当美国国会本周进入复活节休会期时，它的一项重头工作——医疗改革——已基本得到解决。但休会结束时，国会将不得不面对另外一个几年以来一直隐隐燃烧，如今很可能将再次冒出火焰的一个问题。
美国绝大多数议员还在继续指责中国施行的人民币盯住美元的汇率政策。他们称该政策部分导致全球经济失衡，抢走了美国人的就业机会，尤其是在制造业。
美国众议院筹款委员会(House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee)上周举行听证会，讨论美国政府可以采用什么样的手段，迫使中国放弃盯住美元政策。与早先的计划——对对华商品全面征收进口关税以补偿人民币汇率被低估——相比，这些手段没有那么激进，比如可以在对华征收反补贴关税时，考虑人民币低估因素。但所有手段都会遇到法律和政治问题，或者很容易被人们指责为只是动动嘴皮子。
如筹款委员会主席、密歇根民主党议员桑德尔•莱文(Sander Levin)所言，在近几年人民币盯住美元政策带来的威胁方面，共识越来越大，但在采取什么样的回应策略方面，则没有形成共识。他表示：“与其它重大问题一样，这一问题不容易解决，但不能就此否认问题的存在。”
莱文强调指出，多边解决方案要好于双边解决方案，但他补充表示，解决方案是否行之有效则是另一个问题。
华盛顿智库彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)所长、一直呼吁对中国政府采取强硬立场的弗雷德•伯格斯登(Fred Bergsten)提出了一个三管齐下的策略：
首先，美国财政部要在订于4月15日发表的年度汇率报告中，将中国列为货币操纵国。
其次，要求国际货币基金组织(IMF)总裁与中国政府开展所谓的“特别协商”，以评估汇率失衡程度，并要求其进行调整。
第三，依据世界贸易组织(WTO)的前身——1947年签订的《关税和贸易总协定》(GATT)的相关条款，向世贸组织提起诉讼。
伯格斯登说：“中国人说，他们绝不会迫于外部压力而调整汇率，而我认为，如果没有外部压力，他们就绝不会调整汇率。”
但这个战略需要各国通过IMF对中国施加多边压力。而迄今为止，通过IMF对中国经济和汇率进行评估传递给中国的这种压力，中国一直并不搭理。
贸易律师们表示，伯格斯登提议的第三种手段——向WTO提起申诉——可能会陷入模糊的法律困境。伯格斯登提到的《关税和贸易总协定》那条条款称：“缔约方不得通过外汇措施而使本协定各项条款的意图无效”，并指定IMF对此类事件做出判断。
但上述条款源自上世纪40年代布雷顿森林体系(Bretton Woods)下的全球固定汇率制度——当时成立了国际货币基金组织对此进行管理。世贸组织是否会同意将该条款用于今日的浮动汇率或准固定汇率制度，这一点还远不清楚。
伯格斯登表示，不论怎样都值得提出申诉，尤其因为这可能会动员起包括新兴市场在内的其它国家，一起反对中国。他称：“从法律意义上说，我对申诉成功并不乐观，但利用申诉将该问题提到多边层面，广而告之，点评批评中国人……我认为这应该成为我们战略的一部分。”
在听证会上做证的其他人则建议保持谨慎。一个趋于保守的智库——美国企业研究所(American Enterprise Institute)的学者菲利普•列维(Philip Levy)警告称，向WTO申诉将会出现“严重的下行风险”。他说：“如果申诉失败，中国就会永远宣称其汇率政策是如何的合理。”列维表示，即使申诉成功，也只会助长一种令人不安且无法预测的趋势，那就是世贸组织司法小组在未来也会根据要求随时变更规则。
当国会复会时，它很可能会发现，要想在迫使中国调整汇率制度的同时又避免引发贸易战，其难度会让医疗改革看起来就是小菜一碟。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001031958
Congress heads into the Easter recess this week with one big piece of business – healthcare reform – largely out of the way. But when it returns, it will have to face one of the smouldering issues of recent years, which threatens again to burst into flames. China's fixed exchange rate against the US dollar continues to be blamed by a large majority of US lawmakers for helping to create global economic imbalances and stealing jobs from US industries, notably manufacturing. A House of Representatives ways and means committee hearing last week examined the tools at Washington's disposal to lever the renminbi off its peg. They were less drastic than earlier plans to simply slap an across-the-board import tariff on Chinese goods to compensate for the alleged undervaluation – or a less radical version, to incorporate estimates of currency undervaluation in the calculation of anti-subsidy duties imposed on Chinese imports. But none was free of either legal or political problems, or invulnerable to the charge it would end up in impotent jawboning. As Sander Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the committee, said, there had been a growing consensus on the threat posed by the fixed renminbi in recent years, but not yet on the correct tactical response. “There is no easy answer to the problem, as is true with other important problems, but the answer is not to deny there is a problem,” he said. Multilateral solutions were preferable to bilateral solutions, Mr Levin stressed, but added that finding an effective one was another question. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute think-tank in Washington and a long-term advocate of taking a tough line with Beijing, laid out a three-part strategy. First, would be for the US Treasury to name China as a currency manipulator in its annual currency report, due out by April 15. Second, would be to ask the International Monetary Fund managing director to start a so-called “special consultation” with Beijing to assess the degree of currency misalignment and request a change. Third, would be to take a case to the World Trade Organisation about China's currency manipulation, relying on a clause in the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt), forerunner of the WTO. “The Chinese say we'll never move in response to external pressure,” Mr Bergsten said. “I would suggest they will never move without.” But such a strategy relies on the Chinese being influenced by multilateral pressure through the IMF. Beijing has so far effectively ignored such pressure applied via IMF assessments of China's economy and exchange rate. And trade lawyers say the third prong of Mr Bergsten's attack, a case against China at the WTO, involves plunging into a murky legalistic swamp. The clause referred to by Mr Bergsten says “contracting parties shall not, by exchange action, frustrate the intent of the provisions” of the Gatt, and refers judgments on such matters to the IMF. But that clause dated from the 1940s Bretton Woods system of fixed global exchange rates, which the IMF was set up to administer. It is far from clear whether a WTO panel would agree that it applied to today's world of floating or semi-fixed currencies. Mr Bergsten said the case was worth bringing anyway, particularly if it could be used to rally other countries, including emerging markets, against China. “I'm not optimistic we would win the case in a legal sense,” he said. “But using it to multilateralise the issue, and publicise, name and shame the Chinese . . . I think ought to be part of our strategy.” Other witnesses at the hearing counselled caution. Philip Levy, fellow at the conservative think-tank the American Enterprise Institute, warned of a “serious downside risk” to taking the WTO route. “If we lose the case, we'll never hear the end of it from China about how their practices have been justified,” he said. And even if the US were successful, it would merely contribute to a disturbing and unpredictable trend of WTO judicial panels making up the law as they went along, he said. When Congress resumes, it may well find that pressing the Chinese to move its exchange rate without sparking a trade war makes healthcare reform look like a relative breeze.
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