State media: US, Europe must manage debt crises

The US and Europe must find the political will to settle their debt crises or risk hampering the global economy, China’s state media said on Monday, Reuters reported. “People have deepening misgivings about the political decisiveness of the Western nations, and this has also seriously hurt global investors’ confidence in the world economic recovery, exacerbating market turmoil,” argued an editorial the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party. The line was echoed by Xinhua News, another state media outlet, which warned that the US might look to boost its export competitiveness by devaluing its currency, in turn lowering the value of China’s sizeable US dollar-denominated foreign reserve portfolio. The comments may reflect the views of a more assertive line within China’s foreign policy establishment, which has hitherto been fairly quiet about US debt woes.