中国在世界经济中扮演的角色有许多不光彩之处，特别是它追求巨额贸易顺差，并被指拒绝采纳让人民币升值和扩大内需的政策。这被外界诟病为阻碍世界经济的发展。
把国际收支失衡完全归咎于中国是不公平的，而且会起到反效果。在这个重要问题上，美国人现在表现得有些孩子气，尤其是那些美国政府难以左右的国会议员们。最近，美国正酝酿把中国列为"汇率操纵国"。这是校园运动场上的套路，不适用于超级大国之间。漫骂和指责似乎并不是解决这一争执的正确办法，事实上，它反而可能破坏达成和解的机会。
随着时间的推移，中国会逐渐采取更加灵活的汇率政策。这将使中国货币当局对本国货币政策享有更大的自主权。但是，在什么时候采取行动，将由中国自己决定，而不会按照外国政客拟定的方式和时间表来进行。
为了冲销外汇流入、防止货币供应量恶性增长和通胀压力进一步积聚，中国当局被迫进行大量操作。这种压低人民币的干预措施，明显加大了中国货币政策的复杂性。
那些有助国内金融服务和金融市场自由化的因素与人民币国际化之间，存在明确的关联。这些进程必须一步一步地来。
中国外汇储备猛增的一个原因，是贸易支付"提前错后法"大行其道。在布雷顿森林体系上世纪70年代初崩溃前，就已出现这种支付方法。
中国央行(PBoC)行长周小川屡次阐述了人民币盯住美元政策终将改变的前景。但他这么做只是为了缓和局势，效果常常适得其反。无疑，中国央行必须注意自己的国际交流策略，必须通过清晰的表述，让国际社会接受一种更为深思熟虑、完整和明白透彻的人民币政策。对中国央行来说，这是一个十分重大的挑战。我们也都希望看到，未来几个月内中国央行在这方面能够取得进展。
与此同时，我们可以期待中国政策制定者采取一些较小力度的重要措施，这些措施本身可逐步推动人民币政策实现良性的自由化和国际化。
一、中国已开始采取一些力度不大的措施，旨在鼓励亚洲及其它地区的央行把人民币作为一种外汇储备货币。这些措施将切实削弱美元不合理的国际支配地位，推动国际储备体系朝着真正的多币种储备资产体系发展。
二、香港发行的债券已更多地以人民币计价，这表明人民币在国际资本市场中的地位正在上升。
三、在国际原材料贸易中，以人民币作为支付手段的情况逐渐增多。假以时日，我们甚至可能看到：石油将采用一篮子货币定价，而人民币将在这个篮子里占有一席之地；或者，人民币切实地促成了特别提款权(SDR)的重新定位，使其不仅可以在货币交易中使用，而且能够在商品支付与结算中使用。
四、中国官方利率的设定将更多地取决于市场力量。
中国终将朝着提高汇率政策灵活性的方向发展。之所以这么说，有如下四个主要原因：
一、中国希望扩大人民币在国际贸易中的使用，推动人民币融入国际资本市场，从而促进外界对中国经济的投资。
二、消费主义的发展：人民币升值，中国消费者用同样的钱将可买到更多的商品，这将改善中国对世界其它地区的贸易条件。
三、中国当局将恢复对货币供应和抵御通胀政策的控制力。我们决不能忘记，通胀是对穷人的重税，对富人的影响则小得多。因此，在政治上和经济上，通胀会造成不和与混乱。
四、中国希望通过把人民币应用在全亚洲地区的贸易和投融资中，进而引导亚洲储蓄远离西方、投向亚洲未来十年的大规模基础设施建设，以此来推进地区一体化政策。
所有这些都比旨在纠正中美贸易失衡的政策重要得多。1945年后德国马克反复升值的经验已经表明，汇率上升不会非常平稳或迅速地纠正贸易失衡，甚至会因让进口商品变得更便宜，而在初期推高货币升值国的贸易顺差。
本文作者是"官方货币及金融制度论坛"(Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum)联席主席、SCCO International董事长、Soditic CBIP LLP高级顾问，著有《欧元：新全球货币的政治角逐》(The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency)一书[1]
[1]耶鲁大学出版社(Yale University Press)。德文版由Murmann Verlag出版。详见：
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001031944
There has been a lot of doom and gloom about the Chinese role in the world economy, especially about China's propensity to record large trade surpluses and its alleged refusal to espouse a policy of raising the value of the renminbi and boosting domestic demand. This has been criticised as holding back the development of the world economy.
