China snubs Japan with IMF no-show
This morning global markets are digesting the fact that the head of China’s central bank will be a no-show at this week’s meeting of the International Monetary Fund. The problem seems to be that that meeting is in Japan — and China and Japan right now are facing off over disputed island territories.
With the world’s financial and economic leaders all converging in Japan, the meeting holds great importance for the country. The absence of two of the senior most Chinese finance officials “is certainly a slap in Japan’s face,” says Eswar Prasad, an economist Cornell and former head of the China division at the IMF.
Aside from the symbolic signficance, China’s no-show may disrupt the meeting’s proceedings and coordination efforts. Prasad says, “When you have the second largest economy in the world, and the economy that is making the biggest addition to global growth not at the table, it is certainly going to make a difference” as the world ecnomic situtation is in a very delicate state.
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