时事英语－英语新闻导读 2004.3.1（在线收听）

人民币升值对美国的危害
How a Stronger Yuan Could Hurt the U.S.　 

《纽约时报》

人民币对美元的汇率在最近数月已成为人们关注的大问题，它似乎成了今后美国繁荣的主要威胁。
 
How a Stronger Yuan Could Hurt the U.S.
By EDUARDO PORTER

Published: February 29, 2004

From all the attention given to the Chinese yuan in recent months, it would seem that the currency is a major threat to American prosperity.

American manufacturers have railed for months against the yuan's peg to the dollar. They contend that a cheap currency gives Chinese exporters unfair advantage, contributing to the $124 billion bilateral trade deficit and threatening American jobs.

Adding official gravitas to the complaint, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow even threatened to hold China's "feet to the fire" if it did not relax the yuan's decade-long peg of 8.28 to the dollar and let it float higher. Last week, he sent a delegation to Beijing to convey the point to authorities there.

Despite the heated words, it is not clear that making China jack up the yuan would be in the best interest of the United States.

A nominal appreciation of the yuan would do little to change the international competitiveness of Chinese producers. Barry P. Bosworth, an economist at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said that a rising yuan would reduce prices of imported goods in China, cool Chinese inflation and thus restore the currency's competitive edge.

In fact, China's global trade is in better balance than that of the United States. Its current account surplus - the broad trade in goods and services, as well as interest payments - is equivalent to only about 1.5 percent of its total gross domestic product. The current account deficit of the United States amounts to about 5 percent of G.D.P.

But neither gap can be closed by just tinkering with the bilateral exchange rate. China has a surplus because it saves a lot and spends little. The United States, on the other hand, spends beyond its means. "Changing an exchange rate does not change these net savings propensities in any obvious ways," Ronald I. McKinnon, an economist at Stanford, wrote in an academic paper last summer.

A change in foreign exchange policy, though, could lead China and other Asian countries to channel less money into the United States, which could push interest rates higher and eventually force Americans to change their spending habits.

China keeps the yuan's exchange rate low against the dollar by printing money to buy dollar-denominated securities. If it were to float the yuan, it would need to buy less. And if neighbors like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan shadowed the move and let their currencies also rise against the dollar, as many economists expect, they could put a collective brake on the United States' extraordinary access to foreign money.

According to the Treasury Department, foreigners plowed a record $744 billion into American securities of all sorts in 2003, up from $548 billion the previous year.

The government used much of that to pay for its budget deficit. Foreigners now hold about 40 percent of outstanding American Treasury securities. And nearly 60 percent of the foreign flows last year were channeled into Treasuries and other government agency bonds.

ASIA provided a substantial amount of that cash. Last year, China's foreign exchange reserves grew by $160 billion as the central bank tried to mop up the flood of investment from abroad and keep a lid on the exchange rate. Then the Chinese turned around and spent more than $60 billion of this to buy United States Treasury and other government bonds.

Other Asian countries followed suit. Japan alone funneled $171 billion into Treasuries and other United States government securities last year as it intervened to hold down the yen. Taiwan bought $18 billion worth of United States government paper. South Korea bought $14 billion. In the last two years, money flows from Asian countries into American government securities covered two-thirds of the $650 billion growth in the public debt of the United States.

If they stopped, it would probably hurt. "It's hard to buy the argument that a retrenchment by foreign central banks would not have an impact on Treasury yields," said Rebecca McCaughrin, an economist at Morgan Stanley.

Of course, a shift in exchange rates across Asia would not cut off all Asian money flows to the United States. Not all of the Asian financing is prompted by central banks intervening in foreign exchange markets. Some of the money comes from private investors. And central banks would still have to intervene to maintain a new foreign exchange peg.

Jim O'Neill, chief economist of Goldman Sachs, said he thought China and other Asian countries had already shifted a big part of their reserves out of the dollar - perhaps preparing for a currency realignment - and could thus change their exchange rate without causing much stress to interest rates in the United States.

But as the rhetoric against China's foreign exchange arrangements has escalated, investors are growing wary. "When I speak to clients around the world it is invariably the first or second question they ask," Mr. O'Neill said. "A lot of people out there are very bearish about U.S. bonds. This is another reason to worry."