【英语财经】人民币应先谋求地区储备货币地位 Beijing’s drive to make the renminbi a global currency is misguided

China wants the renminbi to be part of the International Monetary Fund’s basket of elite currencies — the Special Drawing Rights — and a major global currency for trade and reserve holdings. For this purpose it sees a stable and strong renminbi as desirable. It also wants the value of the renminbi to be increasingly determined by market forces. But the leadership cannot have it both ways unless it takes a different approach to managing rate adjustments. Its efforts so far have led to this month’s unexpected devaluation, generating turmoil and the widespread perception that Beijing has lost control over economic decision-making.

Internationalising the renminbi would make sense as the outcome of a long-term process of opening up capital markets and liberalising exchange and interest rates but it should not be driving near-term policy choices that must respond to cyclical market shifts. Yet this is what has been happening, causing confusion.

In the avalanche of discussion on internationalising the renminbi, surprisingly few have questioned the logic of doing it now or even if it is technically feasible. To begin with, for a currency to be used more abroad, it has to be available abroad. The US did this by running huge trade deficits and paying with dollars. It also gave dollars away through its aid programmes. But China will not want to run trade deficits instead of surpluses, nor is there a strong case for a country ranking about 90th in per capita gross domestic product to give away its money to richer nations.

The benefits for China from such a move are also not obvious. Its leadership has historically placed a high value on maintaining economic stability. But internationalising the currency will inevitably lead to greater volatility as controls over capital movements, interest rates and exchange valuations are relaxed. This is already happening. If promoting the renminbi as a global currency takes priority and the objective is to maintain stable rates, Beijing will be forced to sacrifice some control over monetary policy as pressure to maintain the renminbi’s value clashes with the need to address the current economic slowdown.

So why is China considering it? One obvious reason is for political prestige, but Beijing has not been known to pursue such elusive goals. More pertinent are security concerns as the leadership sees that US dominance of the international financial architecture provides it with a potentially lethal weapon in times of conflict — as exemplified in the financial sanctions on Iran.

Others have focused on the benefits that the US has received from the dollar’s position as the global currency, which allows it to run huge deficits by borrowing without limit abroad. But China has vehemently criticised the US for taking advantage of this “exorbitant privilege”.

Some believe that internationalising the renminbi is a form of “reform by Trojan horse”, with China’s central bank seeing it not as an end goal, but as a pretext to push for more market reforms. There is logic in this argument, since it mandates improving the country’s rudimentary financial markets and eliminating its capital controls. China has made considerable progress in this regard. After years of steady appreciation, there is no overwhelming pressure for the renminbi to move either up or down but it should be allowed to respond flexibly to cyclical market pressures.

There is one area, though, where promoting renminbi usage could generate near-term benefits and show a path for the future. That is regional trade and investment. President Xi Jinping’s Silk Road initiative promotes improved physical and financial connectivity with Southeast Asia, central Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Four centuries ago, at the height of China’s global trade reach, Chinese copper coins were used as an international medium of exchange throughout Asia and beyond. The vision today for the renminbi is on a much larger scale.

Nearly half of China’s trade is processing-related — that is, it comprises parts and components from other east Asian countries that are assembled in China for export to the west. Currencies of several Asian countries already track the renminbi more closely than the dollar, which means it could be used as a “reference currency” for the production-sharing network. Asia generally would benefit from greater use of the renminbi to improve trade efficiency and reduce exchange-rate risk in intra-regional trade.

It is technically more feasible for the renminbi to be a regional currency than a global one, since China runs trade deficits with most of its network partners which makes it more likely that Beijing will settle payments in renminbi and its partners will hold it as a reserve currency. With the Silk Road initiative increasing the outflows of the renminbi for investment purposes, it will naturally become a more common medium of exchange.

For this to happen, the renminbi should move more in line with Asian currencies than be tied to the US dollar, as it has been. The peg to the dollar has meant the renminbi is overvalued in relation to its regional trading partners. Some depreciation is logical but this should have been done in a gradual and more flexible exchange rate adjustment process over the past year rather than bundled into an unexpected adjustment over a few days. The concept of maintaining stability to promote the renminbi as a reserve currency makes more sense in a regional context but this would require accepting increased volatility relative to the US dollar.

