By Jason Subler
DAVOS, Switzerland, Feb 1 (Reuters) - China hopes to act as a broker between rich and poor countries in reshaping the global financial system, say economists close to the government who attended the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the meeting of business and political leaders that China was ready to cooperate with other countries on finding ways to tackle the financial crisis ahead of the G20 summit of nations in London on April 2.
"China wants to be a bridge," David Li, director of the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, told Reuters.
"It doesn't want to be perceived to be totally on the side of the Western countries. Meanwhile, it doesn't want to be perceived to be only on the side of the developing countries. It really wants to be a new conciliatory force," Li said.
Beijing's approach contrasts with that of Russia, which is seen as less willing to engage and quicker to criticise.
Official comments offer little detail on what role China hopes to play, but economists close to the government say it will aim not to revolutionise the current order but rather to effect gradual change.
China will look to represent the interests of developing countries at the G20, said a number of Chinese analysts who attended the World Economic Forum, held in the Swiss ski resort of Davos last week.
"STEP-BY-STEP"
As a major engine for global growth, China has been thrust into the spotlight by the financial crisis.
Beijing has consistently indicated it wants to play its part in coping with the crisis and articulating a new global financial infrastructure.
The Chinese government will contribute to such efforts but is not anxious for either additional rights or responsibilities, analysts said.
"China hopes this reform could be done in a gradual, incremental, step-by-step way, not in a drastic way," said Wang Yizhou, deputy head of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the top government think-tank.
"We should reform our own system first and then do some contributions," Wang told Reuters.
Wang noted that China's approach differed significantly from that of Russia.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a speech at Davos on Wednesday offered a critique of the root causes of the financial crisis which cited excess borrowing by the West and reliance on cheap imports.
Missing from Putin's Davos speech was the degree of cooperation with the West emphasised by Wen.
Putin took a swipe at the U.S. dollar, saying the "extreme dependency on a single reserve currency is dangerous for the world economy" and favoured the emergence of several reserve currencies, even though his own currency is plunging significantly in value.
NOT LIKE DOHA
Cheng Siwei, an influential former Chinese lawmaker, said China would focus on helping solve the current problems, then insist on gradually reshaping the rules of the global system to give developing countries a better deal.
"We will take into account the benefit of the developing countries to modify the rules established by the developed countries -- this is very important," Cheng told reporters.
"We have to do this cautiously because we need compromise. Sometimes it's very difficult -- just look at the Doha round," said Cheng, referring to the stalled round of trade talks.
Cheng is the former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the largely rubber-stamp parliament.
China's emphasis on a gradual approach would be in keeping with the way Beijing has carried out its own reforms, from banking to foreign exchange policies, an approach that has often been criticised by other countries as too slow.
This approach means Beijing will not push aggressively to enhance its influence in multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said Tsinghua's Li.
"I don't think it's in the intrinsic nature of the Chinese government to try to take this opportunity, for example, to increase dramatically its voting shares in the IMF," he said.
China also has other reasons not to push too hard to lock itself into clubs such as the G7 or G8 groups of rich nations, as that could limit its flexibility in dealing with other issues, said Thomas Donohue, president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"The Chinese are never going to give up their right to have a one-on-one or a two-on-two or the six-party talks on Korea or whatever it happens to be," Donohue told Reuters.
"If you're asking are we going to expand the G8 or the G7, yes. But not all the time. It's going to be like an accordion."
For full coverage, blogs and TV from Davos go to http://www.reuters.com/davos (Reporting by Jason Subler; Editing by Stella Dawson and Jason Neely)