【正文】 a largescale rise in new nonperforming loans this year is unlikely. First of all, most of the loans aren’t due for another two to three years. Second, China’s economy has incredible potential. Over the next two to three decades, maintaining GDP growth of 8% should not be a problem. China’s industrialization and urbanization continue to make it one of the top destinations for foreign investment. On the other hand, the growing domestic economy and the change of people’s attitudes toward credit and consumption should also drive growth. Together, these factors should mitigate the emergence of nonperforming loans [on a large scale]. So while I expect some losses, I don’t think we are facing systemic risk. Ma: I wanted to write the book because Wall Street has faced some real challenges over the past five years. I’ve had the opportunity to meet many of the regulators and people on Wall Street and made quite a few friends, including [. Treasury Secretary] Tim Geithner. I wrote the book because I personally experienced the crisis while at our New York branch. The opening day of the branch was on the eve of the crisis. When I attended the opening, it was [the beginning] of 10 of the toughest days of the crisis. When I spoke with my friends on Wall Street, we discussed what was happening. During such turbulent times, everyone has different judgments, analysis and predictions. Six months later, looking back on everyone’s reactions was extremely interesting. Furthermore, the crisis was a real turning point for the future of many people, panies and even countries. It made regulatory reform a reality, and it redefined the future for many things. It also gave China a real wakeup call. If it hadn’t been for the crisis, China may still not have fully recognized the need to shift from an exportbased economy to one driven by domestic consumption. Given the wideranging significance of the crisis, I thought it really merited a book. Ma: The process of understanding the crisis helped us refine our plans for overseas expansion more carefully. It’s been an excellent learning experience and has made us more mature in terms of decisionmaking. Ma: The major challenge right now for us is to improve our management capabilities. Our recent strategic been about improving our capabilities in market access, globalizing our business and information management. Although we have won a lot of recognition in the sector, there are still many weaknesses in our management mindset. When I go down to the “shop floor,” everyone is bursting with enthusiasm, and when the topic of growth is discussed, everyone is ready for us to keep doubling our size. No one understands that that capital is absolutely essential to growth, but acquiring capital isn’t so easy. Ma: They like me probably because, despite having worked in many official positions prior to CMB, I don’t consider myself to be an appointed official anymore or that I am entitled to my position. When I arrived at CMB, I thought of myself as a professional manager, and as such, I knew that my responsibility was to use my authority to manage and promote [CMB] and grow the pany properly. That means doing what a bank manager should do. There are two other things that have inspired me over the years and driven me to focus on the mission at hand. The first is professional responsibility. As a banker managing more than RMB 2 trillions of assets, you have the trust of many customers. Furthermore, more than tens of thousands employees have trusted me with their livelihoods. I have responsibility to this society, my customers and employees. The second is my passion and interest in [the sector], because if my only driver was responsibility, I might lose my way. However, I am extremely interested in what I do. I have been working with CMB throughout its transformation from a tiny seed to its present size with all my employees. The way I see it, real happiness is to do happy things with happy people. This might be one of the reasons why the media like me, and I am straightforward and frank in answering their questions as well. Ma: This has been our biggest challenge. CMB has grown from RMB 100 million in assets to RMB 2 trillion, its products and services have multiplied as well, and the plexity of the business has increased immensely. We’ve had to bring all sorts of people into the pany, including top managers. [That39。s president, his thoughts on what lies ahead for his countr y39。s start some very strong measures.” Guillen:What is that going to mean for the dollar? Well, I think Americans all of us, in other words are going to have to think very hard about what we are doing, and our standard of living is going to e down on average. I think this is inevitable unless we bee more petitive. It is a bad thing that now when there is uncertainty in the world, the dollar suddenly bees more valuable because that is hurting some of the incipient export activities going in and out of this economy. So it is actually, I think, bad that this is happening. But people seem to celebrate it [because] suddenly the dollar is a little bit stronger. That is actually the last thing that we would like to have right now in the . a strong dollar. What we need is a relatively weak dollar. We need to reduce the trade deficit and we need to bee more petitive and import less. This is actually producing the wrong set of incentives. But, again, I think there are too many “ifs” and too many moving parts in the questions that were just formulated. Again, I think, right now given that the hotspot seems to be Europe that39。s no choice. The other point I want to make is that there is a shortterm consideration, a midterm consideration, and a longterm consideration, which has been implicit, right? Yes, Merkel party suffered a major defeat in regional elections last weekend]