美国和欧洲的经济动荡正在帮助加速一个长期而深远的转变。在占据全球经济主导地位长达三个世纪之后，西方即将在中国这个崛起的亚洲大国面前黯然失色。不但中国的经济规模按购买力衡量很快会超越美国，而且人民币也会在今后十年或十年多一点的时间内取代美元，成为世界主要储备货币。
持怀疑态度者会基于两个理由嘲讽这种预期。第一，即使中国经济超越美国，人民币的崛起也可能会滞后。美国经济在19世纪70年代早期超越英国，但直到第二次世界大战前后，美元才完全取代英镑的地位。这意味着，本币成为主要储备货币与本国占据世界经济主导地位之间，可能存在着大约70年的滞后。
第二，中国远远没有创造出让人民币成为储备货币的政策和市场环境。中国的资本账户基本上仍是封闭的，而且人民币仍然不可自由兑换，外国人无法自由获取；中国的金融体系由政府控制；其市场也欠缺深度，无法提供令一种货币能够吸引投资者持有和交易的至关重要的流动性。在这种情况下，外国政府或私人部门怎么会使用人民币支付、持有人民币资产或在进行经济往来时以人民币计价？
换言之，市场忠诚于美元、以及中国欠缺必要的政策条件，这两个原因使得人民币的崛起变成了一个遥远的可能性。这种说法大错特错！首先，常用的历史类比实际上具有误导性。英国让出经济主导地位的时间要比有些人认为的时间晚得多，而英镑让出主要储备货币地位的时间则要比有些人认为的时间早得多。从储备货币地位的决定因素这个意义上来说，影响经济主导地位的不仅是经济体的规模，也包括其贸易和对外金融实力。根据这套指标，美国超越英国不是在19世纪70年代，而是迟至第一次世界大战前后：实际上，英国直到20世纪20年代仍然是世界最大的出口国和资本净输出国。
第二，中国作为一个经济强国几乎已经赶上美国。按购买力衡量，中国的经济规模与美国大致相当；而它的出口和海外资产规模却比美国大得多。如果要作恰当的历史类比，美元让位可能在十年之内就会发生。中国的经济实力为人民币的崛起创造了条件。
当然，这并不是必然会出现的结果。中国仍需要进行重大的政策改革。但是，人民币国际化已经以一种具有中国特色的方式进入了不可逆转的过程。这是一个受到微观管理、推崇政府干预、以试点国家和地区为基础的过程。每一天似乎都有某个国家或某家外国企业获准，在有选择性的更大范围内使用人民币。上周刚刚启动的一项计划，旨在推动伦敦成为一个可能的人民币离岸交易中心，以作为上海和香港类似计划的补充。至于是否扩大这一实验，想必会取决于其能否取得成功。
为什么中国希望把人民币打造为一种储备货币呢？答案是，中国当局一直在寻找一种办法，退出已延续几十年的、备受争议的增长战略。这种战略是依靠压低人民币估值和对海外资本封上经济大门来推动增长的。人民币国际化就提供了这样一种退出办法。
随着中国逐步摒弃重商主义、人民币逐步升值，因人民币被低估而获利最多的贸易部门肯定会表示强烈反对。为了克服这种反对，中国当局可以强调人民币成为国际储备货币的积极意义。其论点将是，推动人民币崛起为储备货币并取代美元而给国家声望带来的好处，要大于人民币升值给经济造成的损失和混乱。在中国的政策制定者们艰难而迫切地寻找退出重商主义现状的路径时，“人民币统治世界”会成为他们的口号、甚至是救命稻草。这个在中国内部响起的口号还可能在外部世界成为现实，所耗时间可能比绝大多数人想象的都要短。
注：本文作者为美国彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)高级研究员。他的新书《黯然失色：生活在中国经济主导地位的阴影下》（“Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance”）于本月出版。
译者/王柯伦
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001040692
Economic turmoil in the US and Europe is helping to accelerate a deeper, long term development. After three centuries of economic dominance, the west is about to be eclipsed by a rising Asian power: China. Not only may the Chinese economy soon be larger than America’s – if measured in purchasing power – but the renminbi could displace the dollar as the premier, reserve currency within the next decade or soon thereafter.
Sceptics will scoff for two reasons. First, even if China’s economy overtakes America’s, the renminbi’s rise could be delayed. America’s economy surpassed Great Britain’s in the early 1870s, but the dollar displaced sterling decisively only around World War II. That implies there could be a lag of about 70 years between economic dominance and currency ascendancy.
Second, China is far from creating the policy and market environment for the renminbi to become a reserve currency. China’s capital account is still largely closed and the renminbi still not convertible and freely available to foreigners; its financial system is government controlled; and its markets lack the depth to provide the liquidity critical to make a currency attractive to hold and trade. In these circumstances, how could foreign governments or private players make payments in renminbi, hold renminbi assets, or denominate economic transactions in renminbi?
In other words, loyalty to the dollar and China’s lack of the policy prerequisities seem to make the renminbi’s rise a distant possibility. How wrong that is. First, the usual historical analogy is misleading. Great Britain ceded its economic dominance much later, and sterling its dominance much earlier, than is believed. Economic dominance, in the sense of the factors that determine reserve currency status, is affected not just by the size of an economy but by its trade and external financial strength. On this metric, the US overtook the UK not in the 1870s but only around World War I: in fact, the UK was the world’s largest exporter and net financier until the 1920s.
Second, China has all but caught up with the US as an economic power. Its economy is about as large, in purchasing power, while its exports and overseas assets are much larger. If one were to draw the correct historical analogy, the potential eclipse of the dollar is just a decade away. Chinese economic strength creates the conditions for the rise of its currency.
This is not inevitable, of course. China still has to undertake major policy reforms. But internationalising the renminbi has been set in irreversible motion in a distinctively Chinese manner. The process is micro-managed, interventionist, and enclave-based: not a day seems to pass without some foreign entity, or country being granted greater but selective access to the renminbi: just last week an initiative was launched to promote London as a possible offshore renminbi trading centre to complement similar plans for Shanghai and Hong Kong. Extending this experiment will presumably depend on its success.
Why might China want to turn the renminbi into a reserve currency? The answer is that the Chinese authorities have been searching for an exit from the decades-old and controversial growth strategy based on keeping the currency undervalued and the economy closed to foreign capital. Internationalising the renminbi offers one such exit.
As China moves away from mercantilism, and as the renminbi appreciates, there will be stiff opposition from the tradable sector that has benefited most from currency undervaluation. To overcome that opposition, China’s authorities can play up the benefits of the renminbi having international reserve status. The argument will be that the economic losses and dislocation from currency appreciation will be outweighed by the gains to national prestige from encouraging the renminbi to rise to reserve currency status and overtake the dollar. “Renminbi Rules” could be the slogan of, even a lifeline for, China’s policymakers as they seek their difficult but desired exit from the mercantilist status quo. Sooner than almost anyone thinks, that slogan within China could also become the reality without.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. His new book, ‘Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance,’ is published this month.
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