The author is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment and a former World Bank country director for China

中国希望人民币成为国际货币基金组织(IMF)特别提款权(SDR)精英货币篮子中的一员，并成为一种主要的全球贸易与储备货币。为了这个目标，中国认为人民币保持稳定和强势是理想状态。中国也希望人民币汇率逐渐由市场力量来决定。但对中国领导层来说，这二者不可兼得，除非他们采取不同的手法管理汇率调整。迄今为止，他们的努力导致了本月出乎意料的人民币贬值，造成市场混乱，让人普遍感觉中国在经济决策方面已然失控。

如果人民币国际化是资本市场开放和汇率及利率自由化这个长期过程的结果，那是合理的，但它不应成为推动短期政策选择的因素（短期政策选择必须对周期性市场变化做出回应）。然而后者恰恰发生了，引起人们的困惑。

在有关人民币国际化的大量讨论中，令人惊讶的是很少有人质疑现在就推动人民币国际化的逻辑，或者这么做在技术上是否可行。首先，一种货币要想扩大在境外的使用，它必须在境外是可以获得的。美国做到这一点的办法是，产生巨大的贸易逆差，对外支付美元。美国还通过援助计划捐出美元。但中国将不希望出现贸易逆差而非顺差，而一个人均国内生产总值(GDP)大约排世界第90位的国家也没有充足理由向更富裕的国家捐出人民币。

中国从推动人民币国际化中获得的好处也不明显。在历史上看，中国领导层一直很看重维持经济稳定。但是，随着资本流动、利率和汇率的管制被放松，人民币国际化将不可避免地带来更大波动。目前已发生了这一状况。如果推动人民币成为全球性货币被放在优先位置，并且目标是维持汇率稳定，那么中国政府将被迫牺牲对货币政策的部分控制，因为维持人民币币值稳定的压力与应对当前经济放缓的需要相冲突。

那么，中国为何考虑这么做？一个表面上的原因是为了政治声望，但人们所熟知的中国从未追逐过如此缥缈的目标。更合理的原因是安全考虑，因为中国领导层认为，美国在国际金融架构中的主导地位为其提供了一种在冲突爆发时可能具有致命性的武器——正如对伊朗的金融制裁所证明的那样。

其他人关注的是美国依靠美元的全球货币地位取得的利益，这一地位使得美国可以通过无限制地向国外借钱，维持着巨额的逆差。但中国强烈批评美国利用这一“过分的特权”。

有些人相信，人民币国际化是一种“特洛伊木马式的改革”，中国央行并非把它视为最终目标，而是作为推动更多改革的一个借口。这一观点有合理之处，因为人民币国际化要求完善中国不成熟的金融市场，并解除资本管制。中国在这一方面已取得了长足的进展。在多年稳步升值之后，人民币目前没有向上或向下的巨大压力，但应当允许人民币对周期性市场压力做出灵活的回应。

不过，有一个领域，推广人民币使用可能为它带来近期利益，并指出未来的发展路径。这个领域就是地区贸易和投资。中国国家主席习近平提出的“丝绸之路”计划，会加强中国与东南亚、中亚、中东和欧洲之间的实体与金融联系。4个世纪之前，在中国国际贸易实力达到顶点之际，中国的铜币在整个亚洲和更远的地区被用作一种国际交易媒介。今天，有关人民币国际化的设想远比这广阔。

中国对外贸易的近一半与加工相关，即中国从其他东亚国家进口零部件，在境内组装之后出口到西方。几个亚洲国家的货币跟踪人民币的紧密程度已超过跟踪美元的程度，这意味着人民币可以用作这个合作生产网络的“参考货币”。总体来说，增加人民币的使用会让亚洲受益，可以在区域内贸易中提高贸易效率、降低汇率风险。

让人民币成为一种地区性货币而不是全球性货币，在技术上更可行，因为中国对网络内大多数伙伴国都是贸易逆差，那么更可能出现的情况就是，中国将用人民币进行支付结算，其伙伴国将持有人民币作为储备货币。随着丝绸之路计划使更多人民币流出中国进行投资，人民币将自然而然地成为一种更普遍的交易媒介。

为实现这一目标，人民币汇率应当更多地与亚洲货币联动，而不是与美元挂钩。挂钩美元意味着人民币相对地区贸易伙伴国货币高估。一定程度的贬值是符合逻辑的，但贬值本该在过去一年里通过一种渐进的、更灵活的汇率调整过程实现，而不是一下在几天内进行出人意料的调整。维持汇率稳定以促进人民币成为储备货币，在地区范围内来讲更合乎情理，但这将需要中国接受人民币兑美元汇率的更大波动。

本文作者是卡内基国际和平研究院(Carnegie Endowment)高级研究员，曾任世界银行中国业务局局长

译者/邢嵬