Financial Times
Wednesday, March 28, 2001
SUMMERS SAYS US INFLUENCE DEPENDS ON RESPONSE TO GLOBAL CRISES
Larry Summers, the former US Teasury secretary, said yesterday that if the US became wary of spearheading responses to international economic crises its influence overseas would decline, writes Rahul Jacob in Hong Kong.
"If the US embraces the doctrine that financial stability is something best left only to markets then . . . that will have consequences for the US in the [Asian] region that go well beyond the financial sphere," Mr Summers said.
In comments made on the sidelines of an institutional investors' conference in Hong Kong, Mr Summers defended the Clinton administration's activitst role in fashioning responses to the Asian financial crisis, for instance, as being the "most cost-effective way of mounting a forward defence of US interests". The perception that the International Monetary Fund's responses to the crisis was heavily influenced by the US administration led to rgional calls for an Asian monetary fund, which eventually foundered.
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__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com