China: The global financial crisis isn’t our fault

Ding Yifan
China Daily

Americans are trying to make China “the scapegoat for the ongoing global financial crisis,” said Ding Yifan. Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, for example, deflected blame from his own actions by claiming that China’s high rate of savings “contributed to an aggravating imbalance in the global economy and emboldened U.S. investors to buy high-risk properties.” Such a theory is “completely ridiculous.” The Chinese have had a tradition of saving “since ancient times,” yet it never caused global havoc before. In fact, in recent years China wanted to use its reserves to buy foreign companies or at least “purchase desperately needed high-tech products.” But U.S. trade barriers, cloaked in “Washington’s excuse of national security,” made that impossible, so China had to “turn to buying U.S. Treasury bonds.” If the enormous amount of money from China was misused in speculation, that’s not our fault—it’s the fault of U.S. regulators. Instead of blaming others, the Americans should be “conducting some soul-searching into the country’s problematic financial policies and instruments.”