Opinion

China draws world's attention ahead of G20 summit

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-06-25 16:52

BEIJING - Since the first Group of 20 (G20) Summit in November 2008, the attention China has been getting has shifted from that of a turn-round-to, to that of a look-up-to, analysts said.

Two years ago, almost all developed economies turned round to look at what actions China took to cope with the financial crisis. Now in the midst of a uneven global recovery, China has become one being looked up to by developing and developed economies for its leading if not exemplary roles.

As the curtain is about to rise at the upcoming fourth G20 summit in Toronto, Canada, China and the crucial roles she is playing once again draws the world's attention.

A STEADY STABILIZER IN GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

Prior to the first G20 summit, China has since been managing to sustain a rather fast growth rate while taking an active part in orchestrating with other economies, developed and developing alike, to push for a global recovery through reformed and renewed financial and economic mechanisms.

Despite the fact it is still a developing country itself, China alone has contributed toward half of the global GNP growth in the time of crises.

Amidst downslides of the United States, eurozone and Japan, China not only curbed the domino ripple in the country with a bolder-than-predicted stimulus package but also succeeded in effecting a lead in the recovery.

It is its early lead off the blocks that is now being more than looked at by others.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, soon to host the fourth G20 Summit, has described what China has done as a contribution to the global recovery and a great assistance to the international community in its crisis management.

Takashi Sekiyama, a senior researcher from Japan's Meiji University and with the Tokyo Consortium, has rated China's contribution to the global economic development during this hard period as the "biggest."

AN ACTIVE CONTRIBUTOR TOWARD NEW ECONOMIC FORMAT

Of the G20 member economies, China has been one and only that has not only been actively coping with the crises, but actively appealing from the very beginning to all for joining it in mulling in retrospect about the cause and effect of the financial and economic crises.

China led off with calling for not only self-examining but for reforming the governance mechanisms of the global economy as well.

The country believes that potential and feasible solutions to the ongoing and arising crises lie in the reforms of the existing global economic and financial systems and in the formation of a new world economic mechanism.

The credit crunch that set off the financial and economic meltdown worldwide has proved beyond reasonable doubt that a very big problem has arisen from within the financial and economic system of the developed economic entities which have been dominating the world economic development.

China has also pointed out that the financial crisis has not at all ebbed away and that with the sovereign debt crisis already miring Greece down, the lack of assessment, management and early-warning deployment could well fan out the debt crisis into other eurozone countries and even more.

At the coming G20 Summit, China is expected to further its appeal to peer G20 members for maintaining strengthened financial administration, for sustaining the liquidity of financial institutions, for beefing up the credit grading surveillance, and for working out efficient management mechanisms to reduce reliance on outside evaluation and judgment.

French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde has attached special significance to cooperating with China in such key aspect as re-assessing and re-evaluating the management of global economy, the fluctuation of global labor market and the surveillance of market balance.

A DECISIVE CALLER FOR PROGRESS THROUGH SOLVING PROBLEMS

Ever since Day One of the ongoing crises, China and Germany have borne the brunt of criticisms that the off-balance development of the global economy was caused by their huge trade surpluses which inflicted colossal trade deficits upon the United States.

This claim can easily be brushed aside as lop-sided and narrow-minded, in that factors contributing toward the near meltdown of the global financial and economic systems had also included, just to mention a telltale few, the off-balance of savings and spendings, the off-balance of wealth distribution and re-distribution, the off-balance of resource ownership and consumption, and the off-balance of the international monetary system as a whole as against the contributing and counting currencies.

In essence, according to architects of the Chinese economic development, the imbalance between the North and the South has been the key factor in triggering the ongoing financial and economic crises.

China is in the belief that only through effective and efficient development of the developing countries can the global economy anticipate a genuinely firm recovery which can be expected to maintain part and parcel for sustainable growth.

China is turning its own attention, too.

It is not only looking forward to the G20 Summit for more focused attention from peer G20 members on the issue of reforming the global financial and economic mechanisms, but also looking toward the scheduled United Nations MDGs conference in September for more political back-up.

For the upcoming G20 Summit, China has taken as its defining content the reformation of the international financial and economic formats, by which China expects the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to give more says to developing and emerging economies.

Sergei Drobyshevsky, head of currency policy studies under the Russian Institute for the Economy in Transition, has predicted that China is set to play a bigger role in the G20 framework thanks to the country's existing and projected growths in years to come.

Modesty is not only a natural trait of the Chinese who just resort to it from time to time to start afresh in pursuit of set targets for development.

Yuan Peng, director of the American Studies at the China Institutes of  Contemporary International Relations, has reminded his countrymen that China should play an active role in the G20, but its role-playing should match up its national strength of a developing country.

The warning has come at a time when some from the West are hooplaing a proposition of "China responsibility."