Business | Economy
China promises major role in rescue
Chinese President Hu Jintao spelled out on Friday a potentially ambitious role for his country in staving off a deep global recession as he and US President George W. Bush prepared for a weekend summit of leaders from Asia and the Americas.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:27 November 22, 2008
Lima: Chinese President Hu Jintao spelled out on Friday a potentially ambitious role for his country in staving off a deep global recession as he and US President George W. Bush prepared for a weekend summit of leaders from Asia and the Americas.
Hu and Bush, whose presidency is in its last weeks, discussed trade and other issues on Friday night in Peru's capital, before the Asia-Pacific Economic Coordination forum of 21 leaders representing more than half of global output.
The leaders at the Apec summit were expected to ratify previous commitments by the Group of 20 powerful world economies to use trade and government spending to combat the economic crisis. Nine members of Apec are also in the G20.
In a speech to business leaders in Lima, Hu said the global financial situation remained extremely grim and that China was striving to stimulate its economy and would strengthen ties with other developing countries to confront the crisis.
"China will take a responsible attitude and work alongside the international community to strengthen cooperation to strive to protect the stability of international financial markets," Hu said.
'The right choice'
"China is within the scope of its abilities taking major efforts to address the financial crisis," including, he said, "providing the necessary support for liquidity" for domestic financial institutions and coordinating macroeconomic policy with other countries.
The leaders of Japan, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, Mexico and Russia and other countries will join Bush and Hu at the summit on the weekend. Many of them arrived earlier in Peru to speak to business executives on Thursday and Friday.
"We face hard times ahead, but we still have a choice: Hope or despair, opportunity or failure. I trust that we will make the right choice," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in his speech.
With so many troubled economies looking to China and its mounting foreign exchange reserves to ease their financial hardships, Beijing has been wary of assuming a starring role in negotiations to shore up the international financial system.
China has been a major driver of the world economy as its rapid expansion fuelled demand for raw materials such as minerals and grains. But in his speech, Hu sought to seize some of the initiative and promised China would be active in helping reform international financial institutions.
Earlier, business executives from the region called for economic stimulus packages to offset the global financial crisis. The executives also urged governments to resist protectionism and excessive regulation as a response to the economic woes.
Tight security
"The required actions should include fiscal responses to strengthen demand through appropriate spending on public works and tax incentives," Juan Francisco Raffo, president of the Abac business council that advises Apec leaders, said ahead of the summit. The Apec trade group accounts for more than 40 per cent of the world's population.
Apec has often been criticised as irrelevant because it has never achieved a regional free-trade agreement, but its members have created a web of bilateral commercial pacts binding countries on both sides of the Pacific.
As Bush arrived in Lima, hundreds of protesters demonstrated peacefully against US foreign policy and the controversial Guantanamo prison camp run by the US in Cuba.
Later, police arrested and held for questioning a woman who was carrying a knife near the hotel where Bush is staying and where he met with Hu. Days before Bush's last visit to Peru, in 2002, leftist guerrillas killed 10 people when they exploded a car bomb near the US Embassy in the capital. Thousands of police have patrolled Lima all week to prevent similar actions by insurgents, who recently carried out attacks in Peru's Andes.
Lima (AFP) Protesters on Friday demanded that US President George W. Bush get out of Peru where he was attending an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit, blaming him as the root cause of the world economic crisis.
"Bush out," about 1,000 demonstrators chanted in the centre of the capital, watched by scores of police in riot gear who made sure they did not move towards the Apec summit venue several kilometres away.
"This crisis didn't come from the Peruvian people. We shouldn't have to pay for it," a union leader told the crowd, which demonstrated peacefully.
Bush, one of 21 leaders of Asia-Pacific economies converging on Lima for the weekend summit, arrived shortly after the protest.
Escort
He was escorted under tight US Secret Service and Peruvian police security from Lima airport to the army headquarters building housing the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings.
Friday's anti-Bush protest, organised by Peru's biggest labour union, charged that Bush's choice to wage a costly war in Iraq contributed to the financial and economic crises.
"The International Criminal Court should try him for crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression," a big banner next to the main stage for the rally proclaimed.
"Bush - genocide. The Peruvians repudiate your crimes," said another.
"We believe that Bush is responsible for the fall of the financial system," explained Aldo Gil Cristostomo, a 54-year-old mechanic standing near other protesters carrying portraits of Che Guevara. "The war in Iraq is partly responsible for the fall," he said.
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