Growing up in Guangdong, a prosperous southern province with largest export industry in China, I have witnessed the economic boom since 1990s, characterized by growth in labor-intensive manufacturing economy and a large influx of migrant workers from neighboring provinces. But the rising wages, combined with spiraling energy and material costs, have squeezed out a large portion of these low-end factories’ gross profit in recent years. Most importantly, the appreciation of RMB becomes the last straw that breaks the camel's back: thousands of factories have been driven to quit this Pearl River Delta. However, on the other side of Pacific Ocean, the US government and Congress have been ceaselessly attacking on Chinese manipulation of its currency to make its exports to US cheaper and US exports much more expensive. Many politicians contribute the huge trade deficit that US has with China to the exchange rate and say it is artificially undervalued against the dollar as much as 40 percent.
Putting aside the political debate, is RMB indeed undervalued? Or is it undervalued as much as our empirical experience tells us? And is the exchange rate sufficient to reduce Chinese trade surplus?
As shown in the figure, from 2005 to 2008, bilateral trade deficit grows as RMB strengthens dramatically, while RMB exchange rate steady, trade deficit drops from 2008 to 2009.
This is a counterexample for the appreciation solution to the trade deficit problem. Further study is still needed. In the following paper, I will explore the effect of exchange rates on the trade flows between China and US by analyzing the data from recent years using Cheung’s model (using price elasticity), as well as incorporating other factors (consump...
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...t on overall trade flows is relatively small and sometimes goes in the direction opposite of anticipated. These findings suggest that exchange rate policy alone will not be sufficient to reduce the Chinese trade surplus. In my opinion, the omission of the effect of consumption and the close tie between some imports and exports, on the trade flows, warrants further examination in subsequent work.
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China’s Exchange Rate & Trade Flows 4
Secondly, the existence of merchant may maintain the stability in border areas (South-East). And the oversea trade is also an extremely part of the tribute system that can display China’s powerfulness. Lastly,the author calls for lax of business environment and tax policy with the expectation of trade
The current trade imbalance is caused in large part by intrinsic features of China's labor market and consumer base. The vast majority of China's 1.3 billion people still live in rural areas. China has, by some estimates, a surplus rural labor force of 120 million people, many of whom migrate to industrial centers to look for factory work, and drive down wages. As long as wages are low, the United States will continue to gobble up products made in China, while Chinese consumers will prefer to buy cheaper, homespun alternatives to American products. The rise in trade deficit with China has come at a cost to jobs in the United States, accordin...
Most economists predicted that a currency crisis was unlikely to damage China’s economy or trade; its macroeconomic fundamentals were healthy and it had the extra insurance of capital account controls. However, surrounded by neighbors in trouble, China could help but be somewhat effected by the larger, regional situation. The rest of the world continued to watch and worry about how much longer China would be able to defend its overvalued currency and still remain internationally competitive on an export basis (Song, 1998).
Coates, B., Horton, D., & McNamee, L. (2014, January 1). CHINA: PROSPECTS FOR EXPORT-DRIVEN GROWTH. Economic Roundup Issue 4. Department of the Treasury (Australia).
To balance the trade deficit, U.S. has been borrowing money from other countries including its biggest trade partner: China. It is possible to borrow money from many other countries especially when such country like U.S. have other countries trust. However, it is not the same as how it used to be in the past. As a result, U.S. cre...
For the past twenty-five years, China has witnessed an overall increase in its domestic growth (Fischler 148). According to the article, “The Rise of China as a Global Power,” by Dr. Rosita Dellios, China “is the world's fourth largest trading nation, rising from 32nd in 1978 to 10th in 1997.” Similarly, China’s GDP is also second to the United States of America, generating 13 percent of the world’s output (Dellios). Since China’s introduction into the World Trade Organization in December 2001, its average tariff dropped from 41 percent in 1992 to 6 percent in 2001, becoming one of the most open economies in the world (Dellios). China is also the world’s fastest developing economy, obtaining an annual growth of 9.5 percent through foreign direct investment, low labor rates, emerging markets, and growth expansion. (Dellios). Therefore, the 21st century has been titled the “Chinese Century”, as China has become the second-largest international economy in the world (Ji-lin 15).
