REACTION IN CHINA:CHINA'S TOP official newspaper, the People's Daily, has compared the euro zone's debt crisis to the deadly Black Death epidemic that ravaged medieval Europe and said it would affect China's real economy by hitting exports.
“It’s nearly two years since Europe’s debt crisis started, and like the Black Death in the 14th century, it has spread across the euro zone from Greece to Ireland, to Portugal, Spain and other countries, and now to core countries like Italy,” said the commentary in the international edition.
Beijing has regularly expressed its support for debt-laden European countries, which are major buyers of Chinese exports, but there is a sense that patience is wearing thin about Europe’s scattergun response to the crisis.
The People’s Daily commentary was written by two of the country’s most senior economists, Prof Zhang Zhixiang, a former head of the People’s Bank of China international section and currently a professor at Renmin University, and Zhang Chao, an economist for the state-owned China Development Bank. The euro zone is China’s biggest trading partner, with bilateral trade worth €395 billion last year, up 13.9 per cent on 2009. Chinese exports to the EU reached €281.9 billion in 2010, up 18.9 per cent on the previous year.
