HONG KONG — On Feb. 26, International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn put forward a bold-sketch map for what he called "an IMF for the 21st century," but in the very same week he and two key members of the fund, China and Japan, flunked the most important test for the future of the IMF — good and open governance.
At the start of that week, Takatoshi Kato, a former vice minister of finance for international affairs of Japan, retired as IMF deputy managing director, to be succeeded this month by Naoyuki Shinohara, a former vice minister of finance for international affairs of Japan, in what was a clear and blatant case of a job for the "old boys" of Japan's Finance Ministry. Kato had taken over in 2004 from a former top Japanese finance official.
Then on Feb. 24, Strauss-Kahn announced that he was appointing Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, as his special adviser.