High Stakes in China

Extraordinary meetings underway today in China. A third of the US cabinet members, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, plus Fed chief Ben Bernanke and the head of the EPA, all in Beijing.

An unprecedented rollout of American officials urgently seeking economic reform and favors from China.

The so-called U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue is partly to kowtow to China's soaring global economic clout, and partly to cajole Beijing into changes Washington is desperate to see.

At stake: jobs, interest rates, prices at Walmart and everywhere else, and maybe the global economy. The finance men fear a Chinese meltdown, a US meltdown, or maybe both and more.

This hour On Point: American power goes to China.

Guests:

Krishna Guha, chief US economics correspondent for the Financial Times

Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics, Harvard University and chief economist at the World Bank from 2001 to 2003

Stephen Roach, managing director and chief economist, Morgan Stanley