I am a visiting academic enjoying working with colleagues in China for a few days.

I was amazed to read in your May 31 article by Bai Tiantian noting the petition to the education minister calling for more Marxist courses in economics. Since economics is regarded as a science, a call for Marxist courses in economics could be equated to a call for Marxist courses in physics.

Of course a Marxist approach is important to address the issues that are of most concern to ordinary people, such as jobs, wages, social issues and the failures of economics, but these are only one aspect of economics.

The involvement of Chinese economists in key economic debates on these and key issues in Western economies could greatly contribute to progress.

Look at the policy of austerity widely adopted in the West. Its economic basis was flawed, and failure to correctly analyze the data in the original papers was pointed out by a group of Canadian economics students. While some academic circles recognized the work of the students, it was widely disregarded in the West.

An article by a leading Chinese economist in a journal like Nature or The Economist would have had considerable impact, especially if it reflected a wider discussion in the Chinese press led by Chinese economists on this particular failing of Western economics.

Austerity was widely adopted in Europe with disastrous consequences for many poorer people, especially the disabled, the unemployed, the sick, the young and the old. Consider how much help it would have been for Greeks, Brits, Spaniards, Italians and other peoples if the academic basis for austerity had been widely challenged by Chinese economists.

It would have been widely recognized by university students in the West, led by those at The University of Manchester in the UK, who demanded courses in economics that had a wider consideration of the impact of economics and its failings. Academics and ordinary people across the world would have recognized the valuable contributions of China's scholars to the science of economics.

John Baruch, a senior lecturer at the University of Bradford, UK, an academic visitor at The Open University and a visiting professor at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou