《今日美国》:中国用蛮横的方式将人民币挤进SDR

charleswu

《今日美国》11月30日在题为《中国用蛮横的方式挤进SDR》（China bullies its way to new currency status）的文章中称，虽然中国这个世界第二大经济体并没能够遵守很多自由市场的尊则，但它星期一加入了全球货币精英俱乐部。国际货币基金组织 (IMF)将人民币纳入特别提款权(SDR)货币篮子的举动很大程度上来说是只有象征意义的，短期内并不会对世界贸易和市场有很大的影响。

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/11/30/delamaide-china-bullies-its-way-new-currency-status/76580046/


　　但是IMF愿意在SDR问题上放宽自己的规定，则是对中国在世界发挥自己经济影响力的愿望的奉承，这将会带来意想不到的后果。

　　文章还指出，尽管IMF总结时说，人民币是可以“自由使用的”，然而事实并非如此。人民币并不能在外汇市场自由交易，中国的证券市场也并未对外国投资者开放，而这是可“自由使用的”最基本的标准。

　　文章还说，IMF的话的意思可能是中国在使人民币国际化的问题上取得了进步，IMF的认可将会加强北京改革派的卡侬骨子里。然而，鉴于中国任性藐视它加入的任何国际组织的规则的历史，这似乎是一个过于乐观的假设，从而也使得整个决定看起来像是受到政治驱动的。

　　而这些政治权术并不一定符合美国的利益。IMF的总裁拉加德（Christine Lagarde）是一位法国人，她一手促成了将人民币纳入SDR的决定。在近来的希腊债务危机中，她已经向人们表明，只要符合欧洲的利益，她会无视IMF的规则。

　　如今，拉加德无视中国不能达标的事实，并愿意满足中国加入西方式民主国家行列的愿望。这么做，拉加德又给予了二战后建立起来的管理全球经济的多边机构，诸如IMF、世界银行和世界贸易组织（WTO），致命一击。

　　文章还说，在顺从中国的经济雄心上，欧洲比美国要迫切的多了。欧洲国家，包括法国，今年年初同美国分道扬镳，纷纷加入了中国倡导的、对抗战后国际机构的亚投行（AIIB）。WTO几乎已经完全不起作用了，很大一部分原因是因为中国2001年加入之后，就经常违反它的规则。

　　文章还说，由于美元作为主要的储备货币和贸易货币的原因，美国在战后经济中一直享有特权。很多国家，包括发达国家，对此颇为不满。但是寻找替代选项的努力并没有成功，欧元近来也视为一大希望，然而欧元区已经遭受危机打击超过5年了。

brav

interesting,  I copied the original article here:

WASHINGTON — China gained admittance Monday into the elite club of top global currencies, even though the world’s second-largest economy fails to observe many of the free-market rules governing world trade and finance.

The move by the International Monetary Fund to include the Chinese yuan, officially known as the renminbi, in the basket of currencies it uses for its own accounting of reserves is largely symbolic and will have little immediate impact on world trade or markets.

But the IMF’s willingness to stretch its own rules about what currencies make up its basket — the others are the U.S. dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and the British pound — is an appeasement of China’s growing desire to throw around its economic weight and could have unintended consequences down the road.

After months of debate, the IMF concluded that the Chinese currency is “freely usable” even though it patently is not.


USA TODAY
China's yuan joins world's elite currencies

It can't be freely traded in foreign exchange markets and Chinese securities markets are not open to foreign investors — two criteria that until now would have been considered minimal requirements for “freely usable.”

Rather, the word is that China has made progress toward making its currency more international, and this recognition by the IMF will strengthen the hand of reformers in Beijing who want to fully open the economy to international trade and investment.

Given the way China has flouted the rules of any international organization it has joined whenever it feels like it, this seems like an optimistic assumption and makes the decision look politically motivated.

And those politics are not necessarily in the interest of the United States.

The French managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, who pushed through the decision on the yuan, has already demonstrated with the recent Greek bailout that she is willing to ride roughshod over the IMF’s own rules when it suits Europe’s interests.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde speaks at the IMF headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 30, 2015. (Photo: EPA)
In that case, she pushed through IMF loans to Greece far in excess of what would have been allowed under normal lending limits, and most of that money went to French and German banks so they could be repaid in full for their imprudent lending in Greece.

Now, by ignoring China's failure to meet even the most minimal tests for a freely convertible currency, she is willing to placate China’s desire to join the ranks of developed Western-style democracies even though it is, in most respects, very much an emerging market with a long history of political repression.

In doing so, Lagarde is driving another nail into the coffin of the multilateral institutions set up after World War II to help regulate and manage a global economy — the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.

Europe has been far more eager than the U.S. to defer to China’s economic ambitions. European countries, including France, broke with the U.S. earlier this year to join the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank being set up by China as a regional counterweight to the postwar institutions.

The WTO has become almost completely useless, in no small part because China routinely disobeyed its rules after joining in 2001. The World Bank has been overtaken by events, as many development projects can now get commercial financing, and that institution has floundered over the years.

China and other emerging markets argue that it is imperative for postwar institutions to evolve and adapt to shifts in the global economy, notably the growth of the emerging economies and the decline of the U.S. and European share of world GDP.

The U.S. has resisted a reallocation of voting rights in the IMF that would reflect that shift, but it acquiesced in this week’s symbolic currency move.

There is still a good deal of political controversy in the U.S., however, regarding China’s alleged manipulation of its currency to boost its exports and to keep out imports by artificially depressing the yuan’s value.

The IMF wanted to signal that China has come closer to allowing market forces to determine the value of its currency, even though the evidence for this is mixed.

The U.S. has enjoyed a privileged place in the postwar economy because of the dollar’s role as the main reserve and trading currency. Many other countries, including developed countries, have chafed under this U.S. privilege.

But efforts to find alternatives have not been successful. The latest hope was that euro would take on a bigger role in trade and finance, but the Eurozone's joint currency has been racked in crisis for more than five years.

It is far from certain that the world financial system, and particularly the United States, will benefit from the greater role of a country that is flexing its economic muscle with the acquisition of natural resources across the globe, ignoring trade rules on subsidizing exports, still engaging in a fair amount of currency manipulation and aggressively seeking not only economic but military hegemony in its region.