Paulson says China closely studying credit crisis

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is closely monitoring the turbulence in U.S. financial markets and is studying the lessons to be learned, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Thursday.

"They're watching very carefully. They look for models. One of the things I've noticed over the years when I worked with them on capital markets is that they weren't ideological. They looked for best practices anywhere in the world and moved quickly to adopt them," Paulson told reporters during a visit to Beijing.

Paulson, who said on Wednesday that the crisis was bound to give China pause about the pace of market liberalization, said this was not the biggest threat to further market opening.

"Reform never moves in a straight line. I think the biggest threat for reform in China is a strong domestic industry that doesn't want competition," Paulson said.

"It's pretty hard to say, if you are China, that we want full integration in trade but we're not to open our markets. That just isn't going to wash," he added.

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville; Editing by Alan Wheatley)