Self-improvement important

Unless China can exploit its innovation and talent, its foreign assets will remain at the mercy of the rise and fall of US economy

Standard & Poor's downgrading of the US credit rating from AAA to AA+ was a product of the compromise between the Republicans and the Democrats to raise the US debt ceiling and the global stock sell-off triggered by market frustration at the inability of the US government to boost the US economy and rein in fiscal deficits.

So far as the timing was concerned, however, the decision was nothing more than an action after the event. Instead of offering investors any positive help, S&P rushed to show itself as a "responsible" agency, looking to brush under the carpet the infamous role it played in the hideous financial tsunami that originated in the United States in 2008.