China must play a greater role in the Group of 20 (G20) arrangement and cooperate with other members of the grouping to minimize the impact of the worsening global financial crisis, a leading Beijing-based scholar has said.

Huang Ping, a sociologist by training, and head of the American Studies Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one of the largest social research bodies in the country, made the comments to China Daily just days ahead of the G20 summit starting in London on April 2.

The country should, however, resist a tendency to believe that, with their size and wealth, only a partnership between China and the United States (or G2, as it has been nicknamed) was needed to decide on important world matters, Huang said.