To heap all the blame on to China for world payment imbalances is unfair, and counter-productive. The Americans – particularly the politicians in Congress over whom the administration in Washington does not have a much control – are behaving somewhat childishly over this important question. What we have seen lately, in the American campaign to have the Chinese labelled as "manipulators" of the currency, is the politics of the school playground rather than of the superpower. Adopting the politics of name-calling and finger-pointing does not seem the right way of resolving this dispute and indeed may hamper opportunities of reaching a settlement.
Over time China will move to a more flexible policy for the renminbi exchange rate that will allow the Chinese monetary authorities to enjoy greater autonomy over monetary policy at home. But this will be at a time of China's own choosing, rather than in a manner and on a timetable set by foreign politicians.
Intervention to hold down the renminbi, necessitating huge operations to sterilise foreign exchange inflows to prevent an unhealthy rise in money supply and a further build-up of inflationary pressures, is an enormously complicating factor in Chinese monetary policy.
There is a clear link between the factors driving the liberalisation of domestic financial services and the financial markets, and the internationalisation of the renminbi. These processes need to go step in step.
The reasons for the big rise in Chinese monetary reserves include a build-up of trade leads and lags of the sort that we saw in the old days before the break-up of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s.
Numerous statements by People's Bank of China Governor Zhou on the prospects eventually for a shift in the policy of pegging the renminbi the dollar, although meant to calm down the situation, have frequently been counterproductive by encouraging precisely the opposite outcome. Certainly the People's Bank needs to pay attention to its international communications policy and will need to articulate for international consumption a much more thoughtful, cohesive and comprehensible policy on the renminbi. This is a very important challenge for the central bank, and one where we would all like to see progress in coming months.
In the meantime, we can look to important smaller-scale steps in Chinese policies that will themselves, over time, drive healthy liberalisation and internationalisation of policies governing the renminbi.
• There are modest steps afoot to encourage central banks in Asia and further afield to hold renminbi in their foreign exchange reserves. These are practical measures to promote a move away from undue international dominance of the dollar and towards a genuine multi-currency reserve asset system.
• We see an increase in renminbi use in bond issues in Hong King – a reminder that the Chinese currency is becoming a greater force on world capital markets.
• Use of the renminbi in payment for internationally-traded raw materials is being stepped up. Perhaps we will even see a move over time towards the Chinese currency playing a role in a basket of currencies used for oil pricing, or indeed in a redefinition of the Special Drawing Rights that could be used not just for monetary transactions but also for payment and settlement of commodities.
• There will be a move towards greater reliance on market forces in policies setting Chinese official interest rates.
There are four key reasons for an eventual move towards greater flexibility on the renminbi exchange rate policy.
• The desire to create a more internationally-traded renminbi as a force on international capital markets, helping promote investment in the Chinese economy
• The growth of consumerism: a rise in the renminbi will improve China's terms of trade with the rest of the world by giving Chinese consumers more for their money.
• A move for the Chinese authorities to regain control over the money supply and over policies to ward off inflation. We must never forget that inflation is a tax on the poor far more than the rich, and therefore is politically and economically divisive and disruptive.
• The wish to drive forward policies on regional integration by making use of the renminbi in trade, investment and financing throughout Asia, particularly in channelling Asian savings away from the west and towards large-scale development of Asian infrastructure in the next decade.
All these are more important than policies designed to correct China-US trade flows. Experience with the repeated appreciation of the Deutsche Mark after 1945 anyway shows that exchange rate rises do not work through very smoothly or quickly in correcting trade imbalances and can – by cheapening imports – even have the initial effect of boosting the trade surplus of the country that appreciates its currency.
David Marsh, Co-chairman, Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum
Chairman, SCCO International, Senor Advisor, Soditic CBIP LLP
Author of The Euro – The Politics of the New Global Currency [1]
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[1] Yale University Press. Published in German as Der Euro: Die geheime Geschichte der neuen Weltwährung (Murmann Verlag). http://www.londonandoxford.com/The_Euro/The_Euro.htm
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