Peking macht sich mit seiner Außenpolitik wieder weniger Freunde, glaubt die LA Times: China's foreign policy as recently as last year was on a roll, earning kudos for helping to fight global terrorism and restrain North Korea's nuclear ambitions. But a look around the neighborhood now finds Beijing's relations with Washington, Tokyo, Seoul, Pyongyang, Taipei, Singapore and Moscow taking a turn for the worse. Although most of the frictions are manageable, they come as the Asian giant is increasingly dependent on the outside world for resources, capital and goodwill to fuel its economy and stem domestic instability. The problems raise questions about China's new leadership, analysts say. "China isn't showing imagination. It's stuck in old traditions in dealing with foreign relations," said Zhu Feng, an international relations expert at Peking University. "That's probably one of the leading reasons there's been such turbulence." Sino-U.S. relations, although still relatively smooth, have been hurt in recent months by growing tension across the Taiwan Strait and Washington's plan to sell advanced weapons worth up to $18 billion to Taipei. Beijing, which considers Taiwan a renegade province, charges that the U.S. tacitly supports the island's independence. China-Japan relations, always prickly, have been hurt by symbolic and substantive issues, including Chinese spectators' ugly display of nationalism at a soccer game between the two nations' teams in August. Adding to the tensions are Beijing's recent threat to block any move to have Japan become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and ongoing differences over history, school textbooks and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a shrine where Japanese war criminals are interred with other soldiers. Mit Deutschland scheint es dagegen so gut wie keine Probleme zu geben.