Study sees US, China as global economic referees

As the world's top economies, the United States and China should pick up where international bodies have failed and assert leadership to better govern the global economy, two academics say in a new study.

"In our perspective, both China and the United States need to be more responsible stakeholders," said Scott Kennedy, director of Indiana University's Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business.

At a talk in Washington on Thursday with his report co-author, He Fan of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Kennedy borrowed the now-familiar phrase from a 2005 speech in which then-US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick urged China "to become a responsible stakeholder" in bodies such as the World Trade Organization.

"His point was that he hoped China would not only live up to its commitments that it had made to the WTO and other international organizations, but that it would take on more of a leadership role — a productive leadership role — in these various organizations," Kennedy said. "We think that's true, but we think the same is exactly true for the United States.

"Just as (with) China, there are times when the United States doesn't live up to its commitments and doesn't play the leadership role that it ought to play in global governance" over trade, investment and finance, he said while presenting the report at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.