliban and deny al Qaeda a home base after the September 11 attacks. But today, the Taliban are resurgent, the war has become increasingly deadly for America and its allies, and Osama bin Laden remains a free man. The Afghanistan conflict has gone on longer than anyone imagined it would.

For his part, President Obama says he will not substantially reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan, nor change the mission. But it remains to be seen if he will expand the the American military presence beyond the 68,000 troops already committed as the war becomes increasingly unpopular.

After eight years of war in Afghanistan, are the United States and the world safer from terrorism?

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“You often hear this complaint — or at least I have for the last 15 years that I have been working in international news — that, well, most Americans don’t care about international news,” she said. “But everybody who I’ve ever spoken to in my line of work has been very grateful that these kinds of news programs like ‘Worldfocus’ exist.”

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A fireworks display capped off the spectacle that featured a huge display of military might and a commitment to socialism and modernization by China’s president, who appeared in a parade.

China’s display on this national holiday was precisely choreographed — a projection of the power that China has, and the global power that it has become.

Melissa Chan of Worldfocus partner Al Jazeera English was in Beijing on this extraordinary day.

Students sing in honor of the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

What better way to celebrate a birthday than to take to the world stage? Last week, Hu Jintao became the first Chinese president to address the U.N. General Assembly, a privilege seemingly reserved for the president of the United States and colorful despots such as Moammar Kadafi. The People’s Republic, which turns 60 on Thursday, has evolved from tin-pot polity to powerhouse. And among the spectacular transformations China has undergone, its dramatic turnabout in how it relates to the world stands out.

China began as a pariah state, rejected by and immensely hostile toward the world community. Marxism shaped its view of international organizations as the “instruments of capitalist imperialism and hegemonism,” and for decades China had little to do with them.

Fast-forward to last week, when Hu proclaimed the “important role” of the United Nations and entreated the international community to “continue our joint endeavor to build a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity.”

Today, China has joined every major international organization to which it is eligible and signed more than 300 international treaties. It has even had a hand in creating new regional groups. “They are acting like the new us,” a U.S. official told me. They prepare, send huge delegations to summits and carefully cultivate diplomatic capital.

This is not just lip service. In many cases, China’s engagement with global entities such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund has prompted Beijing to bring its conduct in line with international standards.

The next step, though, is a critical one. Now that China is fully engaged and has earned considerable clout, what will it do? Will it increasingly abide by and support international standards? Could it eventually become a genuine leader for the global common good, with the risk and sacrifice that often entails?

Beijing sends mixed signals. On the hopeful side, we see China’s leadership on the North Korean nuclear issue — hosting many rounds of the six-party talks, producing draft agreements and now, for the first time, enforcing U.N. sanctions against its nominal ally. And although it once objected to the whole idea, China now has 2,000 of its citizens in U.N. peacekeeping operations.

China has also done an about-face since the 2003 SARS debacle, when it covered up the outbreak and deceived international health officials. This time, it is sponsoring international conferences on swine flu and vaccinating millions of its people. In the economic realm, the stimulus package Beijing enacted in response to the global meltdown was huge — exactly the scale that the IMF and the U.S. recommended.

Of course, every nation acts in its own interests, but in all these cases, China also promotes the broader safety and prosperity of the world.

However, other areas show the zero-sum side of China’s international engagement. On climate change, China is one of the big bumps in the road on the way to a binding treaty at the Copenhagen summit in December. Thankfully — as it is now the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide — Beijing is going gangbusters on efficiency standards and renewables. But unless those domestic ambitions can be turned into specific and verifiable international commitments, there will be no deal, and the world will continue toward climate calamity.

There are other concerns. Chinese companies are signing billion-dollar energy contracts with Iran just as the international community is trying to ratchet up the pressure on the Tehran regime over its nuclear ambitions. And Beijing is still holding out against tougher sanctions as the U.S., France, Britain and even Russia push forward.

Also, China’s human rights conduct does not live up to international standards, and, often to ensure access to natural resources, it supports and shelters dictators who abuse their people. Its concerted efforts at industrial espionage undermine international law, and its no-strings-attached development assistance, while doing some good, is setting back anti-corruption efforts.