The stability of currency values plays a significant role for economic and financial stability. It is not difficult to see the exchange rate fluctuations are widely regarded as damaging. As the movements of the exchange rate have significant and large effects on the trade balance, resource allocation, domestic prices, interest rate, national income and other key economic variables. Then can exchange rate movements be predicted by these fundamental economic variables?
In 2008, the Global Financial Crisis broke out; both the American economy and the economy in the West suffered a hard blow. However, a big economy system in the East emerged unexpectedly. China is now able to challenge the America’s decades-long dominant position in economic area. Started during the middle of 1990s, China’s manufacturing industry developed rapidly that billions of exports were floating out, and China was given the title of “the world’s factory”(BBC). By the end of 2010, China with a GDP of $5.8 trillion, surpassed Japan’s GDP of $5.48 trillion, became the world’s second largest economy system (BBC). China also exceeded Japan became America’s largest foreign securities holder. Since then, China has been seen as the US’s biggest opponent in economic field. Some economists even say that in 10 years, China will be the same size as the US economy. No matter whether China is going to reach the US’s economy size in 10 years or not, after forty years since the US first opened trade with China in 1972, America’s economy gradually relies on China’s economy and will collapse without the strength of China’s market.
Trade deficit has been a concern for a very long time. It is the total of goods and services that are imported by the United States and is greater than the total it exports. The United States deficit was around $5399.514 billion in 2012, exports in the amount of $2.194 trillion and minus imports of $2.734. The United States depends on foreign oil to drive the trade deficit. Consumer products, drugs, consumer electronics, household goods, furniture and clothing is a large contributor to the trade deficit. In 2012 the United States imported $298 billion worth of trucks, auto parts, and cars, while they only exported $146 billion, which ran a deficit of $152 billion ("US Trade Deficit", n.d., p. 1).
The massive increase in the Chinese trading relations was fueled by the United States in the year 1979 through the normal trade relations between the two countries. In addition, the Chinese non-concession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the year 2001 also facilitated its trading activities with different countries including the United States (Kaplan, 57). However, trading relations with the Chinese have been uneasy resulting from the massive trade imbalances in the recent past, which grows exponentially. The protectionist policies of the United States especially in Washington and Beijing have been putting pressure on the Chinese to revalue their currency as well as protecting it from counterfeits, which may be of adverse effects to the trading relations. This paper gives a comprehensive discussion on the foreign trade relations with china. It further gives an elaborate discussion on the impacts of foreign tr...
In the first part, we are going to take a closer look at China’s economy by analyzing its external trade relations within the region...
In November of 2004, the United States ran a fifty-four billion dollar trade deficit, translating to over 600 billion for the entire year. This deficit is a result of the disparity between the amount of goods that the US imports and the amount it exports. To equalize this deficit in its current account, the American government sells assets from its capital account, often to foreign investors. This phenomenon is seen as a serious threat to the success and continued growth of the nation’s economy, tied in with popular concerns that the United States is losing its competitive and dominant edge in global economics. The traditional economic theory employed to solve this problem calls for a return to mercantile protectionism, through use of tariffs and subsidies to drive up the price of imports and lower the price of exports. Running contrary to this is a second option: increasing domestic savings and lowering government spending. These theories both aim to decrease American dependence upon foreign imports and investment, and ultimately equalize the enormous trade deficit that currently exists.
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Despite the fact that recent reports have shown that the Chinese currency is currently facing descending pressures, it is, however, likely to improve in the future because of the enhanced terms of trade, current account surplus that is growing, and high net saving. Another reason that will make the Chinese RMB to do well in the future it is because the currency has solid fundamentals and the economy of the country is significantly increasing at a higher rate than the GDP rates. Due to the growing Chinese economy to being the second largest economy, the Chinese currency yuan has been acknowledged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a major global
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