摘自《Time Magazine》
On Sept. 29, the House of Representatives passed a bill with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans. It would punish China for keeping its currency undervalued by slapping tariffs on Chinese goods. Everyone seems to agree that it's about time. But it isn't. The bill is at best pointless posturing and at worst dangerous demagoguery. It won't solve the problem it seeks to fix. More worrying, it is part of growing anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S. that misses the real challenge of China's next phase of development.
There's no doubt that China keeps the renminbi, its currency, undervalued so it can help its manufacturers sell their toys, sweaters and electronics cheaply in foreign markets, especially the U.S. and Europe. But this is only one of a series of factors that have made China the key manufacturing base of the world. (The others include low wages, superb infrastructure, hospitality to business, compliant unions and a hard-working labor force.) A simple appreciation of the renminbi will not magically change all this.
Chinese companies make many goods for less than 25% of what they would cost to manufacture in the U.S. Making those goods 20% more expensive (because it's reasonable to suppose that without government intervention, China's currency would increase in value against the dollar by about 20%) won't make American factories competitive. The most likely outcome is that it would help other low-wage economies like Vietnam, India and Bangladesh, which make many of the same goods as China. So Walmart would still stock goods at the lowest possible price, only more of them would come from Vietnam and Bangladesh. Moreover, these other countries, and many more in Asia, keep their currencies undervalued as well. As Helmut Reisen, head of research for the Development Center at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, wrote recently in an essay, "There are more than two currencies in the world."
We've seen this movie before. From July 2005 to July 2008, under pressure from the U.S. government, Beijing allowed its currency to rise against the dollar by 21%. Despite that hefty increase, China's exports to the U.S. continued to grow mightily. Of course, once the recession hit, China's exports slowed, but not as much as those of countries that had not let their currencies rise. So even with relatively pricier goods, China did better than other exporting nations.
