A week ago the Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti arrived for discussions with the Chinese government. Italy is being drawn deeper and deeper into the eurozone economic crisis. It has a huge public debt and would like China to buy some of it, just as it is buying US debt. As the West teeters on the brink of yet another banking crisis and a second recession, following hard on the heels of the 2008 shock, China is being expected to “save the world” again. Is this realistic? What can China actually do?

First, what China will be able to do is limited by the conceptions Western politicians have of China. Take Tremonti himself. He has criticized China in the past for “reverse colonization.” The Italian government has not worked to reduce prejudice against China.

Few EU governments have, although their companies have been busy trading with China for two decades and more. The European Commission, as the civil service of the EU, must now lead a public relations campaign to address some of this prejudice, since it is in their own interest to do so. Increasing numbers of Chinese tourists are coming to Europe and that provides an excellent bridge across which both sides can walk and change the image they hold of the other.

There is a policy gulf to be overcome here. As China rightly says, the EU should recognize it as a “market economy.” This means that Chinese goods exported to EU countries will be treated on the same legal basis, under the same anti-dumping rules, for example, as the US or Australia. EU politicians know that this recognition of China as a market economy must come in any event by 2016, under the WTO agreement.

After the 2008 shock it was the huge Keynesian stimulus package in China which underwrote the global economy, creating new demand for imports from the West, albeit that 20 million export jobs were lost in China itself. But the huge infrastructure, building and industrial investment made in China helped the West.

For China there have been worries about a property bubble, bad loans to local government and rising inflation, but none of these have yet run out of control. If another stimulus package were needed, China could do it again, if the government so decided.

What, however, would help the EU countries, especially those that have floundering real economies, is a Chinese investment strategy in Europe itself. There are a great many projects which could benefit from Chinese money.

But the residual suspicion of “reverse colonization”means that outright ownership by Chinese firms may not be welcomed. But one sound strategy could be to use “reverse joint ventures,” with China investing in joint ventures with Volkswagen, say and in the US with Honeywell or GE, companies that have been in very successful joint ventures in China itself. Some priority investments in Italy, Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal would make even more sense, along with buying some debt.

For such a strategy to work, the EU needs to save itself, first. It has the political capacity to build itself up out of crisis, as demonstrated by its very first treaties agreed in the chaos of post-war Europe. Germany has done this several times, both after the war and after re-unification.

As the economic leader of the EU, along with France, it needs to accept its historical and practical responsibilities. Otherwise, a breakup of the EU will hurt the living standards of all Europeans and simultaneously harm Chinese living standards as well.

The author is a coal mine safety adviser and a former member of the European Economic and social Committee. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn