人民币不升值对中国更危险 Renminbi peg risks emerging economies boom and bust

By orchestrating a massive appreciation of the yen in the mid-1980s, the US condemned Japan to decades of stagnation and ended the challenge to its own economic hegemony. Effectively Japan was forced to commit financial hara-kiri.

上世纪80年代中期，美国一手导演了日元的大幅升值，致使日本经济数十年停滞不前，并让本国经济霸权面临的挑战化为乌有。实际上，日本被迫进行了一次金融“切腹”。

This theory, once confined to Japan’s nationalistic fringe, is now being used by the Chinese authorities to justify their resistance to a substantial revaluation of the renminbi. By so doing they are misdiagnosing Japan’s woes and misperceiving the true threat to their own economy. The threat to China does not lie in an appreciating currency but elsewhere.

这套理论过去只在日本的极端民族主义者中间流传，现在却被中国当局用来作为拒绝让人民币大幅重估的佐证。他们这么做是对日本问题的误判，也没有认清中国经济面临的真正威胁——威胁并不在人民币升值上，而在其它方面。

Here’s what happened in the case of Japan. In the Plaza Accord of 1985 the G7 attempted to address global imbalances – worrying then, but small beer by today’s standards – by “encouraging” significant changes in currency parities. They got what they wanted. The yen took off and never looked back.

我们来看看日本当时的情况。1985年签订《广场协议》(Plaza Accord)时，七国集团(G7)试图通过“鼓励”汇率大幅调整，解决全球失衡——当时的失衡局面让人焦头烂额，但按今日的标准来看并不严重。他们达到了目的。日元一路飞升，再没回头。

Japanese policymakers accepted the loss of competitiveness not because they were submissive, but because they were brimming with self-confidence.

日本的政策制定者能够接受本国竞争力的减弱，并不是因为他们性子温顺，而是因为他们充满了自信。

They believed their economy would survive any downturn with little damage, and they were right: the recession of 1986 was short and shallow.

他们相信日本经济能够安然渡过任何衰退。他们是对的：1986年的衰退既短暂，也不严重。

Furthermore they saw a strong yen as a useful weapon in a world in which Japan’s trading partners were imposing quotas on its most successful companies.

此外，他们认为，在贸易伙伴国纷纷对日本最成功的企业实施配额的环境下，强势日元可以算是一件有用的武器。

Again, they were right. The all-powerful yen allowed Japanese automakers to build up manufacturing capacity inside key Western markets.

这种想法仍然是正确的。日元的强大，让日本汽车制造商得以在西方重要市场内部逐步扩大制造产能。

They also believed it was high time to shift the Japanese economy from exports to consumption and that a stronger yen would raise the purchasing power of households. Here, though, they were wrong.

他们还认为，是时候把日本经济从出口型经济转变为消费型经济了，而日元升值将增强日本家庭的购买力。可这回他们想错了。

The spending spree of the late 1980s – when Japanese salaryman sprinkled gold-flakes on their noodles and secretaries stayed in the same upmarket Hawaiian resorts as American chief executives – is a distant memory.

上世纪80年代末的消费狂潮已成为久远的回忆。当时，日本的工薪阶层往面条里撒金箔，部长们前往美国首席执行官们常去的夏威夷高端旅游胜地度假。

What got in the way was one of history’s worst doses of bubble trouble. For a crucial thirty months after the mild recession was over, the authorities allowed credit growth to rip and real estate and stock prices to soar.

造成妨碍的是史上最糟糕的泡沫应对策略之一。在轻度衰退过后的至关重要的30个月里，日本当局任由信贷迅猛增长、房价和股价一起飙升。

Why would they do such a thing? Because of those fatal words that lie behind every bubble – “this time it’s different.” They genuinely believed what pundits, academics and opinion leaders everywhere were saying – that Japanese industrial might was unstoppable and that Japan was destined to become the world’s largest economy.

