Chinese New Year
以下文章是PAUL KRUGMAN的新年预测，转在这里并不是说明我的态度，只是觉得，新年新岁，有人说点不爱听的，有时候是件好事。 这样说丧气话的不只克鲁格曼一个人，新闻周刊也预测中国经济会在2010年崩溃（点击这里）。
Chinese New Year
Paul Krugman
It’s the season when pundits traditionally make predictions about the year ahead. Mine concerns international economics: I predict that 2010 will be the year of China. And not in a good way.
Actually, the biggest problems with China involve climate change. But today I want to focus on currency policy.
China has become a major financial and trade power. But it doesn’t act like other big economies. Instead, it follows a mercantilist policy, keeping its trade surplus artificially high. And in today’s depressed world, that policy is, to put it bluntly, predatory.
Here’s how it works: Unlike the dollar, the euro or the yen, whose values fluctuate freely, China’s currency is pegged by official policy at about 6.8 yuan to the dollar. At this exchange rate, Chinese manufacturing has a large cost advantage over its rivals, leading to huge trade surpluses.
Under normal circumstances, the inflow of dollars from those surpluses would push up the value of China’s currency, unless it was offset by private investors heading the other way. And private investors are trying to get into China, not out of it. But China’s government restricts capital inflows, even as it buys up dollars and parks them abroad, adding to a $2 trillion-plus hoard of foreign exchange reserves.
This policy is good for China’s export-oriented state-industrial complex, not so good for Chinese consumers. But what about the rest of us?
In the past, China’s accumulation of foreign reserves, many of which were invested in American bonds, was arguably doing us a favor by keeping interest rates low — although what we did with those low interest rates was mainly to inflate a housing bubble. But right now the world is awash in cheap money, looking for someplace to go. Short-term interest rates are close to zero; long-term interest rates are higher, but only because investors expect the zero-rate policy to end some day. China’s bond purchases make little or no difference.
Meanwhile, that trade surplus drains much-needed demand away from a depressed world economy. My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that for the next couple of years Chinese mercantilism may end up reducing U.S. employment by around 1.4 million jobs.
The Chinese refuse to acknowledge the problem. Recently Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, dismissed foreign complaints: “On one hand, you are asking for the yuan to appreciate, and on the other hand, you are taking all kinds of protectionist measures.” Indeed: other countries are taking (modest) protectionist measures precisely because China refuses to let its currency rise. And more such measures are entirely appropriate.
Or are they? I usually hear two reasons for not confronting China over its policies. Neither holds water.
First, there’s the claim that we can’t confront the Chinese because they would wreak havoc with the U.S. economy by dumping their hoard of dollars. This is all wrong, and not just because in so doing the Chinese would inflict large losses on themselves. The larger point is that the same forces that make Chinese mercantilism so damaging right now also mean that China has little or no financial leverage.
Again, right now the world is awash in cheap money. So if China were to start selling dollars, there’s no reason to think it would significantly raise U.S. interest rates. It would probably weaken the dollar against other currencies — but that would be good, not bad, for U.S. competitiveness and employment. So if the Chinese do dump dollars, we should send them a thank-you note.
Second, there’s the claim that protectionism is always a bad thing, in any circumstances. If that’s what you believe, however, you learned Econ 101 from the wrong people — because when unemployment is high and the government can’t restore full employment, the usual rules don’t apply.
Let me quote from a classic paper by the late Paul Samuelson, who more or less created modern economics: “With employment less than full … all the debunked mercantilistic arguments” — that is, claims that nations who subsidize their exports effectively steal jobs from other countries — “turn out to be valid.” He then went on to argue that persistently misaligned exchange rates create “genuine problems for free-trade apologetics.” The best answer to these problems is getting exchange rates back to where they ought to be. But that’s exactly what China is refusing to let happen.
The bottom line is that Chinese mercantilism is a growing problem, and the victims of that mercantilism have little to lose from a trade confrontation. So I’d urge China’s government to reconsider its stubbornness. Otherwise, the very mild protectionism it’s currently complaining about will be the start of something much bigger.
