"China is the victim. It'll be politically incorrect to criticise China (now)," said Lin Chong-Pin, a veteran China watcher and president of the Foundation on International and Cross-Strait Studies, a Taiwan think-tank.

For China, 2008 was supposed to mark its emergence as a world power, with the Beijing-hosted Olympic Games in August being the jewel in the nation's development crown.

But a crackdown on Tibetan protests, natural disasters and scandals over shoddily made exports over the last year have instead highlighted the problems that the Communist Party faces governing a vast country of over 1.3 billion people.

A cold snap ahead of the annual Lumar New Year holiday in February kept millions of people from travelling to visit their families, cutting off power to remote areas and dealing a $15.4 billion blow to the economy.

The suppression of protests by Tibetans in March was seen as a major public relations disaster for the government. The global relay of the torch that will light the Olympic flame in August was supposed to make China proud, but instead the parade was dogged in city after city by protests over its Tibet policy.

Western governments in particular were vocal in their criticism of Beijing, prompting outrage among ordinary Chinese and even boycotts or protests at businesses with foreign interests across the country.

But since Monday's quake, condolences and offers of aid have poured in from the United States, Japan and Europe, changing sentiment on both sides.

"It's an opportunity to ease Chinese aversion for Western countries," said Niu Jun, a professor of international relations at Peking University.

The government has also been quick to seize opportunity from crisis with state television showing thousands of rescue workers, soldiers and countless citizens pulling survivors from collapsed buildings and bringing aid to the injured and bereaved.

Unlike in previous disasters, China appears to have come clean on the scale of the Sichuan earthquake, admitting that the final death toll is likely to be in the tens of thousands.

Add to that the ubiquitous image of Premier Wen Jiabao comforting victims and spurring on rescuers, and the Chinese government can probably be confident of winning hearts and minds even though millions are right now feeling the pinch of inflation near a 12-year high.

China's handling of its disaster contrasts sharply with the way Myanmar's junta has responded to its cyclone crisis. The generals have attached stringent conditions to offers of aid and they are scrambling to draw a veil of secrecy over the disaster, which is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people.