【英语中国】中国央行越来越能言善辩？

China's central bank traditionally hasn't been well-known for its loquaciousness. And its currency arm, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, was considered borderline mute.

No longer. Lately, it's been hard to get the People's Bank of China to stop talking. There was a rare media briefing by PBOC Vice Governor and SAFE Director Yi Gang in March, then SAFE's unusual statement in May denying a report that it was considering reducing its euro bond holdings. Then the floodgates really opened on June 19, with the PBOC's big announcement on changing the exchange-rate mechanism, followed by another statement the next day explaining the previous day's statement.

Then in the last 15 days, PBOC Vice Governor Hu Xiaolian has released a string of statements explicating the new currency regime and talking up the advantages of a flexible exchange rate. Hu issued the first one on July 15, then another on July 22, and another on July 26. That inspired Bank of America-Merrill Lynch economist Lu Ting to pen a research note headlined 'Who is Ms. Hu? And what's her trilogy on money and FX?' But the title was quickly outdated, as it became a tetralogy on July 28 and a pentalogy on Friday.

Meanwhile, SAFE has had its own bout of prolixity, with a series of five Q&A-form statements on the exchange rate between July 2 and July 9, followed by a mammoth transcript of Director Yi's interview with China Reform magazine, in which he hints that a freely floating exchange rate may be the central bank's ultimate goal, and acknowledges that rapid economic expansion will inevitably slow in coming years.

There is some precedent for all this talk. After its last big currency move, in July 2005, the central bank also issued several explanatory statements--though they weren't as numerous or as energetic in promoting the upside of an unshackled yuan as the recent spate of statements.

One possible explanation is that the PBOC now realizes it needs to get the public behind controversial policies such as yuan appreciation if it is to win behind-the-scenes battles with opposing interest groups. That in turn is because the PBOC, unlike other central banks in major economies, isn't independent. Every interest-rate change or major move in the yuan needs approval from China's top leaders, who, despite China's authoritarian rule, must increasingly take into account both popular opinion and the interests of wealthy exporters.

In Hu's statement on Friday, for instance, she anticipated that some Chinese companies will face difficulties and maybe even go under because of exchange-rate appreciation, and issued a pre-emptive rebuttal:

'Some companies benefit from changes in exchange rates and some companies suffer...usually, in order to obtain policy assistance from the government, companies tend to emphasize the impact of a floating exchange rate on their exports, profits and employment, but seldom mention improvements in import costs and other factors.'

And in a rare interview with independent local media, Hu's PBOC colleague Yi appealed to the bread-and-butter interests, so to speak, of China's common man:

'Some people say that the common folk don't buy imported products, so yuan appreciation doesn't benefit them. This is wrong. For example, soybean oil. China imports over half its soybeans, and countless households eat soy products,' he said. 'And soy meal is used to feed pigs. How many people eat pork?'

Yuan appreciation will also benefit Chinese who travel or have children studying abroad, he added.

Still, for all the PBOC's chatter in recent weeks, it is leaving some very important details unsaid. Why, for instance, has the yuan basically stopped appreciating after rising just 0.7% against the dollar? PBOC officials can pontificate all they want about the benefits of currency flexibility, or even more nebulously, about referencing the yuan against a basket of currencies, but markets are looking for concrete action, in the form of a moving exchange rate. Otherwise, the PBOC could just be talking itself into an ever-greater credibility gap.

中国央行传统上并不以能言善辩而闻名，而其货币部门外汇管理局则被认为接近于沉默。

EPA中国央行副行长胡晓炼现在不再是这样了。最近，要让中国人民银行不出声都很难。3月，人民银行副行长、外管局局长易纲少有地举行了媒体吹风会，随后外管局又在5月一反常态地发布声明，否认有关其正考虑减少欧元债券资产的报导。接下来，6月19日中国央行发布关于改革人民币汇率机制的重大举措，人民币汇率切实开始松动，随后第二天中国央行又发布另一份声明，解释前一天的公告。

而后在过去15天，中国央行副行长胡晓炼发布一系列声明，阐述新的汇率机制，并宣扬弹性汇率的好处。胡晓炼第一份声明是在7月15日发布，随后又在7月22日和26日各发布一份声明。这促使美国银行/美林(Bank of America Merrill Lynch)经济学家陆挺撰写了一份题为“胡（晓炼）是何许人也以及她有关货币和汇率的三部曲”(Who is Ms. Hu? And what's her trilogy on money and FX?)的研究报告。但这个标题很快就过时了，因为7月28日就变成了四部曲，而上周五的声明让它成了五部曲。

与此同时，外管局也上演了一出冗长、罗嗦的剧目。先是7月2日到7月9日期间，就汇率问题以问答形式发布了五个声明，接下来登载了易纲接受《中国改革》杂志采访的长篇访谈实录。易纲在采访中暗示，实现汇率自由浮动可能是中国央行的最终目标，并承认快速的经济扩张今后几年将不可避免地减缓。

所有这些言论都是有先例的。中国央行上一次就汇率问题做出大的举动是在2005年7月，随后央行也发布了若干解释性声明，不过在宣扬自由浮动的人民币所带来的好处时，其发表言论的频率和力度都不及最近这次。

一种可能的解释是，中国央行如今意识到在制定具有争议性的政策时，要想赢得与反对派利益集团的幕后战争，需要取得公众对这些政策的支持。这反过来又是因为与其他主要经济体的中央银行不同，中国央行并非独立的。每一次利率调整或是人民币的大幅变动都要获得中国最高领导层的同意，尽管中国有着威权体制，领导人却必须越来越顾及公众意见和富裕出口商的利益。

以胡晓炼上周五的言论为例，她预计一些中国企业将因人民币升值而面临困难，甚至是要走下坡路，并进行了先发制人的反驳：

“人民币汇率机制改革会让一些公司受益，但同时也会损害另一些公司的利益；通常为了得到政府的政策帮助，企业容易强调汇率浮动对其出口、利润和就业的影响，而较少大力宣传其对进口成本改善及其他方面的利好因素。”

央行官员易纲在一次罕见地接受独立地方性媒体采访时呼吁重视中国普通百姓的基本利益：“有人说，老百姓不用进口产品，升值对他们没好处，这是不对的。比如，豆油，中国的大豆已经超过一半是进口的，千家万户都得吃豆制品，豆粕还可养猪，有多少人不吃猪肉？”

他还说，人民币升值对中国人出国旅行有益处，对那些有子女在国外读书的人也是有好处的。

然而，虽然中国央行最近几周发表了一系列言论，但都没有触及最为重要的细节。比如，为什么人民币兑美元在仅仅升值了0.7%后就基本停止了上涨？央行官员在谈到汇率弹性的好处时大可以高谈阔论，在人民币汇率参考一篮子货币的问题上也可以更加含糊其辞，但市场看重的是汇率变化这种实际行动。否则，中国央行可能会越发变得自说自话而难以令人信任。