This year proved a tipping point for China’s approach to the world. The confluence of Europe’s debt crisis and America’s contracting defence budget have created rising expectations that China will shoulder ever more great power burdens for international stability. No longer can it keep a low profile in international strategic and economic affairs. Could it join America as a world policeman sooner than expected?

Beijing’s push outwards has happened faster than its most ambitious leaders could have expected. But as it extends its reach to diversify investments, protect oil interests, patrol shipping lanes and support overseas workers, it risks unexpected ripostes. Every superpower eventually faces blowback.

A honeymoon decade of frictionless business expansion worldwide is over. Already China is embroiled in skirmishes and politicking on new frontiers. After the murder of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong river in October, China dispatched armed patrols into Burma, Laos and Thailand, the unruly states forming the notorious Golden Triangle. China is now the Mekong’s de facto river cop. To predict the outcome of this, consider how Chinese investments were a contested issue in the recent election campaign in Zambia. Even in China-friendly Burma, a giant dam project orchestrated by a Chinese company was just shelved due to local popular opposition.