For the United States the challenge is to save more and spend less

New York Times By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: April 3, 2008
BEIJING — Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. ended a two-day visit Thursday by calling for China to move ahead with financial market changes, despite growing concerns about the economic downturn in the United States.

During his visit, Mr. Paulson said he pressed for greater cooperation on energy and environmental issues. China and the United States are the world’s biggest consumers of energy and the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

During the trip, Mr. Paulson met with some of Beijing’s highest ranking officials, including President Hu Jintao, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Wang Qishan, who was recently elevated to the Politburo and is Mr. Paulson’s new counterpart in the dialogue.

Mr. Paulson and Mr. Wang have a longstanding relationship. The two worked closely years ago, when Mr. Paulson was chairman of Goldman Sachs and pushing the Wall Street bank to expand aggressively in China. At the time, Mr. Wang held a variety of high-level government posts with oversight over banks and finance.

He also said that for the sake of the global economy, structural problems in the economies of the two countries need to be fixed soon.
“For the United States the challenge is to save more and spend less,” he said in a speech before a government research organization Thursday morning. “For China, the challenge is to save less and spend more.”