China's dollar dilemma

It needs to continue to support the dollar to safeguard the trillions it has invested in US T-bills

Asia has a precedent of investors wasting the wealth the real economy has created. Japan did it in the 1980s while buying trophy real estate, film studios and what-not at fancy prices; the Japanese lost a huge amount in the early 1990s slowdown, and have since then not been very enthusiastic about such adventures. The Sovereign Wealth Funds, many of them from Asia, including the Chinese fund, have lost hundreds of billions in the current turmoil in the global financial markets. What is even scarier for the Chinese authorities is what happens to the value of their huge investment in US Treasuries (and other dollar-securities) — something like $1.5 trillion, or 40 per cent of China’s GDP. Will the IOUs from Uncle Sam turn out to be “a post-dated cheque on a bankrupt bank”, as the Mahatma famously remarked in a different context?

As it is, the losses incurred by the China Investment Corporation (CIC), the sovereign wealth fund, have attracted a lot of media criticism. CIC apart, the reserves-management agency, State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), also keeps 15 per cent of its huge hoard in unsafe (risky) assets like equities and must have lost a huge sum — at least in absolute terms. But, clearly, the biggest worry must be about the value of SAFE’s holdings of US treasury securities ($1 trillion-plus). There are two potential threats:

 

 

 

The interest rate risk. Bond yields are very low by historical standards and they would go up (and the yield curve steepen) when economic recovery begins. 
 

The value of the dollar against major currencies in general, and the yuan in particular. Given the huge twin deficits — current account and fiscal, the latter a staggering 14 per cent of GDP in 2009-10 as per the budget before Congress — a correction would surely occur sooner or later. A sharp fall would bankrupt the central bank!

As for the dollar:yuan exchange rate, the Obama Administration started by accusing China of “manipulating” it. This, of course, is nonsense: There are no international agreements which require countries to manage exchange rates in a particular fashion — and China promptly refuted the allegation, advising the US to consume less and save more to balance its external account. China has already lost a reported 20 million jobs in export industries, and can hardly afford further appreciation of its currency. But, China is clearly worried about the value of its huge exposure to dollar securities: No wonder Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has called upon the United State to assure the safety of its investment — but the key issue is not so much the safety as it is the value.

And, the more one thinks about it, the more one feels that there are few feasible solutions given the size of the exposure. The moment China starts transferring dollar reserves into other major currencies, the dollar would crash even before the restructuring is anywhere near its end. Again, the yuan appreciating may not help reduce the bilateral trade imbalance, as most of the products imported from China are no longer manufactured in the US. To be sure, China’s dollar dependency is not one-sided: The US needs Chinese imports and investments in treasuries to keep inflation and interest rates low. And, a significant fall of the dollar against major currencies would lead to even more volatility in financial markets, something which the world economy will find it very difficult to digest in the current conditions.

Perhaps, the solution would need to come through focusing on and correcting the savings investment imbalances rather than the trade deficit — although macro-economically the two are identical. If Americans start saving more — on a national basis this seems difficult, given the gargantuan fiscal deficit — and the Chinese start spending more, the global imbalances could come down to manageable levels without a currency upheaval. (The Japanese and oil exporters’ surpluses are falling — and the eurozone is more or less in balance.) Anything else may inevitably lead to the Chinese losing hundreds of billions of dollars in the value of the country’s reserves. China’s central bank governor recently proposed expanded role for the SDR as an IMF-managed reserve currency. Let us see what G-20 comes out with later this week.

Tailpiece: As for the US fiscal stimulus to the economy, the following comments from Marc Faber’s monthly bulletin (June 2008) are interesting:

“If we spend that money at WalMart , the money goes to China. 
 

If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. 
 

If we buy a computer it will go to India. 
 

If we purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. 
 

If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. 
 

If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy. 
 

The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only things still produced in US. 
 

I have been doing my part.”

avrajwade@gmail.com