Financial crisis, economic downturn, financial meltdown...  Whatever name it has,  it is simply a trust-meltdown and it is going to take some time to rebuild trust. Everyone turned eye on China`s -almost USD2 trillion- foreign reserves and the big question is : Can China Save The World ? 

"China can't save the world. It can only save itself," said Lou Jiwei, the chairman of China Investment Corp. (CIC), the state-owned forex investment firm, with a registered capital of US$200 billion, was set up by China to make profitable use of the country's foreign reserves.

Lou made the remarks when joining a panel discussion on the unfolding global financial crisis at a plenary session of the Clinton Global Initiative Asia Meeting held in Hong Kong on December 3^rd.

He said CIC will not invest in foreign financial institutions amid so much turbulence and uncertainty without proper market confidence because foreign governments seem to be changing their policies every week. "Right now, we do not have the courage to invest in financial institutions," Lou said, citing the losses of its early investment Morgan Stanley and Blackstone Group.   "We have to wait for the time when there won't be massive collapses of financial institutions" as Xinhua reported.

Lou said investment by CIC will be diversified geologically and lay more attention to developing countries.

Considering the current global financial situation and China`s advantage not to be pushed to pour more money into the financially-ill western institutions, China now has even stronger position to further expand and strength its presence in Africa, M. East, Latin America, Central and Southeast Asia which will provide China great power to better control much needed energy resources, as well as strength its political influence in these regions.

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