Envy remains a hugely powerful force in international politics. In a world mired in economic stagnation, it is not surprising that China's surging development should become the latest victim of this lamentable sentiment.

　　Among nations embittered by their own economic failings, a gathering chorus is calling for "burden sharing" by developing societies based upon a sharp upwards revaluation of regional currencies, especially the Chinese renminbi.

　　Such suggestions should be greeted with the most extreme caution.

　　There can be little doubt that a freely-floating renminbi would rise quickly, by 20 per cent or more. It is also undeniable that intricate economic questions are involved in the process of currency-control liberalization, within the context of Chinese domestic financial reform. These are compounded by the growing Chinese policy conundrum over the management of rapidly swelling US-dollar denominated foreign reserves. Yet at the most basic level, the issue is far more straightforward.

　　Where China's export performance is geared to supporting its domestic reform process, to the immense benefit of the entire world economy, those countries most eager for a dramatic jump in the value of the renminbi are counting on an increase in their export volumes as a diversion from, even an alternative to, badly needed reforms of their own.

　　The fundamental question is this: Would the world really be better off if the trading system were re-jigged in such a way as to further deepen the complacency of its most obstinate laggards?

　　The rich nations weighing most heavily against world economic recovery, the euro-zone nations and Japan most particularly, could best contribute to genuine "burden sharing" by radically hiking domestic growth rates through urgent and fundamental economic reforms. There is no reason to believe that cynically manipulating exchange rates to engineer an artificial export boom for the world's least deserving countries would make any real contribution to this goal.

　　Although the US is far from faultless in this regard, even its recent disgraceful record of steel and agricultural protectionism leaves it as a broadly liberalizing influence within the world economy, as the world's most open large economy (as indicated by its half trillion dollar annual trade deficit) and as a comparative angel among developed economies when it comes to supporting global demand.

　　Justice is clearly served, therefore, by the fact that the euro-zone is feeling the greatest pressure from the slide of the US-dollar on world currency markets. Indeed, the only real disappointment is that the Japanese yen has so far escaped the same fate.

　　It is depressing enough that Europe and Japan should allow narrow economic nationalism to sabotage global growth and the hopes of poor nations for access to international markets. For these economic delinquents to try and pass the blame for their problems onto the world's most dynamic reformer - namely China - is nothing less than a scandal.