保罗·克鲁格曼

现在正是专家对未来一年发表预言的传统时节。我的预言是关于国际经济的。我预言2010年将是中国之年，但不是好的意义上的。

实际上，有关中国的最大难题涉及气候变化。今天，我的重点在汇率政策。

中国已成为一个主要的财经和贸易大国，但它的表现却不象其他经济大国。中国遵循重商主义政策，人为地保持大量贸易盈余。在如今这个陷入经济衰退的世界，不客气地说，这一政策是掠夺性的。

这一政策的作用过程如下：和美元欧元或日元这些汇率自由波动的货币不同，人民币的汇率被官方政策钉在一美元兑换6.8元人民币。在这一汇率水平，中国制造业对于其对手拥有巨大成本优势，从而导致巨额贸易盈余。

在通常情况下，贸易盈余带来的美元流入会推动人民币升值，除非贸易盈余被私人对外投资抵消。私人投资者想进入而非离开中国。但是中国政府限制资本流入，从而导致超过2万亿美元的外汇储备。

这一政策对于中国出口导向型的国家-工业政策关系有利，对于中国消费者就不那么有好处。对于世界上其他人又如何呢？

在过去，中国积累的外汇储备很多投资于美国债券，从而使利率保持在低水平。这一点对我们可以说（也许有争议）是有益的，尽管我们利用低利率制造了房地产泡沫。现在，世界充斥着廉价货币，而这些货币正在寻找投资机会。短期利率近乎于零，长期利率较高一些，也只是因为投资者预期零利率的货币政策终究会终结。中国购买债券的影响甚微。

与此同时，中国的贸易盈余导致需求流失，而这需求是处于衰退中的世界经济所急需的。我的随手计算显示，在未来两年中国的重商主义将使美国失去140万份工作。

中国拒绝承认这一问题。最近温家宝总理反驳国外的抱怨时说“一方面，你们要求人民币升值。另一方面，你们正采取各种贸易保护主义措施。”其他国家确实在采取（较克制的）保护主义措施。这是因为中国拒绝让其货币升值。更多的保护主义措施是完全合适的。

更多的保护主义措施是合适的吗？我时常听到反对对抗中国政策的两个理由，但没有一个站得住脚。

其一，我们不能对抗中国，因为中国会通过抛售美元使美国经济陷入混乱。这种观点完全错误，不仅因为中国这样做会使自己遭受巨大损失。更重要的是，使得中国重商主义现今如此有害的力量，也意味着中国几乎没有财务杠杆。

我重申，现今世界充斥着廉价货币。如果中国开始抛售美元，我们没有理由认为这会显著提高美元利率。抛售很可能会使美元对其他货币贬值，但这种结果对美国竞争力和就业是利好。如果中国真的抛售美元，我们应该给他们寄一封感谢信。

其二，无论在任何情形下，保护主义总是有害的。如果你相信这一点，那么你是从错误的人那里学习了经济学入门课。当失业率高涨而政府无力使经济回归到充分就业，通常的规则就不再适用了。

请允许我引用刚去世的保罗·萨缪尔森（他在某种程度上开创了现代经济学）的一篇经典文章：“当就业不充分时，……所有错误的重商主义观点”（即对出口提供补贴的国家实际上是从其他国家偷取工作）“变为有效。”他接着论述长期扭曲的汇率给“自由贸易的辩护者带来真正的难题。”对这些难题的最好回答是让汇率调整到其应有的水平。然而这正是中国拒绝实施的。

归根到底，中国的重商主义是一个不断发展的难题。重商主义的受害者在贸易战中没有什么可以失去的。因此我敦促中国政府重新考虑其顽固政策。否则，现在非常温和的贸易保护主义（也是中国正在抱怨的）将成为严重得多的贸易保护的起点。

Chinese New Year

By PAUL KRUGMAN

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.

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.