Crisis of capitalism no longer seen as someone else's problem

It is rare for Xinhua's Cankao Xiaoxi (Reference News) to lavish a whole page on one report.

But it did last Friday, for the Chinese translation of an article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs by Francis Fukuyama, author of the 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man, and now senior fellow at the Centre on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

The translators only changed the original title from 'The future of history: can liberal democracy survive the decline of the middle class?' to 'What destiny is waiting for contemporary capitalism?' - perhaps to make it more appealing to readers in China.

Also last week, Hexun.com, a business information website, ran a full translation of an article by former US Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers in the Financial Times on the reinvention of capitalism.

They are only two examples of the growing curiosity in China about how today's economic crisis is going to reshape world capitalism, and how it will affect the global market system, in which China is a new but important player.

Most Chinese theorists and commentators seem convinced that the current crisis cannot be solved by mere technical adjustments and will drag on for years until some painful changes are made.

Today's capitalism, as they see it, has lost its sense of direction, and is in an 'idea-less', 'trust-less' and 'order-less' state, according to Professor Jiang Yong, a researcher with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, which is affiliated with the party's central foreign liaison department.