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纽约时报·译稿/凤凰网财经
克鲁格曼 美国经济学家诺贝尔经济学家得主 每年此时是各专家权威预测来年情况的时候，我预测2010年是中国的天下，但场面恐怕不是很好看。 与中国相关的最大问题，其实是气候变迁，但这里我想把焦点放在汇率政策上。 中国已成为金融和贸易强权，但举止不像其他经济大国，而是依循重商主义政策，蓄意让贸易顺差维持在高点。在举世都不景气的今日，这个政策讲白一点就是种掠夺的行为。 人民币不像美元、欧元或日圆可自由波动，而是限制在大约人民币6.8元兑1美元的官定区间。在这种汇率水准下，中国制造业享有很大的成本优势，自然产生庞大的贸易盈余。 在正常情况下，这些盈余带来的美元，会推升人民币的价值，除非民间投资人反其道而行。如今投资人多要进入中国市场，而非退出，只是中国政府限制资本流入，自己却大买美元，累积出至少2兆美元的外汇存底。 此政策对以出口为导向的中国国营企业有利，对中国消费者则没那么好。但对我们其他人而言呢？ 过去中国所累积的外汇存底，多用以投资美国公债，可说让我们享受到低利率的好处，虽也导致房市泡沫。但如今便宜资金在全世界泛滥，四处寻觅停靠站。短期利率接近零，长期利率稍高一点，但那也只是因为投资人预期零利率政策有一天会结束；中国收购美债并没有改变什么情况。 贸易顺差会耗尽现在全球经济最需要的需求；我粗略估计，中国的重商主义未来几年可能会让美国失去大约140万个工作。 中国拒绝承认这个问题。最近国务院总理温家宝驳斥其他国家的埋怨，辩称各国一方面要人民币升值，一方面却采取各种保护主义的措施。其他国家确实祭出(温和的)保护措施，但这正是因为中国不让人民币升值。 我常听到两个不要挑战中国政策的理由，但毫无道理可言。 首先，有人声称不要对抗中国是怕他们大卖美元，搞垮美国经济。这个说法错得一塌糊涂，因为中国如果这么做，不但自己会蒙受钜额损失，更重大的问题在于中国的重商主义杀伤力如此之大，代表中国的财务杠杆少得可怜。 我再度强调，如今全球充斥便宜资金，所以如果中国要开始卖美元，美国利率没有理由大幅上扬。美元或许会贬值，但这对美国的竞争力和就业只有好处而非坏处。所以如果中国真的抛售美元，我们还应该寄上感谢函。 其次，有人认为保护主义无论如何都不是好事。如果你也相信，代表经济学这门课可 已故诺贝尔经济学奖得主萨缪森(Paul Samuelson)曾说，未达充分就业时，所有卸下重商主义面具后的论点，都站得住脚，也就是补贴出口的国家，实际上都是从别国窃得工作。 萨缪森还指出，持续操纵汇率会为自由贸易制造真正的问题。而最好的解决办法就是让汇率回到常轨，但这是中国不愿见到的事情。 中国重商主义造成的问题愈来愈大，而受害者若挑起贸易冲突，也不会再有更大的损失。 在此呼吁中国政府重新思考，否则他们抱怨的保护主义，现在还算轻微，未来可能引发更严重的问题。
英文原稿：
Op-Ed Columnist Chinese New Year By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: December 31, 2009 It’s the season when pundits traditionally make predictions about the year ahead. Mine concerns international economics: I predict that 2010 will be the year of China. And not in a good way.Skip to next paragraph Paul Krugman Go to Columnist Page » Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal Related Actually, the biggest problems with China involve climate change. But today I want to focus on currency policy. China has become a major financial and trade power. But it doesn’t act like other big economies. Instead, it follows a mercantilist policy, keeping its trade surplus artificially high. And in today’s depressed world, that policy is, to put it bluntly, predatory. Here’s how it works: Unlike the dollar, the euro or the yen, whose values fluctuate freely, China’s currency is pegged by official policy at about 6.8 yuan to the dollar. At this exchange rate, Chinese manufacturing has a large cost advantage over its rivals, leading to huge trade surpluses. Under normal circumstances, the inflow of dollars from those surpluses would push up the value of China’s currency, unless it was offset by private investors heading the other way. And private investors are trying to get into China, not out of it. But China’s government restricts capital inflows, even as it buys up dollars and parks them abroad, adding to a $2 trillion-plus hoard of foreign exchange reserves. This policy is good for China’s export-oriented state-industrial complex, not so good for Chinese consumers. But what about the rest of us? In the past, China’s accumulation of foreign reserves, many of which were invested in American bonds, was arguably doing us a favor by keeping interest rates low — although what we did with those low interest rates was mainly to inflate a housing bubble. But right now the world is awash in cheap money, looking for someplace to go. Short-term interest rates are close to zero; long-term interest rates are higher, but only because investors expect the zero-rate policy to end some day. China’s bond purchases make little or no difference. Meanwhile, that trade surplus drains much-needed demand away from a depressed world economy. My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that for the next couple of years Chinese mercantilism may end up reducing U.S. employment by around 1.4 million jobs. The Chinese refuse to acknowledge the problem. Recently Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, dismissed foreign complaints: “On one hand, you are asking for the yuan to appreciate, and on the other hand, you are taking all kinds of protectionist measures.” Indeed: other countries are taking (modest) protectionist measures precisely because China refuses to let its currency rise. And more such measures are entirely appropriate. Or are they? I usually hear two reasons for not confronting China over its policies. Neither holds water. First, there’s the claim that we can’t confront the Chinese because they would wreak havoc with the U.S. economy by dumping their hoard of dollars. This is all wrong, and not just because in so doing the Chinese would inflict large losses on themselves. The larger point is that the same forces that make Chinese mercantilism so damaging right now also mean that China has little or no financial leverage. Again, right now the world is awash in cheap money. So if China were to start selling dollars, there’s no reason to think it would significantly raise U.S. interest rates. It would probably weaken the dollar against other currencies — but that would be good, not bad, for U.S. competitiveness and employment. So if the Chinese do dump dollars, we should send them a thank-you note. Second, there’s the claim that protectionism is always a bad thing, in any circumstances. If that’s what you believe, however, you learned Econ 101 from the wrong people — because when unemployment is high and the government can’t restore full employment, the usual rules don’t apply. Let me quote from a classic paper by the late Paul Samuelson, who more or less created modern economics: “With employment less than full ... all the debunked mercantilistic arguments” — that is, claims that nations who subsidize their exports effectively steal jobs from other countries — “turn out to be valid.” He then went on to argue that persistently misaligned exchange rates create “genuine problems for free-trade apologetics.” The best answer to these problems is getting exchange rates back to where they ought to be. But that’s exactly what China is refusing to let happen. The bottom line is that Chinese mercantilism is a growing problem, and the victims of that mercantilism have little to lose from a trade confrontation. So I’d urge China’s government to reconsider its stubbornness. Otherwise, the very mild protectionism it’s currently complaining about will be the start of something much bigger.
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