China's Premier, Wen Jiabao, Stresses Importance Of Helping Europe

BEIJING, Feb 5 (Reuters) - China has a stake in helping the euro zone countries get through their debt crisis, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in comments published on Sunday, pointing to Europe's importance as an export market and as a source of technology.

Wen urged sceptical Chinese citizens to understand that supporting Europe was in their own benefit, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

"Now Europe is facing a debt crisis and we must consider relations with Europe strategically to protect our national interests," Wen said while visiting the export-dependent southern Chinese province of Guangdong on Tuesday, said Xinhua.

"On the one hand, our biggest export market is Europe," said Wen. "On the other hand, Europe is our biggest source for importing technology. From this perspective, helping to stabilise European markets in fact amounts to helping ourselves. We must make all quarters of society understand this point."

Comments

[Layman23]

12:06 PM on 02/06/2012

I thought the US was the largest market for Chinese goods? Wow.. They really have used a deadly weapon to control the world. Cheap labor.

[Eagleman]

08:31 AM on 02/06/2012

He is right

China needs to own Europe's A$$ like the do with US

That's how they can loan them more to buy Chinese goods

[TheTightwireGuy]

03:09 AM on 02/06/2012

"China has a stake in helping the euro zone countries get through their debt crisis, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in comments published on Sunday, pointing to Europe's importance as an export market and as a source of technology."

China to the rescue! And I guess that means that Chinese will put pressure on Europe to not question China's differences with the financially-strapped US regarding foreign policy, such as this one:
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/05/10322270-hillary-clinton-lambastes-travesty-of-un-veto-on-syria

Oh, well. (Sorry, Syrians-who-are-getting-slaughtered-by-its-own-government)

The Tightwire Guy

[Michael GE]

09:40 AM on 02/06/2012

Let me answer somewhat cynical (without meaning to offend you!):

We could hold referendums on it in Europe, couldn't we? Like: China did veto an UN resolution on Syria and by that allowing the violent oppression there to continue. China does offer to invest into our (Austrian, French, Irish, Italian, German, Spanish, EFSF/ESM, etc. etc. bonds) thus keeping interest rates at a sustainable level. Without it, more tax hikes and more spending cuts are likely.
Do you support selling bonds to China, despite what it might mean for Syrians? Yes or No?

Honestly, I do think the outcome will be a "yes".

[TheTightwireGuy]

10:51 AM on 02/06/2012

Michael,

I hear what you are saying and understand that will likely be the case.

Please know that I believe that the US has made it own deals with human-rights-abuse-enabling-regimes....

Heck! The Hope-and-Change candidate I supported in 2008 pushed passing a trade deal...
http://www.cwu.ie/Activists/Justice-for-Colombia.693.aspx
...with the union-and-worker-rights-repressing-(is-putting-it-mildly)-Colombian government just last year:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-21/obama-said-to-sign-deals-with-south-korea-panama-colombia-1-.html

And probably because if he didn't, that country probably would have turned to, well, some of the US' global-policy-competitors:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-obamas-free-trade-deal-with-colombia/2011/04/06/AFqoQZrC_story.html

(continued)

[TheTightwireGuy]

10:52 AM on 02/06/2012

And perhaps making such a NAFTA-like-trade-deal will encourage the leaders of that country to improve its policies related to human rights. Let's go to the historical record on such measures:
http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/08/3ftaa.cfm

"Although NAFTA may be an effective model for promoting corporate interests, the agreement has failed as a means to strengthen and enforce workers' rights in North America."

(Sorry, Mexicans. But you are free to escape to the US... Wait a minute!... A (old) news flash on that issue is coming in...)

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/obamas-record-high-deportations-draw-hispanic-scorn/

Ouch! I guess the (citizens of countries that my country's government is "enabling" to repress it's own citizen's human rights) are on their own (not counting how my country's government is contributing to the problem).

The Tightwire Guy

[hirst shark]

02:00 AM on 02/06/2012

Don't be surprised if China contributes heavily to the IMF who will then bailout Europe. This move will ensure the IMF president for the foreseeable future will be Chinese. China is always thinking about opportunities on the world stage.

[K August]

01:39 AM on 02/06/2012

It's amazing to see a privately owned central bank (ECB) telling sovereign nations what to do.
European countries gave up a lot of control when they let bankers talk them into the "euro".

[Michael GE]

08:21 AM on 02/06/2012

How is - in your view - the ECB "privately owned"?

Sorry, but:
a) all ECB funding is done by the national central banks,
b) the board of directors (6 people) is politically appointed - and then, for the duration of their fixed terms, politically independent in handling day-to-day operations,
c) the ECB Council, made up from the ECB directory plus the heads of the national central banks takes the long term decisions and decides strategy.

Or more simple: No one in his/her right mind would claim the German Bundesbank (deferal central bank) to a "privately owned bank". How, if the ECB was installed in the very image of the Bundesbank (as some regularly complain about) could the ECB be a "privately owned bank"?

