What China can do to ease global storm
Written on October 9, 2008
China, the world’s biggest holder of currency reserves, may yet play an important part in calming a global financial storm from which it is largely sheltered.
Premier Wen Jiabao, who has promised to “join hands” with other nations to tackle the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, says the biggest contribution China can make is to keep the world’s fourth-largest economy humming.
To that end, China has already cut interest rates and is expected to do so again. Yet speculation is swirling that Beijing could also chip in with a vote of confidence by pledging to hold onto its vast dollar assets and even buy more to help fund the massive bailout of the U.S. financial system now under way.
“For the sake of long-term U.S.-China relations, for the sake of China presenting a better image, I think China should stand up and say that it supports the U (pay day loans).S. dollar and is buying Treasuries,” said Tao Xie, an expert on U.S.-China relations at the Beijing Foreign Studies University.
On one level, doing so would be very much in China’s self-interest. Perhaps two-thirds of its $1.81 trillion in foreign exchange reserves is in U.S. Treasury and other bonds, and there was much hand-wringing during the dollar’s slide earlier this year at the hefty losses Beijing was incurring.
“The dollar assets are held hostage. Dumping them is in nobody’s interest,” said Ding Zhijie, a finance professor who advises the government on foreign exchange management.
CHINA’S PREDICAMENT
On the other hand, there is a strong current of opinion in official circles that America has only itself to blame.
Filed in: technology.