China's top level boycott of global financial meetings in Japan this week is a sign of things to come, analysts say, as an economically emboldened Beijing shows struggling Western nations it doesn't need to play by their rules.
With global growth slowing, many in the developed world are looking to Beijing to pick up the slack, and the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank seemed a good place to press the point.
But while Tokyo was graced with global financial luminaries such as Timothy Geithner from the US and Wolfgang Schaeuble from Germany, China's finance minister and central bank chief both stayed at home.
Beijing gave no official reason for sending their deputies, with foreign minister Yang Jiechi telling reporters in Beijing only that "the arrangement of the delegation for the meeting was completely appropriate".
Observers say China's stay-away was the result of a spat with Japan over disputed islands, and points to Beijing's calculated willingness to use its financial muscle to make a political point.
"China made this decision by precisely weighing the disadvantages of the no-shows against the advantages of its presence," said Yoshikiyo Shimamine, executive chief economist at Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo.
"It was an example of how China won't always act within the Western-dominated framework and doesn't see any contradiction between such absences and its responsibility as a major power," he said.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde rapped Beijing, saying it would "lose out" by not showing up, while World Bank President Jim Yong Kim urged the two countries to sort out their differences for the good of the global economy.
China - whose predicted growth of 7.8 percent this year is slower than the blistering pace of the last few years, but still leaps and bounds ahead of the West - merely shrugged.
In his report to a key committee that advises the IMF board, deputy central bank governor Yi Gang said the failure by Washington and Tokyo to fix their fiscal problems was the reason the global economy was struggling.
"Uncertainties related to fiscal sustainability weigh on sentiment and confidence, negatively affecting consumption, investment, and hiring decisions," Yi said.