[Nighthawk1]

12:05 AM on 02/06/2012

He's concerned because China's future depends on the American and European Middle Class. You know, the group in America the Republicans are trying to destroy.

[Robert SF]

08:52 PM on 02/05/2012

So China will lend money to Europe so that Europe can buy stuff it can't afford from China. Just like the mortgage mess in the US, that works well until the reality of "can't afford" sets in.

We need to consider if we're reaching the limits of exponential growth capitalism.

[einzelgaenger]

10:28 PM on 02/05/2012

It's China that is looking at potential losses here even more than Europe...
The world economy goes down the tubes, there goes their export market and their technology importing...

Funny how an undervalued currency will actually come back to real value one way or another...in this case by losing some of that "strong money" you kept strong to boost your growth you actually revalue your own. Not a good way to do it, though, just like austerity is not a good way to get out of a recession. (balanced budgets can be done by attacking one, or the other, or both sides of the ledger)

There are no angels in this game...

[Michael GE]

08:41 AM on 02/06/2012

I don't think it's quite like you describe it.

IMO, the ongoing debate has - in some quarters - led to politicians of all stripes and other (vested) interest (here I include financial sector lobby groups as well as social rights advocates or leading economists of the various competing economic schools) blur the details way too much.

As an example of what I mean: Italy is not Greece (or Portugal, or Spain, or even Ireland). Most obviously, it is not because of the sheer size. But it's also not if you consider that northern Italy is as well established, as productive, as the "neighboring" industrial hubs in Austria, Switzerland or Germany.
Also Italy (as a polity) and the Italians are as wealthy as the Austrian, French, Germans, etc..

And overall, completely different from the US, these of our European regions and industries have always and continue to achieve a completely balanced trade.

So, IMO, your view would be a clear and present risk only if the majority of the European economy was Greece or Portuguese or southern Italian. But it is not. Sure, if we allow interest rates for Italian bonds to freely spike towards 10%, then they have a problem. But I am fully confident that at a rate of - let's say - 4% the money will be paid back. And other than the US and UK, 4% means the interest is not eaten up by artificial inflation.

[Indigo1941]

07:48 PM on 02/05/2012

That doesn't sound like Maoism. It certainly doesn't sound like Leninism. Is it Marxism? Only in a sense that even Angela Davis would embrace today, in the sense of Marxism gone to ground and waiting for the Carnival to move on. In other words, it sounds like Neo-Capitalism. Oh, my!

[Ngonyama]

05:19 PM on 02/05/2012

Lo, do I see an axis Brussels-Beijing looming? BRIC becoming EuBRIC?

I suppose if the gamblers of Wall Street and the City keep attacking Europe that would only be the logical outcome...

It could make the next POTUS the leader of a rather irrelevant former superpower.

[einzelgaenger]

10:29 PM on 02/05/2012

It's more like ChiMerica

[Christopher Hull]

03:04 PM on 02/05/2012

"pointing to Europe's importance as an export market and as a source of technology."
Basically the Chinese are going to bail out Europe to keep the Europeans from noticing that they are being drowned in Chinese goods much as the US has been.
Go to KaDaWe in Berlin. Go to ANY of the large department stores in Paris. You want to know why Europes economy is crumbling? Everything is made in China.
So China wants to keep stealing technology and exporting products until they are rich enough to not need the EU anymore. This plan will not work long term but in the short term the political elite in the EU will keep their bank accounts padded and brains closed to real solutions.

[madcityy]

02:31 PM on 02/05/2012

he is righttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt

[Nightangle]

09:23 PM on 02/05/2012

I agree with you on this issue.

[Gitta]

01:37 PM on 02/05/2012

China, waving good bye to the USA, see us getting smaller and smaller in the horizon.

[DAE]

10:28 AM on 02/05/2012

What a hoot. Imagine a Chinese leader being in a position to say this 50 or 100 years ago. The great 150 year Chinese socio-economic-political eclipse of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries will be seen as a temporary interregnum, a mere blip, on future historical timelines.

[Steve Gebeloff]

03:19 PM on 02/05/2012

You are right, 150 years to a 5,000 year old society doesn't get more than one line in the history books.
Its interesting to hear Wen say that Europe is its biggest source for "tranfer of technology". China has always demanded transfer of technology for entrance into its markets. Although we have been wary of this (not wary enough) we should now be wary of transfer of technology to Europe since it looks like they might become a technology pipeline to China.

[gunterandhope]

05:16 PM on 02/05/2012

Yeah - technology like gunpowder, printing, and paper. Read some history and you'll see that our entire history could be swallowed up in one tiny section of China's. There is no need to be antagonistic: China and the U.S. are perfectly matched partners. We have what they need, and they have what we need. Why borrow trouble when we can borrow money?

[Ngonyama]

05:16 PM on 02/05/2012

Nah, hardly worth the trouble. You have too little to transfer.