Quote

I think that the level playing field is so unlevel - it is tilted so much in favor of Chinese companies - that it's time for the United States to do a little bit more, see.

But if you look at WorldCom, which is the biggest failure to date, they grew dramatically, they were buying companies that were bigger than they were and they were doing it off inflated stock.

This crisis exposed very significant problems in the financial systems of the United States and some other major economies. Innovation got too far out in front of the knowledge of risk.

When I moved to Beijing in 2005 to write, I was accustomed to hearing the story of China's transformation told in vast, sweeping strokes - involving one fifth of humanity and great pivots of politics and economics.

In the '80s and '90s, China went through a giant change. It needed all resources. At the time, I was in the recycled paper business, and I realized the China market was a blank slate.

I call Alibaba '1,001 mistakes.' We expanded too fast, and then in the dot-com bubble, we had to have layoffs. By 2002, we had only enough cash to survive for 18 months. We had a lot of free members using our site, and we didn't know how we'd make money. So we developed a product for China exporters to meet U.S. buyers online. This model saved us.

There has been a rising tide of criticism about China's treatment of foreign companies.

The invention of the micro-loan was a big surprise to me. Who would have guessed loans of less than $20 made to poor people in undeveloped countries could create thriving local economies? And, even more surprisingly, that they more reliably pay off their debts than the wealthy of the world.

The way China is looking to boost consumer spending is astounding. They are going to boost the minimum wage by 13 percent a year every year for five years... I don't know if people realize how dramatic that is.

When I look at how the banking world has changed and at the role Chinese banks, for example, play today, Germany, as an export-oriented economy, should be pleased to have a major global player in its camp.