ファイナンシャル･タイムズの中国に関する記事

John Dizard: Don’t bank on China >By John Dizard >Published: August 3 2005 15:31 | Last updated: August 3 2005 15:31 >> All the really smart people I know in the American investment world believe that the recent change in China’s exchange rate regime is only the beginning of a pretty dramatic move over the next couple of years. A recent Bridgewater Associates Daily Observation, a pretty good proxy for serious fundamental analysis, said: “Market discounting (of future dollar devaluation) is as if nothing has really changed last week in terms of a likelihood of a rise in the yuan. We don’t think that’s the case.” There followed a typically data-intensive Bridgewater case for how the 2 per cent rise in the value of the renminbi is too small in comparison with past Asian currency revaluations. “These are the countries that, in many respects, created the model the Chinese would like to follow.” Besides, how can a mere 2 per cent move, or a further 1 per cent move during the next year, noticeably change the relative competitiveness of the two economies? It can’t. “None of my friends in the market think the move so far is sufficient,” says a very smart woman who manages a whole bunch of money. Where there’s a tip there’s a tap, as they say in London, and Asian currency funds for the common man are on offer for only a few keystrokes of effort. I think they’re all wrong. Not on the facts or on the integrity and cohesiveness of their analysis. Over time, yes, the renminbi and other emerging market currencies will rise in relation to the dollar. Not for the next couple of years, though. And if I’m right, and you renminbi bulls are wrong, you’re going to be paying some pretty significant negative carry while you’re waiting for your pay-off. The Chinese government can keep buying dollars with renminbi, and the deflationary impact of productivity increases will let them do so without creating a domestic disaster. So it doesn’t matter so much what we think is important, such as Senator Charles Schumer’s opinion on the “undervalued” renminbi, or lines on charts that wildly diverge from each other. It doesn’t even matter that there’s no immediate use for the $711bn in low-coupon foreign exchange reserves in Chinese accounts. What matters is what the Chinese leadership thinks is important. Appalling as the thought of another Schumer press conference may be to many of us, the Chinese leadership’s thoughts are concentrated by another prospect: more rural people moving to the city. According to the Chinese, 73 per cent of their population live in rural areas, and a very large number of them want to move to the city. The country needs to add at least 20m jobs a year, largely to accommodate this migration. Chinese agriculture’s prices are, for the most part, set in the world markets; dollar-priced in other words. Let’s say there’s a 10 per cent devaluation of the dollar against the renminbi during the course of the next year. That would mean there would also be a 10 per cent cut in Chinese farmers’ incomes relative to the cost of renminbi-priced goods and services. Would that mean 5m more people moving to the cities? What about a 20 per cent dollar devaluation? Would that mean another 10m or 20m newly impoverished job seekers? Bernard Connolly, the global strategist at Banque AIG, says: “Investment growth in China has been so fast, that even if it slows to the trend rate of growth, say 10 per cent annually, that leaves a hole in the economy that has to be filled by other demand. That means there will be some increase in consumption, but there will be a significant rise in net exports. They have to keep growth above the perceived limit of political risk, which may be around 7 per cent annually.” His colleague, Steve Gilmore, says: “Being short the dollar against the RMB (renminbi) has been one of the most consistently losing trades. The only people who would have made any money would have been those who put it on in the past two to three months. Even if the day before the revaluation, somebody who had taken the one-year short dollar view would have made only 0.7 per cent on their money.” The real losers from China’s trade and currency policy in the next few years will be the middle-income Asian countries, such as Thailand or Malaysia. Some of their exports will be displaced by the goods produced with China’s new industrial capital. If that means China piles up more dollar savings, the leadership will probably go along with it, for the next couple of years. It gives them leverage against the superpower, always fun to have. When China’s working population ages, they’ll need those offshore savings. So don’t sell Treasury bonds based on renminbi revaluation prospects.

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