New financial crisis would make 2008's seem child's play

Editor's note: At the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan last week, Zhu Min, an economist with Tsinghua University and former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, aired his views on the high debt ratio of the world economy in a sub-forum. Excerpts:

If a financial crisis happened today, the situation could be much worse than 2008.

The reasons are simple. First of all, the debt ratio today is much higher than that of 2008. So the risks the world faces today are bigger, and the influence of a crisis, if there is one, on the real economy would be more extensive.