Economy

Stick to what's right for all instead of what's being said

By Xu Jianmei (Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-06-21 14:02

It was brainy for Oscar Wilde to have left us with such saying as "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

China has been much talked about by the western media in the run-up toward the G20 and G8 summits.

The talks ranged from the losing end of China facing crisis on home stock markets, bubbles with real estates, and imminent collapse in economy, to the gaining end of China shunning responsibility only after having benefited from the global financial crisis, sitting behind the wheel of recovery, and digging deep into foreign assets.

Listeners and viewers should not be carried away by the deafening hooplas; nor should they indulge into the cons and pros of the circus.

What they should do is to use their brains to get the better of what and why China is being talked about and being talked about much, if not too much.

China has to remain in the limelight due to the unchallenged fact that it alone has contributed toward half of the global growth as the driving power behind the current recovery.

And it goes without much disagreement that the world economy would struggle longer than expected in the trough but with China's lead in the recovery.

But things should be put into their proper perspective while being looked at.

Having already done unproportional much to promote the global economic recovery, China should not be talked into a lone and out-of-proportion obligation in it all.

Accounting for some 5 percent of the global GNP, China should be joined by other emerging economic powers like India and Brazil as well as by developed economies in securing the global recovery.

It is under such pretext and circumstance that the World Bank has given China more says in international coordination and cooperation, for its contribution toward the global recovery.

Like what it did in the 1997 Asian financial turmoil, China has once again acted as a coordination and cooperation partner by signing into investing in the infrastructure construction in debt-ridden Greece.

But people should not turn blind eyes to the sufferings China has been inflicted from the global financial and economic crises - declining growth rates, devaluing foreign assets, degenerating circumstances that affect economic policies and degrading structural problems in development.

Besides, China is still a developing economy with its per-capita GDP ranking outside the world's top 100 and its economy is still not yet fully out of the shadow of risks that accompany the transition from a planned economy to a market economy.

Even so, China has braved all odds to purchase internationally-downgraded Greek assets which some countries would not venture into themselves but blamed China for unearned gains instead.

As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has already told visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timonthy Geithner in May, all should recognize common interests in the face of the global economic slowdown and the global recovery thereafter.

The common interests at this time of historical juncture include peace and development, which all need for regenerated and renewed stability and prosperity.

Therefore, the much-hyped theories of "China threat" and "China solo show" would only do damage to the common interests and to the common stability and development.

The coming G20 will be time for talks and more talks. But the subject should center on joint efforts and shared responsibilities to orchestrate a common progress toward stability and development through improved and better economic governance, which is balanced, benefit-to-all and all-to-win.