Debt-stricken Europe's cry for help has strengthened China's position ahead of a G20 summit, but experts say fears the world's second-largest economy is now calling all the shots are unfounded.

The appeal may have flattered China's image, but it has been greeted with the utmost caution by Beijing, which analysts say will offer assistance only under certain conditions, and almost certainly not the amounts Europe is hoping for.

Europe's financial woes will dominate the G20 summit being held this Thursday and Friday in the French resort town of Cannes, but China's President Hu Jintao is likely only to repeat vague offers of support for the continent.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy drew criticism in France for telephoning Hu to discuss Chinese assistance just hours after EU leaders struck a last-ditch deal on Thursday in Brussels.

As the head of the EU bailout fund travelled to Beijing seeking financial support, French opposition leader Francois Hollande, in pole position to take over from Sarkozy in 2012, said China was now "calling all the shots".

China expert Jean-Pierre Cabestan of Hong Kong Baptist University said Sarkozy's move showed France's desire "to obtain something from the Chinese so as to avoid coming out empty-handed after the French presidency (of the G20)".

"But China is not calling all the shots," Cabestan said. "Europe can still choose not to put itself in an overly dependent position... China is fragile, we must not forget that."

Beijing has so far been non-committal about any investment, playing down hopes of a breakthrough at the G20 meeting.

On Monday Hu, on a state visit to Austria, said only that China was "closely following the economic developments" and was "convinced Europe has the wisdom and the competency to overcome the current difficulties."

China's $3.2 trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves have put it in a position of strength, but it also faces huge domestic challenges.

They include stubbornly high inflation, an economy that is excessively dependent on exports, and 150 million people -- almost half the eurozone population -- still living in poverty.

Many have watched anxiously as China has lectured the United States, calling on the world's largest economy to stop living beyond its means, and ordered debt-ridden Europe to put its house in order.

The comments have fuelled fears of an increasingly dominant China, which has taken over the Pyraeus port in Athens and bought Portuguese and Spanish debt, and is building hospitals in Africa and -- soon, perhaps -- high-speed trains in California.

Valerie Niquet of the Strategic Research Foundation in France said China's belief in the superiority of its economic model over what it sees as an inefficient Western model is one of the reasons it has been hesitant to come to Europe's aid.

"The turning point for China's image was not the (EU) summit, but the 2008 financial crisis and the first G20 at which China managed to promote its own model, which emerged unharmed from the crisis," she said.

Beijing's next move "depends on the image it wants to project" before Cannes, said Niquet, adding that it has an interest in Europe -- China's biggest export market -- overcoming its difficulties.

China is likely to use the upcoming G20 summit to renew its demands that Europe and America end what it calls "protectionist" measures that hurt its exports.

"China is in a position of power so it isn't going to make many concessions, but instead will demand compromise from the Europeans and the West," added Cabestan.

It also wants to call a halt to criticism that its currency, the yuan, is artificially undervalued, and is seeking to play a bigger role in the International Monetary Fund and other international financial organisations.

"The euro debt crisis has actually given (China) the chance to change its relationship with European countries," said Liu Jianxiong, senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"In the field of international economics, no one ever helps others for the sake of it."

Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics in London, did not hide his pessimism.

"Meaningful Chinese support would probably require additional concessions that European governments would find impossible to agree to," he said.