Blaming Beijing

The New York Times, Wednesday, Sep 3, 2003

Unemployment in America is high, and elections are on the horizon. It must be time to look east again for scapegoats. Japan is only starting to recover from its protracted recession, so China will be handed the role of economic villain in the coming election cycle. Expect to hear a chorus of presidential candidates blame unfair Chinese competition for the nation's manufacturing woes. China's trading partners do have legitimate grievances, but it would be irresponsible and inaccurate for American politicians to pin our economic sluggishness on scheming culprits in Beijing.

Exhibit A of what is alleged to be the perfidy of Beijing's communist rulers is China's $100 billion trade surplus with the United States. Exhibit B in the evolving politicized debate, if not the smoking gun proving Beijing's unfairness, is China's undervalued currency, the yuan, because an undervalued currency makes a nation's exports more competitive. The yuan has been pegged at about 8.3 to the dollar for some time. But most economists say China's currency would appreciate by as much as a third if allowed to float freely.

Traveling in Asia yesterday, Treasury Secretary John Snow heeded political pressures back home in exhorting Chinese leaders to let the market price their currency. This is a desirable outcome in the long run, but a raft of immediate caveats come to mind.

China's financial system remains fragile, and sudden currency volatility could lead to a banking crisis that could spell disaster for the world economy. Washington would do better to urge China's leaders to focus on their lack of preparation to assume their proper role in the world's financial order, rather than to demand any supposedly quick fix. Moreover, China's refusal to devalue its currency in the aftermath of the late 1990's crises in East Asia (much appreciated by its neighbors and Washington at a time when the yuan seemed overvalued) adds credence to its leadership's insistence that it prizes stability when it comes to exchange rates, not short-term advantage. With most economists concerned that China's robust growth could fuel inflation and a speculative bubble, there are valid reasons for Beijing to fear a surging currency.

It would also be silly to argue that exchange rates, as opposed to cheap labor and other factors, are the primary reason Americans buy three-quarters of their toys from China. Nor does a prospering China, by definition, cost America jobs, as the experience of the late 1990's proved. American politicians should resist dusting off old complaints about Japan and redirecting them at China. This is hardly a case of an exporting nation that is unfairly protecting its own market. China's imports are growing at a faster clip than its exports, and the bulk of the exports registering in those eye-popping trade figures are goods built in China by the likes of Intel and America's automakers.