The U.S. does not have the power to make China a global do-gooder, but it has some cards to play. Administration officials have begun to frame the bilateral relationship in terms of global challenges, so that the health of the U.S.-China relationship, which Beijing cares deeply about, is tied to progress on major threats such as climate change and Iran. The U.S. is also reengaging with multilateral organizations, which increases Washington’s leverage when dealing with Beijing.

One of the most effective ways for Washington to shape China’s evolution is to remove Beijing’s excuses for inaction by leading ourselves — passing strong climate change legislation, ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, making good on President Obama’s disarmament pledges and increasing efforts to alleviate extreme poverty around the globe.

U.S. exceptionalism has often provided political cover to China. In his own speech to the United Nations last week, Obama acknowledged that the United States hasn’t always been a fully responsible superpower, and he pledged to do better.

The Chinese say it is unfair to expect a still-developing China to shoulder so much international responsibility. But the forces of globalization that made China the major power it is today are the same ones breeding threats that only nations acting in concert can address.

China has come a very long way in two generations. Let’s hope that the next 60 years see China’s growth into a model citizen and stalwart supporter of the international system — for its own sake, and for ours.

- Nina Hachigian

Photo courtesy of Flickr user kevsunblush under a Creative Commons license.

Umbrellas block the view of Tiananmen Square on the 20th anniversary of a bloody crackdown there.

On June 4, two decades ago, the Chinese government ordered its soldiers to open fire on demonstrators calling for democracy in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

On Thursday, the anniversary of that bloody day in 1989, there were no activists or student protesters to be seen — only members of the People’s Army. Security was kept tight and foreign journalists were not granted permission for entrance to the square.

Blogger “Hugh” at ”Zhongnanhai” is a journalist who has been living and working in China since 2004. He visits Tiananmen Square on the anniversary and describes the heavy security:

THE SQUARE ON JUNE 4 - 20 YEARS LATER

I hadn’t planned to mark this June 4th in Beijing in any particular way. But work ended early, and my subway trip home takes me directly under Tiananmen Square. At a time when the younger generation in China has little or no idea what happened in the capital 20 years ago, and the older generations just want to forget about it, I decided a stop at the infamous landmark was in order.

As I ascended from Tiananmen West station, the first thing I expected to see was an immense amount of security — and I wasn’t disappointed. Amid the thinner-than-usual crowds were the usual contingent of local police and slow marching PLA soldiers. On any given day in Tiananmen, you will also see a healthy smattering of plain clothes security personnel. Today there were legions of them. Aside from the standard issue dress shirt and slacks, they weren’t even trying to blend in. If the rather large CPC pins they were each wearing wasn’t a give away, then the rather girlish summer umbrellas each of them was carrying certainly was. Altogether, the number of security personnel easily matched the number of tourists. As I strolled eastward, I glanced back to see if I was being followed. I don’t think I was. It wouldn’t have mattered though, since each plain clothes cop was stationed about ten feet away from the next one. Their penetrating, suspicious-of-anything eyes followed every step I took.

Just past the looming portrait of Mao, I stopped for a moment and surveyed the area to the south. I remembered that famous photo of the man in front of a line of tanks, taken just meters away from where I was standing.

[...]As I approached the entrance to Tiananmen East station, the only public display of grief I saw was a young lady crouched on the sidewalk next to a lamppost. She had her face cupped in her hand, but instead of remembering the hundreds — possibly thousands — of students and workers who were indiscriminately gunned down here 20 years ago, I suspect she was simply trying to cope with a mild case of heatstroke.

Twenty years after an event here that shook the world, everything at Tiananmen Square seems pretty quiet and under control. Just the way the government wants it.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user flippy whale under a Creative Commons license.

In 1989, China’s government attempted to block reports of its brutal crackdown on the demonstrators. Now, China is once again shutting off access and trying to downplay signs of new civil disobedience.

The Tiananmen Square protests were led largely by young students, and one of their leaders was Shen Tong. He fled his homeland six days after government troops opened fire on the protestors on June 4, 1989 and is now a businessman in New York.

Shen Tong joins Martin Savidge for a look back at the pro-democracy protests and how they have and have not changed China.