他们为什么会这么做？原因就在于每一场泡沫中都必有的那套致命言论——“这次不一样。”他们真的听信了各国权威人士、学者和意见领袖们的说词：日本工业的实力是不可阻挡的，日本必将成为全球最大的经济体。

So, in a sense Japan did commit financial suicide – not by allowing the extraordinary rise in the yen but by allowing an even more extraordinary rise in asset prices. By the end of 1989 Tokyo accounted for more than half of the world’s stock market capitalisation and the grounds of the Imperial Palace alone were reportedly worth more than the entire state of California.

因而，从某种意义上来说，日本的确是在进行金融自杀——这么说不是因为它允许日元以离谱的幅度升值，而是因为它听任资产价格以更加离谱的速度上涨。到1989年底，东京股市的市值已经占到了全球的一半以上，日本皇宫地皮的价值据报超过美国整个加州。

The inevitable bust took down the banking system and set off a deflationary dynamic from which Japan has yet to recover.

泡沫不可避免的破裂，拖垮了银行体系，引发了通缩，日本经济至今仍未恢复元气。

This didn’t have to happen. We know this because the Plaza Accord targeted two countries with bulging current account surpluses. The other was pre-unification Germany.

这一切原本是可以避免的。我们之所以这么说，是因为《广场协议》针对的其实是两个经常账目盈余不断膨胀的国家。另一个就是统一前的德国。

Between September 1985, when the G7 met at the Plaza Hotel, and December 1990, when the Nikkei Index peaked out, both the yen and the mark rose roughly 40 per cent against the dollar. But in stark contrast to the Japanese experience, there was no German bubble. While the Nikkei was trebling, the Dax rose by a cumulative 50 per cent – less than most major markets. German house prices gently declined.

从1985年9月G7在广场饭店开会到1990年12月日经指数见顶期间，日元和马克对美元分别升值了40%左右。但德国的情况与日本形成了鲜明的对比：德国半点泡沫也未出现。日经指数上涨了两倍，德国Dax指数累计才上涨50%，涨幅小于大多数主要市场。同时德国房价还小幅下跌。

The message is clear. It wasn’t the rise in the yen which sunk Japan but the response, which was an egregious policy mistake. So if you really wanted to sabotage the rise of China, the best way would be to facilitate a gigantic asset bubble.

显而易见，让日本衰落的并非日元升值，而是日本的应对策略。那实属极其严重的政策失误。所以，如果你真的想阻止中国崛起，最好的办法就是帮助中国生成巨大的资产泡沫。

In present circumstances, that would probably be accomplished by leaving the renminbi where it is. This would lock high growth China into the super-low interest rates appropriate for the weak US economy, force savers out of cash and into the housing market and ensure credit grows much more than gross domestic product – the perfect mix for bubble trouble.

在当前形势下，让人民币汇率原地踏步或许就能够达到这一目的。那将让经济高速增长的中国陷入经济疲软的美国才适用的超低利率环境，促使储蓄者把现金投进楼市，并确保信贷增速远高于国内生产总值(GDP)增速——这堪称制造泡沫困境的完美组合拳。

The degree of euphoria surrounding some emerging economies is already troubling. The Indian and Indonesian stock markets are trading at price earnings ratios of over 40 times based on 10 year average earnings. You would surely need a hundred years of fortitude to buy Mexico’s recently issued one hundred year bond at a yield of 5.6 per cent. Bubble and bust in China, on which the world is so dependent for growth and optimism, would likely tank the commodities markets, set off a second round of deflation and end the emerging markets boom in the most spectacular way possible.

目前市场对某些新兴经济体的热捧程度已经令人担忧。按10年平均营利计算，印度和印尼股市的市盈率都已超过了40倍。你需要有能够忍耐100年的坚韧精神，才敢购买墨西哥新近发行的收益率为5.6%的100年期债券。全球的增长和乐观情绪如此依赖于中国，如果中国出现泡沫并且泡沫破裂，可能会以最惊心动魄的方式重创大宗商品市场、引发第二轮通缩，并终结新兴市场的繁荣。

Peter Tasker is a Tokyo-based analyst with Arcus Research

本文作者是Arcus Research驻东京分析师