A great debate on China policy is well under way throughout the European Union (EU) and, in accordance with European media, EU will possibly attach more importance to challenges brought by the rise of China rather than opportunities as in the past. Soon after the heated discussion, comes a new notion, namely, "It is China's fault that led to the division of Europe."

EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, said recently that China's shoe quota can possibly break up Europe that is already strewn with cracks. EU imported shoes from China and Vietnam have prompted Europe to divide into the two camps, trade protectionism camp and free market camp. The commissioner cites China as the biggest single challenge for the EU.

Meanwhile, "Deutsche Welle" or the Voice of Germany, held this division has menaced a united and harmonious mood the Europe has long aspired for�� split up the European camp amid the arduous process of unification.

Whose fault is it to divide the Europe exactly? An expert takes globalization as a race event. In view of the present situation in the race arena, the United States is at the front and Europe in the middle, whereas China, India and other "rising stars" are in the rear.

An American scholar, when briefed on this metaphor, queried: "Does it imply that China's full chase ahead can destroy the European mode, without mentioning the United States, which, as a matter of fact, runs the fastest in the front.

If people want to define who that has brought Europe greater challenges, it is the U.S. of course, not China or India. Europeans have often complained havocs wrought to their happy life by the globalization, and the United States is first of all to blame. As it is in the upper stream, it exerted itself to force down product prices while continuously bringing forth Internet and other similar inventions and creations, so people can hardly get themselves adapted to them. Americana are racing so fast, how can others catch up with them?

Besides, the Europeans are also to blame. Why don't they run faster? They have kept crying for a dozen years and they still cannot run faster enough, and they have such symptoms as high welfares, the integration of immigrants and trade protection, and they have to receive medical care. "You cannot hide your illnesses for the fear of treatment" and "complaining others cannot cure your own diseases."

Competitiveness has had a special place on the EU agenda since the heads of state and government of member states created the "Lisbon Strategy" six years ago and promised to make Europe "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy" in the world in 2010. But the EU-US disparity has been increasingly widened instead of being reduced gradually. In case of scientific and technological input alone, the gap is by no means small. The research input ratio of the EU member nations averages only 1.9 percent, whereas the proportion of the United States and Japan averages 2.8 and 3.1 percent respectively.

Six years have passed, and some European leaders claimed their Lisbon strategy is a failure, and some media in Europe referred to the whole idea produced as a "typical joke". The stark reality is that whoever wants to revise the welfare services of his nation, his or her campaign support rate will drop drastically in any opinion poll that follows.

When the U.S. is moving fast ahead, the Europeans, with a faint hope of overtaking it, will naturally turn to look back for the fear that the Chinese and Indians are racing too fast. China has developed a bit faster in recent years because it had wide gaps with the developed nations. Its people have to work diligently night and day so that their country will not be left far behind.

You cannot compel people in China to stay where they are forever. Never forget what you had done to them in the early years of your take off. To date, people in China have their own burdens. Take its vast population. Not a single European nation can endure and sustain such an unbearable, heavy burden.

Indeed, the globalization is led by the West. Imbued with a mentality of the savior, some Westerners hope the developing countries would feel indebted toward them as they led the globalization and brought them some benefits.

In final analysis, the division in EU is an internal one, an outcome derived from the two different modes of development. Looking at Sweden, Finland and other Nordic countries: The introduction of reform in the mid 1990s with a focus placed in high technology, information technology in particular, is the very reason they can retain the advanced position in productivity on the basis of maintaining good welfare services. These Nordic countries have basically affected a shift of their economy and steadily reduced its gap with the United States and overtaken it in some spheres. Consequently, they do not worry about "China-made" products but stand for free trade.

Those who incline to shift the blame on to China have better think more about their failure to achieve what Nordic countries can do. If they have time to complain China, why not mull over their own issues. Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, once said that "reform cannot made easier if it is long delayed."

By People's Daily Online