Premier Wen Jiabao's call for efforts to maintain economic growth highlighted increasing concerns among Chinese policymakers about recent weakness in the world's second largest economy.

The dim, if not darkening, growth prospects of the global economy certainly justify cautious policy adjustments to save the Chinese economy from too many external shocks.

But it does not warrant suggestions that the government should do a complete about-face on monetary tightening to allay domestic pains during the economic transformation.

China's economic growth fell to a nearly three-year low of 8.1 percent over a year earlier in the first quarter and is expected to fall further. More recently, some bleak data for April have given rise to worries that China's economy might be cooling faster than previously thought.

However, had the fragile global recovery been kept on track, the country's current slowdown would not look so worrying.

The Chinese government has cut the nation's 2012 growth target to 7.5 percent from the 8 percent of the past years and targeted restructuring its economy.

While shifting away from its long-term dependence on investment and exports for double-digit growth, it is only natural that the Chinese economy will witness slower growth before its domestic consumption can be effectively boosted, an arduous task that will not be done overnight. Besides, the ongoing slowdown is also a desirable result of China's efforts in the past two years to cool inflation and steer the country's rapid economic growth onto a more sustainable path.

Yet, during a weekend trip to the industrial city of Wuhan, Wen said: "We should continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, while giving more priority to maintaining growth."

This statement makes clear the urgency of preventing the economy from slowing down too rapidly. But Wen's words should be interpreted from a global perspective.

If European policymakers cannot come up with brave measures to stop a Greek exit from the single currency or US politicians fail to reach a sensible agreement on their government's debt ceiling, China may have to brace for more than simply a drop in global demand.

The pain that some domestic industries such as the real estate sector are feeling has so far made little case for Chinese policymakers to start reversing course.

That is why the Chinese government has kept in place curbs on lending and buying to cool surging housing costs.

After all, caution in the face of a slowdown should not blind us to the danger of huge property bubbles that lie deep at heart of many countries' economic and financial troubles.