A New York Times editorial looks at the recent meeting between President Obama and President Hu in Washington:
Beijing’s aggressive undervaluation of the renminbi is a serious problem for the American economy and the global economy. Going one on one is likely to backfire. The best hope for persuading China to change its ways is with sustained pressure from many countries. It will certainly make it harder for Beijing to hide behind claims of sovereignty and accusations of big power bullying.
That means that Mr. Obama will have to work hard to rally others to jointly press the issue. The best forum is coming in June when the leaders of the world’s biggest economies gather at the Group of 20 meeting in Toronto. They need to use that occasion to tell China, in no uncertain terms, that it cannot keep building up its own economy by undercutting the rest of the world’s exports.
They need to leave no doubt in Beijing’s mind, that its global standing will suffer if it does not listen. Few countries have benefited as much as China from the open trading system. Under sufficient pressure from its trading partners, Beijing would be likely to relent.
It’s still not clear how hard they will have to push.
