Wall Street, etc. emerged. Many people believed that this crisis was attributable to
deregulation of thefinancial sector and the bubble development of thefinancial
sector stimulated by improper economic andfinancial policies (monetary policy,
real estate policy, etc.); meanwhile, countries, including China, offered inexpensive
financial capital tofinancial markets of developed countries by investing trade
surpluses in thesefinancial markets, thus further generating bubbles. This crisis
forced the internationalfinancial governance order and structure led by the USA,
the EU, etc. to be adjusted at the following two levels:first, the USA and the EU
strengthenedfinancial supervision rules; second, in order to change the imbalance,
emerging forces were absorbed, whether the leading parties had such willingness or
not, thus the door for the participation of emerging countries in international
financial governance was opened.
In this process, the roles of China and the EU infinancial governance signifi-
cantly changed. First, China had more voice and influence in the international
financial pattern. Various appeals from China regarding the international monetary
system and internationalfinancial reform received a certain response, and various
parties also recognized that China should have more voice. Second, the EU
expressed a willingness to cooperate with China on globalfinancial governance.
With the dual impact from the globalfinancial crisis and the European sovereign
debt crisis, the EU’s economic strength was weakened and emerging forces,
including China, etc., needed to be relied on to promote the realization of its appeals
and philosophies. Third, China is developing its own understanding of global
financial governance. In the past, China had more of an attitude of learning and
adaptation. China has attempted to offer some institutional designs and solutions
since this crisis.
In spite of this, China’s status and roles in globalfinancial governance are still
limited. Taking banking supervision standards as an example, Chinese banks have
enhanced their influence among international peers and have participated in
developing many international standards, rules and consultations since the global
financial crisis. However, objectively, this influence is still limited. On the one
hand, a set of well-established rules and standard systems took shape in the
international system during its development for several decades after the war;
although the globalfinancial crisis has brought a certain impact, the force of the
path towards dependence is still very enormous. On the other hand, more impor-
tantly, the influence of China’s banking industry in developing international
banking industry standards is limited due to restrictions from a conventional
management system and domestic economic considerations (see Footnote 7).
Looking into the future, with the further improvement of economic strength and
implementation of supporting reforms in the relevant domestic sectors, China will
participate more in globalfinancial governance. China’s foreign trade has become
enormous, this not only creates very good conditions for internationalization of
China’sfinancial sector, but also requires China’sfinancial sector to serve trade
better and more. Historically, huge continuous trade surpluses would ultimately
bring about requirements of external economies for the currency of the country
which enjoys surpluses, and drive this currency to be accepted by other economies
7 China-EU Relations in the Context of Global Financial Governance 151