U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

Update on the Global Financial Situation

Tony Fratto, White House Deputy Press Secretary
Foreign Press Center Briefing
Washington, DC
October 22, 2008
10:45 a.m.

MODERATOR: Good morning and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. Just a quick reminder, if you have cell phones with you, please put those on silent or vibrate. When we get to the Q&A section of this morning's briefing, please wait for the microphone and then state your name and your news organization.

And now, I'd like to introduce this morning's briefer. Tony Fratto, who is the White House Deputy Press Secretary, will speak with an update on the global financial situation. Now, I'll turn it over to Tony. Thank you.

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QUESTION: Oh, thank you. I'm from China Central Television. As you probably know, Asia-Europe leader summit is going to be held in Beijing in a couple days.

MR. FRATTO: Yes.

QUESTION: And this year, a record number of Europe and Asia heads of states are committed. And I – and of course, the top priority is to address the global financial crisis. So what kind of actions does U.S. Government expect from Asian-European countries to help ease these global financial woes first started in the U.S., and also to establish a sustainable global financial order?

MR. FRATTO: Well, I think it's incredibly important that leaders from Europe are going to China for these meetings. It is very important. There are three very large engines of growth in the world, and one is here in North America, and then Europe, and then Asia. And from time to time, we rely on each other to generate growth. And certainly, the global economy for a number of years has relied on growth from Asia to support growth in other parts of the world and that's very good.

Certainly, there were weaknesses in the U.S. financial system and we've tried to respond to them. Other parts of the world are trying to respond to them also, and I think that's the purpose of this discussion. We hope that the discussions in Asia in the coming -- at the end of this week, I believe, right – that they'll have a chance to raise ideas and consider some of the options that have been presented publicly by certain leaders in the world and people will come to – leaders will come to the summit here in the Washington area in a good, informed way and ready to have a good discussion.

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QUESTION: Yeah, this – I'm Yu Qianliang with Xinhua News Agency of China. This summit is going to be held in Washington, D.C. area, but I know that many countries, including many European countries and the United Nations, strongly suggested -- it is the summit held in New York, where the crisis started. So what's your comment on this country's idea? And the second question is that many emerging markets leaders will come to this summit, including Chinese leader. So what do you think of this emerging markets law in dealing with the crisis, including Chinese?

MR. FRATTO: Well, I think it's – I think – first, I think it's an oversimplification to say that the crisis started in New York. I think we've – I would say that the crisis started at the home mortgage loan origination point in millions of offices across the country. So that's where the crisis started; not in New York.

The easiest and best place to put together a summit quickly is clearly here in the Washington area where everyone has full embassy staffs and it's less expensive and easier for us to get the right space and everything else that we need to put on a summit. Usually, a summit is on the calendar for, you know, years in advance and it's easy to prepare, and we're trying to do it in three weeks. And that's a heavy lift, especially that all of our friends over at the State Department will be working like the Energizer bunnies trying to help put this all together with lots of, you know, delegations coming into the country in a short period of time. So it's a lot easier for us to host it here.

Yes, ma'am.

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