‘Opportunist’ China’s Help Rejected By EU

China finds that its US$3 trillion forex hoard cannot buy what it wants.

China's US$3 trillion are not enough to make European defense purchases. | Image source and courtesy - dantomozei.files.wordpress.com; first published at http://en.cnci.gov.cn//HtmlFiles/News/2011-2-25/13348.html in China Daily on 2011-2-25 | Click for larger image.

European policymakers are irked by what they call the opportunism of China’s apparent wish to trade some of its vast foreign wealth for increased influence.

“The idea that Europe is desperate for China’s money is wrong,” one senior euro zone monetary official said this week, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“I don’t like all this talk of Europe begging China for help, because Europe has the resources to solve its own problems if it can find the political will,” the source said.

China’s leaders, meanwhile, must show their citizens that giving some of the country’s $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves to Europe is a good thing — especially given the country’s exposure to the 36 percent decline in the nominal value of the U.S. dollar over the last decade.

China had offered help in return for European support to grant it either more influence at the International Monetary Fund, market economy status in the World Trade Organization, or the lifting of a European arms embargo, said the sources, both of whom have direct knowledge of the matter, including one who has ties to the leadership in Beijing.

Granting China market economy status that would, under WTO rules, make it harder for Europe to apply trade sanctions against Chinese imports. China accepted its designation as a non-market economy when joining the WTO in 2001.

And China has been relatively restrained in not demanding publicly that Europe scrap an arms embargo against China — introduced after the 1989 military crackdown on student-led, pro-democracy protests centred on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square — in return for financial assistance to end the debt crisis.

China fears that the euro zone’s sovereign debt crisis could trigger trade friction with its biggest export market and hurt its exports and economy. (via Exclusive: Politics stymie China’s EU aid offer: sources | Reuters).

Pot calling a kettle black

A text book case.

What makes the EU act pricey – while country after country is going down the bankruptcy route? What is making the EU feel superior?

Is a two-party democracy much superior or better than 1-party democracy?

Just because the heads of EU countries are selected from two sets of power-mongers (what else is a political party?) – instead of one as in (Communist Party) China, does not make EU any better or superior. Try as much as I can, there is little difference I can see between China and the EU.

Except gloss and polish.

View from China | Cartoon by Illustration: Liu Rui; Source and courtesy - globaltimes.cn; Published on 08:23 December 28 2010 | Click for source image.

West is the Best

The West does have more skills when it comes to ‘settling’ rivals.

You only have to look at the way in which Sweden has fixed a rape case against Julian Assange. China is still a few decades behind EU and USA in mounting an operation – such as the Swedish ‘Trojan’.

None of China’s three demands are either bad in principle or prudence. But it does make me wonder. China’s US$3 trillion of foreign exchange reserves is not enough if it wants to buy EU defence products.

Compare this with the US and EU eagerness to sell defence items to India.

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• Q&A: Why China won’t ride to Europe’s rescue (cnn.com)
• Debt crisis: EU ‘refusing to recognise China as a market economy’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• EU bail-out fund chief seeks money from China and IMF (telegraph.co.uk)
• Where’s the eurozone’s white knight? Not in China. (finance.fortune.cnn.com)
• Kerry Brown: Days when the West could lecture Beijing are over (independent.co.uk)
• What Does China Want From Euro Bailout Deal? (news.sky.com)