The killings of Chinese citizens by Islamic militants in Syria and Mali place President Xi Jinping in a quandary: How can Beijing respond effectively without betraying its strict stance against intervention? The dilemma underscores the tension between China's desire to be seen as a leading global power and its desire to maintain its own independent foreign policy while shunning the U.S.-led Western liberal democratic political agenda. Such attitudes dictate that, despite pressure on the government to respond to recent incidents, Beijing is unlikely to do so "in a meaningful way,"...