There is something US treasury officials can learn from their Chinese counterparts in managing the unfolding financial crisis .

In fact, a proposal that is gaining currency on Capitol Hill and within the administration looks rather similar to the policy and method adopted by the Chinese government in relieving the State-owned banks of their bad debt burdens.

In addition to injecting capital to selected State-owned banks, the Chinese government, in 1999, set up four asset management companies to take over a substantial portion of the non-performing loans on the books of those banks, with the longer-term objective of packaging those loans for sale to bargain-hunting investors. These measures greatly helped strengthen the banks' balance sheets, enabling them to raise funds in the capital markets of Hong Kong and on the mainland.