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China: a stabilizing or deflationary influence in East Asia?The problem of conflicted virtue

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  • Schnabl, Gunther
Abstract
Rapidly growing Chinese exports are middle-tech - and increasingly high-tech - manufactured goods. China runs a huge and growing bilateral trade surplus with the United States, and the position of Japan has changed radically from being a net exporter to China in the 1980s and most of 1990s to being a net importer today. China's smaller East Asian industrial competitors such as Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore face fairly difficult readjustment problems. However, China is a huge importer of primary products and industrial raw materials and runs large import surpluses with the ASEAN group. On the macroeconomic side, China has been a stabilizing influence. While maintaining steady high growth and exchange rate stability at 8.3 yuan per dollar since 1994, it has largely avoided, and thus dampened, the business cycles of its East Asian trading partners. But there are potential clouds on this horizon. Since 1995, China has run with moderate multilateral trade surpluses coupled with large inflows of foreign direct investment. The resulting balance of payments surpluses have led to a rapid buildup of liquid dollar claims on foreigners - both in official exchange reserves and, less obviously, in stocks held privately or in China's nonstate sectors. This increasing private dollar overhang leads to what we call the syndrome of conflicted virtue. If there is no threat that the renminbi will appreciate, private portfolio equilibrium for accumulating and holding both dollar and renminbi assets can be sustained. However, foreigners, particularly Japanese, are upset with China's excessive mercantile competitiveness. They are urging China's government to appreciate the renminbi - and show greater future exchange rate flexibility, which could lead to repetitive appreciations. The result would be severe deflation throughout China's economy and a zero-interest liquidity trap - as in Japan, when forced into repeated appreciations of the yen in the 1980s into the mid 1990s.

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  • Schnabl, Gunther, 2003. "China: a stabilizing or deflationary influence in East Asia?The problem of conflicted virtue," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 263, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:tuedps:263
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Guillermo A. Calvo & Carmen M. Reinhart, 2002. "Fear of Floating," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 379-408.
    2. Ronald McKinnon & Gunther Schnabl, 2006. "The East Asian Dollar Standard, Fear of Floating, and Original Sin," Chapters, in: Volbert Alexander & Hans-Helmut Kotz (ed.), Global Divergence in Trade, Money and Policy, chapter 3, pages 45-71, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Ronald McKinnon & Gunther Schnabl, 2003. "Synchronised Business Cycles in East Asia and Fluctuations in the Yen/Dollar Exchange Rate," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1067-1088, August.
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    5. Rishi Goyal & Ronald McKinnon, 2003. "Japan's Negative Risk Premium in Interest Rates: The Liquidity Trap and the Fall in Bank Lending," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 339-363, March.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions

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