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 小布此举会对我们有什么影响? |
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作者：游客 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
From MSN, by Jon Markman
China is no job-stealing bully
It's Halloween, and the Bush administration is going all out to frighten Americans into believing China is an evil monster trying to steal their jobs and the future. But don抰 let them scare you.
This week, and probably for the next several months as the presidential election gets closer, we are going to hear a lot of noise, in particular out of Washington, about China's currency -- known both as the renminbi and the yuan -- and its manufacturing policies. It's important that you not tune it out, whether you抮e an investor, small business owner or an employee.
Essentially, the administration is going to try to blame the high U.S. unemployment rate on the Chinese. They are going to claim Beijing is violating World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund rules by anipulating?the renminbi through complex currency transactions in a blatant attempt to keep it undervalued. A purposefully undervalued currency makes a country's exports cheaper than they would otherwise be, providing an unfair trade advantage.
You won't have to wait long to see how this plays out. On Capitol Hill Thursday, the Bush administrations stance toward China will come into potentially explosive view in testimony that could affect everything from the prospect of financial stability in Asia to the value of tech stocks on Wall Street and the price of pajamas in Arkansas.
The venue will be Treasury Secretary John Snow required annual testimony to the Senate Banking Committee on trading partners?currency practices. For years, this has been just another obscure date on the congressional calendar, but since the political wing of the White House decided that President Bush's standing in industrial states would improve if he blamed the decline in U.S. jobs on China, the secretary's appearance has taken on a new level of importance.
Either way, this is a big deal
Technically, the administration is required only to declare whether countries are manipulating their currencies to keep them artificially undervalued. If Snow finds China guilty of unfairly weakening the renminbi, then his team must initiate formal negotiations to resolve the complaint.
Big deal, right? It is a big deal whether Snow -- who has been humiliated by unsuccessful, informal renminbi negotiations for months -- declares the Chinese guilty of manipulation or not:
A positive finding would push the executive branch deeper into a financial Cold War with the world's most populous country, with ever-escalating demands that China believes it cannot meet without destabilizing its social structure. China could retaliate by halting its massive purchases of U.S. government bonds, which helps to finance our budget deficit, or by switching gradually to the euro as its reserve currency. Either result would push U.S. interest rates up and potentially stall the global economic recovery. (Asian central banks keep 80% to 90% of their $1.7 trillion in reserves invested in U.S. debt, according to government statistics.)
A negative finding would encourage opportunists in Congress to take up the fight instead, pushing forward on bills to impose big new tariffs on Chinese imports. Not only would that boost the cost of things like children抯 sleepwear at Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, news, msgs) or mobile phones at RadioShack (RSH, news, msgs), it also could lead to economic brinksmanship around the world. Virtually every major financial crisis in modern world history has started with politically motivated protectionism.
U.S. monetary hawks contend that the renminbi is 25% to 40% undervalued, thus making the price of Chinese goods so cheap that American manufacturers can't compete. Few experts disagree. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in testimony over the summer, said that there was no question?China was suppressing?the value of its currency. And academics such as George Mason University professor Patrick Mulloy, an expert on international trade law and former counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, believe that Snow should take on?the Chinese with a finding of manipulation.
An exercise in shifting blame
Yet skeptics believe that debate over Chinese currency puts the blame for the loss of manufacturing jobs entirely in the wrong place -- insisting that we are simply witnessing economic evolution at work and that protectionism would make America weaker, not stronger. Critics of U.S. policy believe that confrontationists ignore ample facts to the contrary when they state that if the yuan were to float freely on currency markets from its current peg at 8.3 to the U.S. dollar, the Behemoth of Beijing would not be in a position to steal?so many jobs from the U.S. heartland.
For one thing, manufacturing-job losses are primarily a historic inevitability propelled by technological advances just like the loss of agricultural jobs was at the turn of the last century. And for another, it might surprise many to learn that China is far from a financial powerhouse: It is deeply impoverished except for a few tiny pockets of free enterprise near the coast; it is ravished by drought and pollution; it has managed to develop no major companies with global markets or brands; and its banking system is incredibly fragile. China has just two companies in the Financial Times 500, which ranks companies by market capitalization: the state oil company CNOOC (CEO, news, msgs) and the domestically focused China Mobile (CHL, news, msgs).
It抯 not as if the Chinese equivalent of Motorola (MOT, news, msgs) or Ford Motor (F, news, msgs) has enriched itself at the expense of U.S. working people and consumers. It is Motorola and Ford themselves -- and their customers -- that have been so enriched through lower manufacturing costs and lower consumer prices. American, Japanese and other foreign companies with manufacturing operations in China account for nearly half of the goods being exported by China into the world market.
