本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Undervalued yuan puts China in driver's seat
By BRIAN MILNER
Monday, July 7, 2003 - Page B2
Just take a stroll through the nearest mall if you want an up-close and personal view of one of the most contentious issues on the global economic stage today.
Check out the low price tags on everything from T-shirts, towels and toys to big-ticket TVs and laptop computers. Chances are they were made or at least partly assembled in China. And if not, they came from another source forced to match Chinese prices to stay in business.
Bargain-hunting shoppers have been keenly aware of this deflationary trend for some time. It's great for consumers, keeps retailers afloat and aggravates people trying to boycott Chinese goods.
No one anywhere seems able to beat China, whose export economy continues to roar ahead at a near-record clip while other countries are still struggling to get back on a growth track. Plentiful supplies of cheap labour and capital are important advantages. But the remarkable performance is in no small part the result of a deliberately undervalued and tightly controlled currency.
The Chinese yuan has been pegged since 1995 in a narrow trading range of about 8.3 to the U.S. dollar, whose recent weakness has probably been a bigger boon to the Chinese than to the ever-shrinking world of U.S. manufacturing. Currency watchers say this is far too low, given China's vast foreign exchange reserves and its huge trade surpluses.
Fred Hu, a China watcher with Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg News on Friday that the yuan is "modestly undervalued" by as much as 15 per cent. Others say the currency should be at least 20 or 30 per cent higher than its present level.
No one expects the Chinese to suddenly float their currency, ease exchange controls and leave the yuan's fate in the hands of market forces. But China is under growing pressure to do something about a serious imbalance that is inflicting considerable damage on struggling economies around the world. The United States, Japan and other developed countries are worried about the rapid decline of their manufacturing sectors, the prospect of global deflation and China's growing trade clout, while Third World competitors are fighting a losing battle in international markets.
It is not a level playing field. And as the Chinese win an ever-increasing share of global exports, they are starting to exert pricing power in a widening range of industries, from simple textiles to the most sophisticated electronics and machinery parts. Foreign producers are being forced to match them, taking a haircut on profits, which is not a good strategy for long-term survival.
Not even the SARS epidemic has slowed the Chinese export locomotive. In the first five months of this year, shipments of high-tech goods ballooned 55 per cent to $35.8-billion (U.S.). The Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association, a business lobby that understandably keeps worried tabs on Chinese developments, forecasts that China will take over this year as the world leader in eight big-selling consumer items. Among them are TVs, DVD players, personal computers, car stereos, wireless phones and laptops.
Unlike Japan, which isn't used to getting clobbered in consumer electronics, the United States has been racking up losses on the merchandise trade front for years. But its latest dismal job numbers and gloomy manufacturing prospects may finally persuade the Bush administration that China has to be checked before it's too late.
The U.S. unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent in June was worse than had been expected and the highest in nearly a decade. But the really troubling news was the continuing plunge in manufacturing, where 56,000 more jobs disappeared. That brings the total manufacturing jobs that have evaporated in the United States during the Bush II era to more than 2.6 million.
There are numerous reasons for the decline, led by the steep cutbacks in capacity that followed the collapse of tech and telecom spending. But the fact is that even as the American pie has shrunk, the Chinese have been grabbing an ever-larger slice. China's trade surplus with the United States totalled $103-billion last year, a figure that trade specialists say could triple within five years. And all the tax cuts and pump-priming in the world won't fix the problem.
Chinese officials say they have no intention of changing what they regard as a successful policy that has provided stability, steered the country unscathed through the Asian currency meltdown of 1997 and cushioned the troubled domestic economy from even more severe shocks. But it is a costly and complicated policy that ties the hands of the central bank and alienates China's trading partners, foreign investors and its own companies in need of easier access to foreign currencies.
The rest of the world is still treading carefully when it comes to pressing China to revalue its currency. But self-restraint is in its own best interest, as government officials appear to acknowledge privately. There will be change, although it will be in small steps.
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