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Does this mean that Europe is committing suicide by sending Klaus Regling to Beijing? Once again, we can learn a lot by looking back 100 years. In 2011, we are used to reading in the newspapers that China is a crass, corrupt, economic giant, manipulating its currency and rigging the markets to catch up with the West. Back in 1911, though, British newspapers levelled exactly the same charges against the USA. And they were right. Within 50 years, the US had conquered the world's markets and the European empires were gone. A disaster for Europe - or was it? In 2011 the average European lives 30 years longer than the average in 1911 and earns five times as much. Europe is far freer than it was in 1911 and has not had a major war in 66 years. All things considered, losing its number one spot and becoming dependent on American capital was a good deal for 20th Century Europe. 'Sloth and indolence' Will dependency on Chinese capital in the 21st Century be equally good? No one knows, but the signs are not promising. Just last week, Jin Liqun, the supervising chairman of China's sovereign wealth fund, told an al-Jazeera interviewer that Beijing should only lend to Europe if the EU turns itself upside down. "If you look at the troubles which happened in European countries," said Jin. "This is purely because of the accumulated troubles of the worn out welfare society The labour laws induce sloth, indolence, rather than hard working." Europe might find Chinese economic hegemony much harder to live with than an American one. So what should Europe do? Looking at history again suggests an answer. A hundred and fifty years ago, around 1861, China and Japan both collapsed as Western gunships and financiers pushed into East Asia. Nothing Japan or China could have done would have stopped the rise of Western wealth and power. How they reacted to that rise, however, made all the difference between triumph and tragedy. China's rulers borrowed heavily from overseas, squandered the capital, and fell into dependency. Japan's rulers bought time, raised huge amounts of local capital and financed an indigenous industrial revolution. By 1911, Japan was a great power and China was the sick man of Asia. A century and a half later, the EU faces the same choices. Nothing it can do will stop the rise of the Eastern wealth and power - in 100 years, Asia will be the world's economic powerhouse - but how it reacts matters very much indeed. Europe should choose the Japanese path. It will take trillions of euros to contain the crisis and the pain will be immense. But the alternative, of mortgaging Europe's future with Chinese loans, might prove worse.