Debt crisis offers fresh opportunity for China-EU interaction

China is lending Europe a helping hand as the continent is struggling to contain a lingering debt crisis, which could serve as a fresh opportunity for many Europeans to cease regarding China as a threat and as a responsible economic partner instead. As the latest example of China's good intention, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, in response to the question on whether China would purchase Italian bonds, Tuesday reiterated that Europe will continue to be one of China's major foreign investment markets. Just 12 days ago, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in a phone conversation with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, threw his weight behind the European market by saying China always has had confidence in the European economy and the euro and will continue to make Europe one of its main investment markets. The European debt crisis first broke out in Greece in 2009, and has swept across the continent. Debt-ridden Greece, yearning for an effective bailout, is facing awful but substantial odds of default, while many European countries are also bogged down by the severe debt crisis. From the beginning, the Chinese government has adopted a series of positive measures, such as increasing its holdings of euro bonds and promoting its economic cooperation and investment in Europe, to help European countries tide over the crisis. China, as the world's biggest foreign buyer of U.S. Treasury bonds -- it now owns over 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars of them -- is trying to diversify its foreign exchange reserves through a package of measures, including moving closer to euro bonds. This will lessen the world's dependence on the U.S. dollar as the sole global reserve currency and begin a shift toward a more multipolar reserve system. This will be beneficial for both Europe and China, and helpful for the establishment of a more stable and reasonable global financial order.