When the U.S. picks a fight with China over its currency, it is picking a fight with its own citizens. It抯 not much of an exaggeration to suggest that the largest Chinese company in the world is Wal-Mart, which makes its popular house-brand goods there.
Undervalued currency not the problem
In testimony last month before a blue-ribbon panel assigned by Congress to study U.S.-China trade, Chicago economist David Hale pointed out that the major cause of China's booming exports is not an undervalued currency but a surge of what academics call foreign direct investment.? China now has $400 billion in such investment, compared to $497 billion for the United Kingdom and $480 billion for Germany, according to Hale. As this investment is expanding by $55 billion per year, Hale says, China will soon have the second-largest investment by foreigners in the world, after the United States. He notes that China抯 openness to direct investment is in striking contrast?to Japan and Korea, which banned direct investment for half a century to nurture domestic companies and still have comparatively little.
Hale observes that the major complaints from corporate America on China are coming from small or medium-sized companies that don't have the capital to invest in China or penetrate its market. He concludes that if Beijing were to simply improve market access for small companies there would be fewer demands for trade protection or currency revaluation.
Protectionism, indeed, could backfire and delay China's progress toward becoming a terrific market for Western finished goods. Forget about the fearsome image of China conjured up by U.S. politicians focused on making it more of a strategic enemy than partner. In another paper submitted to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission last month, Peter Nolan, professor of Chinese management at the University of Cambridge in London, made several interesting points about a country we probably ought to be helping, not impeding:
China's population of almost 1.3 billion increases by 15 million a year. Almost 70% still live in the countryside, where agriculture employment is stagnant and real incomes are dropping. There are estimated to be 150 million surplus?farm workers. Unemployment has increased explosively as a result of reform in state-owned enterprises.
Privatization has lead to a wide gulf between the few haves and the many have-nots. Just 0.16% of the population controls 65% of the country's $1.5 trillion in liquid assets in mainland banks.
About 38% of the country suffers from serious soil erosion. The area of desert is increasing at 1,500 square miles per year. In the past four decades, almost half of China's forests have been destroyed, there is a serious shortage of fresh water, and water pollution is rampant.
China抯 industrial growth has obviously led to an expansion of energy-intensive industries. China has overtaken the United States as the world抯 biggest coal producer, accounting for 30% of global output. The ways in which coal is mined, transported and used as a fuel for 70% of electricity generation approximates that of advanced economies before the 1950s, creating a widespread air pollution problem.
China抯 largest financial firms have been plagued with corruption and saddled with billions of dollars in non-performing loans. They are nowhere close to Western banks in terms of size or capabilities. Citigroup alone has annual revenues of $93 billion, many times greater than all of China抯 four big banks put together.
In short, China is more bogeyman than bully in its trade relationship with the United States. An attempt to vilify it over the loss of manufacturing jobs is short-sighted, giving fuel to critics who believe that the Bush administration has progressed from a militarization of its foreign policy to a criminalization of its trade policy.
President Bush is walking a tightrope as he balances an economic policy bent on antagonizing China with a foreign policy that desperately needs China抯 help on North Korea. At the moment, it seems aggression is winning out over diplomacy, and one wonders if that could be bad news for investors.
Fine Print
You can read all about the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission at its well-documented Web site. . . . On Oct. 15, the commission sent a report to Congress declaring that it believed China had violated its International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization obligations by manipulating its currency for trade advantage. It recommended the Treasury Department 搃mmediately enter into formal negotiations with the Chinese government?over its undervalued currency. The commission urged Congress to use its legislative powers 搕o force action by the U.S. and Chinese Governments to address this unfair and mercantilist trade practice?should the Treasury抯 efforts prove ineffective. Here抯 the press release. . . . An interview by China Daily with Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, provided useful insights on the yuan revaluation issue. . . . U.S. companies continued the torrid pace of their investments in China last week. Motorola (MOT, news, msgs) said it would transfer the ownership of a $1 billion chip plant in China to Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International in exchange for a stake in the leading Chinese chipmaker. Meanwhile, Eastman Kodak (EK, news, msgs) said it would acquire 20% of the shares of China Lucky Film in a deal estimated at $100 million. China is Kodak抯 second-largest market for photographic film. . . . Economist David Hale has a good article on Chinese trade in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.
作者：游客 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 小布此举会对我们有什么影响? -- 热水 - (23402 Byte) 2003-11-03 周一, 19:12 (511 reads)
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