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发达国家已经投入数千亿资金用于救市，他们聚焦的是国内的经济萧条窘境。发展中国家则按照全球财政状况做出自己的调整来应对这场金融危机。虽然每个国家的领导人都知道“向邻国求救”的策略可能会让现在的经济危机更加糟糕，而保护本国经济依旧是大家采取的首要措施。让外国人成为替罪羊，而让自己国家的人有工作可干。

You think the world’s economic outlook is grim? Consider this possibility: Europe rejects the United States’ call for more fiscal stimulus and resists further monetary easing, and Congress further tightens import restrictions to ensure the economic rescue package only creates jobs at home and doesn’t leak to other countries.

Rich nations that have spent hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out their banks instruct them to focus on lending at home. Developing countries are cut off from international finance. Most devalue; many default. Trying to export their way out, they engage in competitive devaluations yet run up against new import barriers in the West.

It would be wrong to shrug off this scenario. Of course, every world leader knows that beggar-thy-neighbor strategies are likely to make the current global emergency worse. Still, protectionism thrives in economic crises as people seek scapegoats abroad for their troubles and demand protection for domestic jobs.

At their summit in Washington last November, leaders of the Group of 20 biggest economies underscored “the critical importance of rejecting protectionism.” A tally by the World Bank found that 17 of the countries have imposed some kind of protectionist policy — from tariffs to tax rebates to export subsidies — since then.

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Leaders gathering for another G-20 summit next week in London must not only commit to avoid this path, they must flesh out their commitment with concrete proposals for concerted actions. The world needs a bargain that commits us all to seek collective solutions.

The meeting could easily snag on intractable differences. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that countries in the euro zone will suffer a deeper recession than the United States. Still, this seems less of a worry to Europe than potential long-term budget deficits and currency weakness. The countries have not only refused the American call to spend more to dig out, but the Czech prime minister, representing the European Union, called the American plan the “way to hell.”

But there are some areas of accord that could be built on — including support by Japan, the European Union and the United States to increase the resources available to the I.M.F. to at least $500 billion. The I.M.F. also has revamped aid programs to loosen some conditions and speed up payment to countries in need.

More needs to be done to help poorer nations. The World Bank has asked industrial countries to commit 0.7 percent of their stimulus financing toward aid. They could also back a new issue of special drawing rights — the I.M.F.’s currency that can be used to help nations in need — and welcome a bigger role in the fund for China, which could use some of its vast resources to help. It is important that they lean on their banks — perhaps provide guarantees — to encourage them not to pull out of the developing world.

These efforts would help avert catastrophe in the poor world — which would inevitably come back to bite the richer nations — and would establish a sense of collective responsibility. This is vital. Whether countries agree today on specific ideas for economic stimulus and financial rescue, this crisis is not over. Part of the task ahead will be to monitor the evolution of the economic emergency and the effectiveness of rescue plans.

This month, the I.M.F. forecasted that the world economy would contract between 0.5 percent and 1 percent this year, which would be the worst performance since World War II. But each new forecast brings worse news. Rescue plans may well need to be intensified. If reality turns out worse than expected, it would be best if the world’s leading countries were still talking and could agree to do something about it.