With all eyes on him, Hu stressed at the summit that "China is willing to support international financial organizations to increase their financing capacity in accordance with the changes in international markets and increase support to developing countries affected by the financial crisis."

Hu also announced that the country "is willing to actively participate in the trade-financing plan of the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank."

But he did not say for certain whether China would contribute to the IMF or pledge any specific amount.

"I have not seen any signal that China will do that," Huang said, while Lardy told Beijing Review that Chinese officials have said explicitly that China would be willing to participate in a general increase in funding for the IMF.

"Vice Minister Li Yong of the Ministry of Finance has indicated, as I think other Chinese officials have, that China contributing money to the IMF is certainly within the realm of possibility," Lardy said.

But he also pointed out that China is not going to offer money without a corresponding increase in its voting shares in the IMF and other international organizations. China currently has only 3.66 percent of voting shares in the IMF, compared with 16.77 percent for the United States, 5.88 percent for Germany and 4.86 percent for Britain and France.

"I do think inevitably China will have a larger voice and larger voting shares in the IMF and the World Bank," Lardy said. "I think the same is true for a number of other emerging market economies" whose voting shares are disproportionately small compared to the size of their economies, their international trade and foreign exchange reserves.

Keeping the house in order

While the world expects China to play a bigger role at the international level in addressing the global financial crisis, the country has clearly indicated that its first priority and most important role in contributing to the global economy will be maintaining its own economic growth.

"China has generally understood its contribution to global challenges as stemming largely from reform on the home front, rather than leadership on the international stage," wrote Elizabeth C. Economy and Adam Segal, senior fellows and experts on China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, in an article published on the organization's Website.

Faced with falling exports amid a global recession, China is trying to increase domestic demand by cutting interest rates, lowering bank reserve requirement ratios, reforming value-added taxes and increasing infrastructure spending. These efforts were highlighted by China's announcement of a massive stimulus package on November 9, which was estimated at $586 billion, about one third of the nation's total fixed asset investment last year.

The package includes investment over the next two years in 10 major sectors, including low-income housing, rural infrastructure, water, electricity, transportation, the environment, technological innovation and disaster reconstruction.

The stimulus plan was hailed by the international community, including IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who said it would have a positive effect on the world economy. But the world is still waiting to see whether that action will help restore market confidence and global economic stability. Questions concerning the real value of the package still remain.

"It's uncertain how much of this funding is actually 'new,' with some analysts arguing that well over one third of the package is simply previously allocated funds that have been rebranded," Economy and Segal wrote in their article.

Paul Krugman, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, said at a press conference held in New York on November 14 that he guessed about one third of the money in the stimulus plan is new. "It does take some pressure off," Krugman said.