China's current account surplus and export growth have, indeed, fallen.

Russia is also thought to no longer need help because its economy and public finances are much improved, thanks to rising oil prices and a GDP growing at 6.5 per annum.

Indeed, Russia is running fiscal and current account surpluses of 2 and 17 of GDP respectively.

That country has a trade surplus. It exports more than it imports.

To be sure, China has accumulated an enormous balance of payments surplus, which indicates that the renminbi is greatly undervalued.

Today, the US is running surpluses and is seeing a rapidly falling debt ratio while Germany, by contrast, has just negotiated a truce called the Waigel Pact.

Until recently, Russia has pursued an admirably conservative macroeconomic policy, running up huge budget and current account surpluses.

The smaller current account surplus in northern Europe that might result from this should itself be welcome.

Rebalancing also involves a global demand switch from external deficit countries to those running large current account surpluses. With lower spending and higher savings in the advanced economies, key emerging markets must take up the slack and start providing the demand needed to power the global recovery.

Rebalancing also involves a global demand switch from external deficit countries to those running large current account surpluses.

But, while it is true that China s current account surpluses and America s deficits have somewhat moderated since then, have the imbalances really been corrected?

Consider China, where the saving and investment rates are near 40 , where the current account is in surplus and there is no public debt.

They have shown that the major capital inflows were not from emerging markets, but from Europe, where there was no net balance of payments surplus.

Partly by design and partly by chance, about a decade ago China found itself consistently accumulating large amounts of foreign reserves by running a trade surplus and intervening to buy up the dollars that this generated.

Rising food prices are an international phenomenon, and Russia s inflation is driven by the large current account surpluses and capital inflows.

China, the world s growth superstar, has a huge current account surplus, which means that it is a net lender to the rest of the world.

Moreover, national banking systems can now separate more easily, because the peripheral countries current accounts have already achieved a rough balance, with all but Greece expected to record a small external surplus in 2014.

With imports still growing strongly and commodity prices beginning to fall as a result of the world slowdown, Argentina s large trade surplus is disappearing quickly.

China found it useful to run a large trade surplus, using a very high rate of internal savings and inward foreign investment to support its industrialization and rapid growth.

Meanwhile, the trade surplus is rising again, in part because China is dumping its excess supply of goods such as steel in global markets.

The counterargument hinges on the difference between the current account deficit and the trade deficit.

With the global economy recovering, China s trade surplus began to grow.

With a modest fiscal deficit, record low borrowing costs, and a huge current account surplus, Germany has the financial firepower to unleash a significant stimulus. But Germany sees no need to stimulate its own economy, and is willing to consider only modest eurozone measures, such as additional capital for the European Investment Bank, a small pilot program for European Union project bonds for infrastructure investment, and more rapid deployment of unspent EU structural funds.

This led to massive current account surpluses (more than 10 of GDP at one point), which sent capital flowing to the rest of the world.

With a modest fiscal deficit, record low borrowing costs, and a huge current account surplus, Germany has the financial firepower to unleash a significant stimulus.

Second, governments have to start running budget surpluses and use privatization to set aside revenues that can be invested to meet future claims.

Indeed, if foreign owned enterprises exports are deducted from the total trade volume, the surplus vanishes, because both the overall balance of merchandise trade and the balance of trade in services normally run deficits.

No country can borrow forever or at least at very high rates. But do current account constraints apply to major, financially stable countries?

The renminbi s exchange rate, then, is really a secondary factor in China s external account.

But do current account constraints apply to major, financially stable countries?

And, with the eurozone running a current account surplus of nearly 350 billion which the euro s recent decline will bolster further there is no risk of a eurozone wide balance of payments crisis.

As incomes in China grow, imports from other low or middle income countries rise faster than imports from high wage countries. China's trade surplus with the US exceeds 100 billion, but it runs a deficit with India.

China's trade surplus with the US exceeds 100 billion, but it runs a deficit with India.

Why can t the US current account deficit remain at its 2006 value indefinitely?

So its trade surplus continues to soar at the expense of other countries.

This is the strongest decline in net foreign demand facing a single country, or, equivalently, the strongest increase in a country s net demand for foreign goods.

The US has complained about China s current account (trade) surpluses but, as a percentage of GDP, Germany s surplus is even greater.

Countries that ran significant current account surpluses, built up large reserves, and fixed (or heavily managed) their exchange rates in order to support the first two objectives appeared to secure external stability.

Before the crisis, the IMF s best known function lending to countries with balance of payment problems was becoming irrelevant.

In addition, the lower energy import bill will cause America s trade deficit to narrow and its balance of payments position to improve.

This makes the renminbi chronically undervalued and assures China of a persistent large trade surplus.

Japan s trade balance fell into deficit in 2011, for the first time since 1980.

Its launch has sharply weakened the yen and is now leading to rising trade surpluses.

Its trade balance is positive, and total public debt is not as high as it is in other countries.

Indeed, countries from Singapore to Russia are running large surpluses.