China Tells

The global financial crisis in 08/09 has pushed many scholars and economists to think what is the cause behind the crisis and the measure to address it. One of the most frequently quoted cause is the global imbalance in trade: namely an unsustainably high trade deficit from USA and an excessively high trade surplus from China. The leading criticizers for such imbalance include Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. For a certain period of time during 09, such an imbalance does seem to reverse (see graph above). The trade deficit of USA reduced from 800 billion to less than 600 billion, and its trade deficit with China also reversed course. Such a reversal, however, seems very shortlived in hindsight, and since the beginning of 2010, the trade deficit of USA started to enlarge again, with its trade deficit with China on a similar path going further south. Such a feature will be repeatedly used by American politicians to put pressure on Beijing regarding the RMB policy, even though a larger part of deficit widening probably comes from the weakening of Euro in the early part of the year.

自从08年金融危机以来，关于其成因以及如何应对成为世界经济学界讨论的热门话题。被广泛引用的原因之一即所谓的世界贸易不平衡说，意指美国借债过多，逆差过大，而中国顺差过大。这种情况在09年得到改善：中国的贸易顺差和美国的贸易逆差同时减少，似乎世界经济正在从不平衡向平衡状态转变。但是自从10年1月以来，这种不平衡似乎又重新恢复，中国的贸易顺差继续增加，而美国也回到了借钱过日子的老把戏。看来世界经济再平衡说起来容易做起来难。