[国际经济学] FT.com_China extends help to tackle euro crisis [推广有奖]

reference link - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4a1a7768-0cfa-11e0-ace7-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz18lZNUciG

By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
Published: December 21 2010 13:00 | Last updated: December 21 2010 13:00


China has promised to take further “concerted action” to support European financial stabilisation, including continuing to buy the bonds of countries at the centre of the sovereign debt crisis, according to senior European officials.

The officials, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said one of China’s vice-premiers Wang Qishan, whose responsibilities include oversight of the economy, had given assurances that China would step up support for European stabilisation efforts “if necessary”.


Mr Wang made the pledge during the third annual China-EU High Level Economic and Trade Dialogue, held in Beijing on Tuesday.

In comments reported by state media, Mr Wang said China supported measures taken by the European Union and International Monetary Fund to create financial stability in the eurozone, but he gave little detail of what form that support would take.


The EU is China’s biggest export market and so Beijing has a strong interest in helping to support stability in the region. Two-way trade between the EU and China was valued at $434bn in the first 11 months of this year – up more than 30 per cent on the same period in 2009.


Mr Wang’s comments boosted the value of the euro against the US dollar as traders saw it as a signal China would continue to allocate a significant portion of its $2,650bn foreign exchange reserves to euro-denominated sovereign debt.


“From the European point of view we appreciate the support of China for the European and international effort to safeguard financial stability in Europe,” Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, said in response to Mr Wang’s comments. “The epicentre of the sovereign debt crisis has been Europe and therefore it is important and appreciated that our international partners including China are expressing their support for this work both verbally and concretely.”

China classifies the composition of its foreign exchange reserves as a state secret and European and US officials say it is often very hard to determine the true scale of Chinese purchases of sovereign debt and other global assets.

But countries including Portugal and Greece believe China has made significant purchases of their sovereign debt, in a move that has helped prop up markets in the midst of the crisis.
Analysts say that given the scale of China’s reserves and its need to diversify away from its large investments in US government securities it has little choice but to continue buying European bonds over the long term.

But short-term decisions over where to allocate its growing reserves pile and the timing of those purchases can be very significant for countries in the midst of a sovereign debt crisis.
European officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that although China had not explicitly linked its continued purchases of EU sovereign debt to any specific issues, Beijing did ask during the talks for the EU to grant it “market economy” status and lift a long-standing arms embargo.

But Karel de Gucht, European trade commissioner, told the FT in an interview that lifting the arms embargo, imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, would require a unanimous vote from all EU member states, something analysts say is highly unlikely.

Mr De Gucht added that although there has been “significant progress” by China on meeting the World Trade Organisation definition of a market economy, the country still has a long way to go before the EU can formally grant it that status.

China has been pushing for years to be recognised internationally as a market economy because that would allow the value and prices of its exports to be assessed more leniently in trade and anti-dumping disputes brought before the WTO.