Word: paulsons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...years ago, as the financial storms that would come to define his tenure were gathering off center stage, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson viewed the economic relationship between the U.S. and China as his biggest challenge - and his biggest opportunity. He would sit down twice a year with his Chinese counterparts and discuss big-picture issues. These weren't negotiations. They were part of a "strategic economic dialogue" - "sort of like the G2," as a former Treasury official puts it. They were a way to flatter China, the world's rising economic power, and to enlist its cooperation on big, global...
...record will show that over the course of the past two years, China did in fact raise the value of its currency against the dollar more than 15%. But it will also show that during his last visit to Beijing as Treasury Secretary - which ended today - Paulson and his team had to ask the Chinese government not to backtrack on its commitment to "continued currency reform," as a Treasury spokesman put it. The RMB has recently weakened against the dollar, raising global alarm bells that China might try to devalue it as a way to revive its gasping export sector...
...Then, to top off what had to be a miserable two days, Paulson had to listen to lectures from a series of Chinese officials about all the additional steps the U.S. must take to solve its economic mess. The U.S. had to stop consuming and start saving, because "global imbalances" were at the root of the financial crisis, People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan told Paulson. And, added Vice Premier Wang Qishan, Washington needed to "take all necessary measures to stabilize its economy and the financial market to ensure the security of China's assets and investments...
...That's something the Chinese increasingly want to avoid. Indeed, as Paulson and his team noted at this week's meetings, Beijing has started to make its trading partners nervous with a recent, relatively small reversal of the slow and steady rise in the RMB's value against the dollar. As a senior executive at a state-owned financial institution conceded to TIME two weeks ago, there is undeniable pressure from China's politically powerful export sector to weaken the RMB, which would make Chinese goods more price competitive abroad. If China triggered a wave of devaluations from other East...
...surprising. The best way for China to help the world economy at this point is to help itself; not by exporting more, but by spending at home - in whatever way or form possible. After their lectures, and on his way out the door, that's a point that Paulson no doubt also made to his Chinese friends...