The strong lobby for an emerging-nation candidate notwithstanding, Europe may very well opt to play it safe than go with uncertainty.

The questions therefore abound.

Washington has traditionally decided which American will head the World Bank. Ditto the European Union, regarding the IMF. So, what would be the fate of the selection process at the World Bank if the traditional selection approach is dumped at the IMF for a more democratic one?

If the IMF breaks with tradition, who's to stop the trend from rolling over into the other fellow Bretton Woods institution?

Will the US Treasury Secretary be as positively responsive to calls for Washington to give up its sole right to decide who head the World Bank as he expected the world to be to his demand that Strauss Kahn be replaced – by whoever – even before he faced a court?

Will Europe and the US accept or allow an emerging country candidate to take over the IMF at this time when Europe is insisting that selection is better than election?

China isn't offering a candidate, but the fact of China's very positive economic performance and survival through the global economic turbulence of the past decade is an invitation for the search of a China candidate. If so, would Washington and Brussels accept a Chinese nomination or recommendation?

The US and Europe seem to be taking no chances. They seem bent on maintaining the Bretton Woods status quo.

Yet, if they resist the changes they most often demand of others, they will be showing, they will be sending more worrying signals.

Once again, they are showing that when it comes to their respective and common interests, as far as Europe and the US are concerned, selection can replace election and dictatorship can replace democracy, once the desired result is achieved.

In other words, today's lingering imperial powers insist they must continue to decide how the world's money is handled – even in this new global dispensation.

And, let there be no doubt, once they have decided, they will insist on having their way, by any means necessary, or possible!

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.ccgp-fushun.com/opinion/node_7107878.htm

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