Notes on the Economy: Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Fickle Lines

America has announced it will postpone the publication of its currency exchange report.

On Oct. 15, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner announced that the report on exchange rates, originally scheduled to be open to the public on that day, has been delayed. The above photo is from Sept. 16, 2010, when Geithner attended a meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs regarding the international economic situation and currency exchange rate.

On Oct. 15, Xu Feng reports from Washington on the Xinhua News website: In the American government, besides the powerful impression of President Obama and Vice President Biden’s promises, Secretary Geithner’s statements on the economy also hold a great deal of sway. However, for the past two weeks, the content of Geithner’s “lines” has been changing too fast. It leaves people not able to make heads or tails of what he means.

Before the U.S. Congress voted on the “Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act” at the end of September, Geithner mentioned casually the importance and value of Chinese markets. He spent the majority of his time at the meeting criticizing the so-called devaluation of the Chinese yuan. Before, Geithner had also made statements at meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, urging the high ranking financial officials of Europe, Canada and Japan to unite and apply pressure to the RMB issue.

But then, several days later, Geithner appeared on a television program and said that the possibility of a currency war was no longer imminent. Could it be that these statements concealed hints that the report would be delayed?

Just as expected, the Department of the Treasury delayed this report on the 15th. On that day Geithner claimed that the rise of the value of the RMB more accurately reflected China’s economic power. It would also encourage Chinese domestic growth and make an even greater contribution to the global economy. He expressed that a stronger, more balanced and prolonged recovery of the world economy is a challenge that has many participants. It is not only the responsibility of America and China.

Behind Geithner’s fickle lines, the thing that doesn’t change is what he is really interested in. It’s only that these interests are narrow minded, short-sighted self-interests. They are not interests of coordination of various countries working together for the communal good. It is not strange that with these troubled times of America’s weak economic recovery, still-high unemployment figures, and midterm elections, that Geithner must continually alter his lines to navigate congress, the international community and voters.

The Chinese sage of old, Xunzi, talked about the concept of “the power of group effort.” Today, in our globalized economy, “the power of cooperating countries” has special significance for finding a mutually beneficial way to make the world economy strong. In Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” he wrote that from the time of its founding America had a political tradition and a simple truth: our interests are blended and mixed together, and the communal good is more important than any barriers in society. But how can a concept like this progress in today’s American government? And what new lines will Geithner come up with?