相关的文章：
这可真是得了便宜还卖乖啊。用词那是相当的。。。不要脸啊,连predatory都用得出来。其实不就是帮美国政府叫嚣rmb升值，取消挂钩，自由浮动，最好再取消外国投资限制，然后美国金融机构、投资大鳄长驱直入，玩死你不偿命，抽干血做丸子吃呢。不过中国不会在国际市场上抛售美国国债是真的，其实中美现在就是恐怖平衡。如果中国真大量抛售美国国债（当然是不可能了，哎。），他们的日子未必好过。就欺负我们不敢了。
又,关于失业率的问题。这厮的理由就是，当就业率达不到full，贸易保护就是应该的，经济学101里说的那套贸易保护不好的理论就不适用了。总之其态度就是，我需要时，理论就是适用的；我不需要时，理论就不适用了呗。我中国还说我现在失业率太高呢，非保持外向型经济不能保持我现在的就业率，我这还不断上升呢失业（也是真的），所以我没办法啊，我不能升值啊。——照他的逻辑我们可以这么说不。西方经济学这套，还真别听他忽悠！
中国经济什么时候崩溃，就看中国房地产什么时候崩溃了。
这个世界上没有什么西方经济学，马克思主义还是西方的，你用不用，中国的这种重伤主义政策，其他国家会用关税政策回应，人民币不升值，那就给你加关税，效果等同于升值，中国还捞不着什么好处，中国不敢升值，实际上中国工人工资太低，远低于中国出口增长幅度，中国的出口政策不是为了出口而出口，而是解决就业增加内需，可是中国工人工资被工厂有关部门掠夺了，变成就业解决但增加不了内需，变成为出口而出口的变态国家，势必引起其他国家的报复，或许像克鲁格曼说的，这仅仅是个开始。
奉劝小熊你也不要跟着中国政府叫嚣，中国人民币汇率真正掠夺的中国人民自己，别被人卖了还帮人数钱。
to 兔兔，口水战是没必要的。我也没“跟着中国政府叫嚣”，这纯属我个人的理解而已。对于这些经济学理论，各人有各人的理解。不过希望你能看看更多的观点。比如下面这个印度人的回帖。还有美国人自己的回帖。
41.
RB
India
January 1st, 2010
9:02 am
Sorry Mr. Krugman, but you seem to have forgotten basic economics.
If the Chinese maintain a cheap exchange rate, it only hurts Chinese
consumers. For the US in particular, a weaker Chinese exchange rate will
lead to higher prices and a diversion of imports top from other Asian or
Latin American countries – not any form of job creation. The problem the US
faces is that too many Americans are too uneducated or incompetent to
sustain the differential between US wages and those of people from the rest
of the world (esp during cyclical downturns when service jobs in the US turn
down). I can’t imagine how people like you believe that high school grads
in the US deserve higher wages than graduates of the top engineering or
business schools in China or India. The US needs to either rebuild its
educational edge over the world or face a relative decline in living
standards. Attempting to preserve differentials through tariffs would slow
the process of relative decline (by slowing China’s growth rather than
boosting the US’s growth) – but would hurt far more people than it will help
- and could lead to unintended consequences such as wars.
And trying to blame Chinese (who emit 15% of American emissions per capita,
that too substantially for exports to the US) for global warming is the
height of the ridiculous – white people have to get used to the fact that
people from the rest of the world too have a right to its resources.
Perhaps its time for you to stop pretending that your column represents the
work of a leading economist – and admit that it represents the views of a
highly nativist American who believes that mediocre people deserve an
exceptional standard of living merely because they are born in or immigrate
to America.
cynthia smith
pa
January 1st, 2010
8:52 am
Paul, it sounds like you would like for the Chinese government to follow the example of the Obama administration and give their central bankers everything while breaking the backs of the workers, just as Obama broke the backs of our taxpayers to save his banking benefactors.
. Well, I suppose, if you prefer planned economies, that is the way to go. However, everyone I talk to is anxious to remove power from our own politicians in our own government . Maybe the Chinese will listen to you, but, I wouldn’t count on your own countrymen doing the same.
David
SF
January 1st, 2010
8:52 am
“…nations who subsidize their exports effectively steal jobs from other countries — “turn out to be valid.”
Dr. Krugman, this is exactly what the developing countries have been screaming about our, and Europe’s, agricultural subsidies: We have been stealing agricultural jobs from the third world countries for eons destroying their agricultural base!
As for import restrictions, for example, just recall that tariffs and restrictions on sugar have been in place since long before we were even talking to “Red China”. As a result we have the highest sugar prices in the world. Trade barriers by us are nothing new and have little to do with China. Should I mention how Harley-Davidson was saved from Japanese competition?
It is very disappointing that whenever you rail against the Chinese trade surplus with the USA, you fail to mention that about 60% of this surplus goes to American companies operating out of China. They inflate the import (transfer) prices to show smaller profit here in order to pay fewer taxes, and keep profits abroad paying no taxes at all.
China does not force us to buy from them. Greedy and socially irresponsible American corporations, engaged in labor arbitrage and tax evasion, in collusion with the “for sale” congress and the White House, are the main problem. Let us clean up our glass house first.
说实话你贴这些洋鬼子帖子在这些国家属于愤青一族，没什么价值。我可以给你普及经济常识，一个国家经济高速增长，名义汇率必然升值，如果名义汇率不升值，实际汇率就会升值，这是经济规律无法改变，实际汇率是什么就是资产价格，当年日本台湾等走过的老路，政策操控名义汇率抱出口，结果造成国内资产通涨，泡沫破裂一地鸡毛，所以摆在中国面前的选择就是汇率升值，虽然有短痛避免长期经济萧条，长期有多长就是中国工业化城市化接近完成时，要么看着眼前出口利益不升值，等待中国的就像日本台湾等国完成工业化后资金泡沫随之破裂。