WASHINGTON — Finance ministers and central bank governors in Washington at the IMF/World Bank annual meetings ended their discussions last weekend with a whimper of a final communique. There was much talk of currency war and trade war in the hallways and hotels, but in the end the leaders postponed the main issue.

Catastrophe looms unless someone can persuade China that growing economic power should be matched with growing global responsibility, while persuading the United States to cool its rhetoric.

The International Monetary Fund's key committee was full of pious blah-blah, without a single mention of "dollar" or "renminbi" or even "currencies." The final paragraph of a three-page statement said: "While the international monetary system has proved resilient, tensions and vulnerabilities remain as a result of widening global imbalances, continued volatile capital flows, exchange rate movements, and issues related to the supply and accumulation of official reserves." It called upon the IMF to "deepen its work" on these issues "including in-depth studies to help increase the effectiveness of policies to manage capital flows."