Thursday 26 November 2009

Economist special report on China-US relations

A recent edition of the Economist published an excellent 16 page special on the China-US relationship. I was in China when it came out so could not blog about it then.

The most interesting article in called "round and round it goes" and touches on the "two drunks propping each other up" argument relating US spending, exchange rates and China's Treasury holdings.

There is some truth in the argument that China has been kidnapped by the US. I suspect the US will try to inflate away its debt and China will be the loser.

Here is the full report.

A wary respect [Economist]

Here is the report on the unsustainable position of US buying Chinese exports and China buying US treasuries. It cannot continue. Most of this article is old news to those who read this blog and I also disagree on a number of points. A new round of protectionism is possible but I believe that China is learning the game very quickly and thus I suspect this is not where the real problem lies.

Round and round it goes [Economist]

AT ONE stage it all seemed to be working, even if it appeared a little surreal. China, a developing country, lent vast amounts of money to wealthy America to feed its spending habit. Americans spent the money on Chinese-made goods, sending the dollars back to China, which lent them to America again. But now many talk of a decoupling of the two economies. Niall Ferguson, a Harvard historian who, only a couple of years ago, popularised the term “Chimerica” for the symbiosis between the two, now says it is a marriage headed for the rocks.


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You lose, we lose

As far as the economy is concerned, China heartily agrees. It may grumble about the dollar’s dominance in the global trading system, but it has no desire to pull the rug from under America’s economy. A run on the dollar would be a blow to China itself, slashing the value of its stash of over $800 billion in US Treasuries. Chinese officials also worry openly about a possible resurgence of inflation in America, which would also drive down the value of the dollar. The American budget deficit spooks China, but appears to make little difference to its willingness to lend. China, says Wu Xiaoqiu of Renmin University, has been “kidnapped” by America’s currency. China’s purchases of US Treasuries will naturally slow down along with its export growth. But for now the country is still piling them up.

China may dream of a different world in which the yuan ranks alongside the dollar, euro, sterling and yen as a reserve currency. It is beginning to promote use of the yuan instead of the dollar in transactions with some of its trade partners, but it has set no timetable for making its currency convertible. In September it bought $50 billion in IMF bonds to boost its influence in the institution and strengthen the role of non-dollar currencies (IMF bills are linked to a basket of currencies). But China has not sought to ease the Americans or Europeans out from their dominant roles in the World Bank and the IMF.

When Timothy Geithner, now treasury secretary, said during a Senate confirmation hearing in January that Mr Obama believed China was “manipulating” its currency to gain an unfair trade advantage, the administration was quick to back away from the remark. The yuan’s value has hardly been mentioned in public since. A recent study by the Peterson Institute says that the yuan remains “significantly undervalued”, by 15-25% against a weighted average of the currencies used by China’s trading partners. But American officials know just how prickly China can get when it is accused of mercantilism.

As Americans save more and buy less from China, America’s trade deficit with China—which has been its biggest with any country since 2000—will shrink anyway. But protectionist sentiment in both countries will remain strong. Mr Obama’s decision in September to impose punitive tariffs on imports of Chinese steel pipes and tyres infuriated the Chinese government, although it has so far resisted lashing out (summitry with Mr Obama being too big a party to spoil).


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