China's efforts to win trust remain Sisyphean

IN his New Year address, President Xi Jinping spoke proudly of China's achievements in 2018, including the launch of the Chang'e-4 lunar probe, which successfully landed on the far side of the moon, a feat that is expected to provide scientific information that might shed light on the origin of the universe.

China is to be congratulated on this and other achievements, which should over time add to its soft power. But it also needs to change the way that it behaves - both towards its own people and to the outside world - if it wants to be accepted as a regional or global leader.

Part of the problem is secrecy. Many Chinese remember that it was the US embassy that in 2008 started to track and release air quality data, only to be told by Beijing not to share the data with the Chinese people. China had no choice but to fight pollution itself.