If a risk is thrust upon you terrorism was a good example you'll overplay it because you don't feel like it's in your control.

And yet WHO officials continue to defend their actions. In a January 14 conference call with reporters, Keiji Fukuda, the special adviser to the WHO s director general for pandemic flu, argued that the organization did not overplay the dangers but prepared for the worst and hoped for the best.

Some in the West including veteran China watcher David Shambaugh remain convinced that this kind of collaborative accommodation will not be necessary, because failures of economic and political management will bring about China s implosion. Rudd argues that they are wrong, and that Xi will neither overplay his authoritarian hand nor under deliver on growth.