Strengthening financial regulation has been regarded by many as part of the process of rebuilding the post crisis global financial system.

The process, like many other international reforms, should take into account the interests of emerging and developing countries that have been hit again and again in past financial crises.

From the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and 1998 to the current finance mess torturing many Eastern European emerging economies, from the investment funds driving up the price of crude oil to speculative money exacerbating the food crisis, emerging and developing countries have repeatedly found themselves victimized in rounds of disorderly flow of international capital.

For any effort to strengthen financial regulation, it would just be another round of empty talks if it failed to accommodate the dire need for financial and economic security of emerging countries.

Both the United States and the European Union have unveiled principles for strengthening financial regulation.

Those principles, though good for a start, are also conspicuous for failing to address many needs of emerging and developing countries.

They have called for enhanced monitoring of cross border capital flows, increased transparency of financial markets and products, the establishment of a truly global early warning system for detecting risks accumulated in the financial sector, especially the financial industries in major financial centers in Western countries, and strengthened international monitoring of the macroeconomic policies of countries printing major world reserve currencies.

Essentially, a strengthened global financial regulatory framework is the best weapon to detect and defuse possible financial crises in the future.

(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2009)