Hu to Merkel at the G20 summit: ‘Don’t rush it!’

Watching back arrivals for the G20 dinner you can hear President Hu through an interpreter say to the German Chancellor: “Don’t rush it, otherwise it will not work.”

Chancellor Merkel replies, speaking in English: “Can’t you say starting in April and finishing in the end of the year?” What could they be talking about?
Dates for an agreed assessment period on current account balances perhaps? China and Germany find themselves allies in the fight over trade surpluses at the moment. Both resent the US telling them that countries that export and save caused the economic crash when they think it was profligacy, dodgy financial products and greed in the US and elsewhere that did the harm (my words not theirs).

A timetable for assessment of surpluses and deficits, most likely conducted by the IMF, is as much as President Obama sounds like he expects to get out of this summit. In his joint press conference with South Korea’s President Lee, the US president talked about how the G20 communiqué could “begin to put in place mechanisms to track and encourage…balance and sustainable growth.”

What the US also wanted was a timetable for a new agreement on trade balances. That will probably prove to be a bridge too far for this gathering.