Why Is America Obsessed With The RMB Exchange Rate?

In the first five months of this year, the RMB depreciated against the US dollar by about 2.9%. In early April, US Treasury officials expressed serious concern about the depreciation of the renminbi.

Last Friday, US Treasury officials made a briefing before the finance minister's visit to China, saying that China has indeed made progress in the process of exchange rate marketization, but the RMB exchange rate is still substantially underestimated and China needs to continue to make adjustments.

Stephen Hroch, senior researcher at the Institute of global affairs of Yale University, believes that the "Fascination" of the United States on the RMB exchange rate is a classic case of "political negation" strategy.

At present, the pressure of employment and income increase is high. Because China is the United States. trade deficit It is a political convenience to attribute the predicament of the middle class of the United States to the devaluation of the renminbi.

Roach disagreed with this "political convenience". He explained that the US trade deficit came from 102 countries, not one of China. Since China launched the reform in 2005, the RMB has appreciated 37% against the US dollar, and the balance of payments has been greatly improved. Especially from 2007 to 2013, China's trade surplus accounted for GDP. Gross domestic product The proportion dropped from 10.1% to 2.1%.

Research by Martin Kessler and Arvind Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Pedersen Institute of international economics, shows that the RMB exchange rate is close to equilibrium. Based on the standard of purchasing power parity in 2011, the RMB exchange rate was underestimated by only 1.7%.

Over the next three years, RMB The continued appreciation of the 2014 valuation level is reasonable.

Roach believes that the United States should focus on the exchange rate and focus more on practical cooperation with China so as to achieve common development.

China is carrying out more domestic demand transformation. The United States should seize the huge business opportunities that it contains, so that more American companies can enter China's commodity and service market. Criticizing the RMB exchange rate will make the United States miss the opportunities brought about by China's economic transformation and reform.