China's Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday called on
"relevant nations" to take "concrete and responsible fiscal and monetary
policies" to restore the confidence of global investors.
China'sPremier Wen Jiabao, pictured in 2011, on Tuesday called on "relevant
nations" to take "concrete and responsible fiscal and monetary policies"
to restore the confidence of global investors.
Wen's
remarks were the first to be made by the government of China, the
largest foreign holder of US debt, since an unprecedented downgrade of
the United States' credit rating last week.
They came as stock
markets around the world plunged to fresh lows in a massive sell-off
driven by fears of a new global recession, before US stocks rebounded
strongly in early trade Tuesday, surging well over one percent.
China
"demands that relevant nations take concrete and responsible fiscal and
monetary policies to trim their fiscal deficits and resolve their debt
problems... to maintain global investor confidence," Wen told a cabinet
meeting.
"China supports relevant parties' efforts to maintain
financial stability and economic growth," he added, in comments
published on the government's website.
"The international
community should strengthen the communication and coordination of
macroeconomic policies to promote the strong, sustainable and balanced
growth of the global economy."
Wen's comments came days after
ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the US from a top-flight
AAA to an AA+ rating, largely because of the failure of US leaders to
reach a consensus on containing the country's spiralling debt.
China,
which held about $1.2 trillion in US debt at the end of June, has used
its state media to launch an extraordinary barrage of criticism at the
United States and, to a lesser extent, Europe.
On Monday, an
editorial in the People's Daily -- the mouthpiece of China's Communist
Party -- accused Western nations of putting the global economic recovery
at risk by "ignoring their responsibility".
"If developed
countries including the US and European Union don't take responsibility,
it will impair the stable development of the global economy severely,"
the newspaper said.
"Only if Western nations stop ignoring their
responsibility and use a sharp blade of determination and courage to cut
through the ropes binding their policies and strengthen coordination
with developing countries will the global economy have hope of a stable
recovery."
The article appeared under the name Zhong Sheng, which
means "voice of China", and is often tagged to editorials in the
People's Daily.
China's official Xinhua news agency has urged
Washington's Democrats and Republicans to stop blaming each other over
the downgrade and find solutions.
"Disappointingly, instead of
reflecting on themselves and sitting down to fix problems in a
cooperated way, the Democrats and Republicans... are questioning the
credibility of the downgrade ruling and blaming each other," it said in a
commentary on Monday.
But the influential news agency was more
moderate in another commentary, this one posted early on Wednesday with
the title "Time to repair dented investor confidence".
It warned that "understandably, investors are just a trigger away from global panic".
However,
criticism of political leaders in the US was far more restrained than
before, citing only the "disappointingly low efficiency of politically
divided Washington in making difficult decisions".
On top of
concern about the eurozone and US debt, Chinese inflation of 6.5
percent, the highest level in three years, has raised the chances of
interest rate hikes that would curb economic activity in the world's
second biggest economy.
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