China is watching nervously as the United States and Europe scramble to deal with their debt crises, fully conscious that economic events on both sides of the Atlantic play an important role in the country’s own economic prospects.
There is little doubt there are concerns in China about potential knock-on effects from the debt crises, but exactly how and to what extent Beijing will be affected by the fallout from Washington and Brussels is still being gauged.
“The crisis is not as serious as the 2008 global financial crisis, but it’s enough to set China on guard,” says Zhang Xiaojing, senior economist at the Institute of Economics affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
