Blame Game

"West Urged to 'Tell Truth on Globalization'"
Financial Times
March 12, 2006
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ef14b038-b202-11da-
96ad-0000779e2340.html

This weekend, at the World Deauville Conference in France, Chinese diplomat Long Yongtu cautioned the U.S. and E.U. not to blame unemployment and competition woes on the growing Chinese economy. He argued these accusations are based on a misunderstanding of the Chinese economy's relationship to Western markets, saying, "There are a lot of misconceptions about China’s economy. People believe that it depends on exports and external investment. But China’s economic development is basically driven by domestic demand, both investment and consumption."

Interestingly, outsiders note that both regions need economic reforms: China should heighten good governance to improve environmental compliance, worker protection, and anti-corruption initiatives while the E.U. should adopt the Lisbon Strategy reforms to strengthen job creation and sustainable development.

The conference is intended to strengthen Asian-European relations and to serve as a forum to discuss globalization. For more information about the event, see http://www.wdf2006.org/.

Refer to the E.U. Commission's Lisbon Strategy update (http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives
/ebs/ebs_215_en.pdf) for more information about the reforms mentioned in the article.

Additionally, refer to the OECD's China policy briefing (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/10/25/35294862.pdf) for more information about the reforms mentioned in the article.