人民币贬值——中间价之战

问个怪异的问题：中国央行在过去一周的干预是为了人民币走弱还是走强？考虑到各种有关贬值的报道，让人民币走弱似乎是显而易见的答案。事实上，反过来才是对的：在一开始的时候，央行曾想袖手旁观，给予了市场在人民币价值上更大的发言权；之后，它退缩了，介入市场以稳定随后的下跌。这种变脸既揭示出有关中国经济诸多怪异和对其进行改革的种种困难。

The devaluation of the yuan
人民币贬值

The battle of midpoint
中间价之战

China initiate market reforms of its currency, then backtracks
中国启动人民币的市场改革。随后，又退了回去。

TRICK question: did China's central bank intervene over the past week to weaken the yuan or to strengthen it? Given all the headlines about devaluation, weakening would seem the obvious answer. In fact, the opposite is true: it first tried to stand aside, giving the market more say in the yuan's value, and then backtracked, intervening to stem the ensuing decline. The volte-face reveals much about both the oddities of China's economyand the difficulty of reforming it.

问个怪异的问题：中国央行在过去一周的干预是为了人民币走弱还是走强？考虑到各种有关贬值的报道，让人民币走弱似乎是显而易见的答案。事实上，反过来才是对的：在一开始的时候，央行曾想袖手旁观，给予了市场在人民币价值上更大的发言权；之后，它退缩了，介入市场以稳定随后的下跌。这种变脸既揭示出有关中国经济诸多怪异和对其进行改革的种种困难。

Every morning, marketmakers such as the big state-owned banks submit yuan-dollar prices to the People's Bank of China (the central bank). It then averages these to calculatea “central parity” rate, or midpoint. Over the course of the day, the PBOC intervenes to keep the exchange rate from straying more than 2% above or below the midpoint.

每天早上，大型国有银行等造市商都会把人民币对美元的价格上报给中国人民银行（中国央行）。随后，央行对这些价格进行平均，测算出一个“中间价”汇率。在这一天之中，央行都会介入市场，以保持汇率的上下波动不超过中间价的2%。

In theory, it is the marketmakers, not the central bank, that set the midpoint and thus the trading band. In practice, the PBOC gets marketmakers to submit rates that will yield its preferred midpoint, irrespective of market sentiment (state-owned banks are pliant, after all). Critics in America and elsewhere have long alleged that China has manipulated the market in this way to keep its exchange rate cheap. They had a point up until 2012 or so.

从理论上说，是造市商而不是央行确定的中间价，因而，也就确定了交易区间。在实践中，央行会让造市商上报能产生令其满意的汇率，无视市场的情绪（毕竟，国有银行是听话的。）长期以来，美国和其他国家的批评者一直都在指责中国以这种方式操纵市场，以保持其汇率的低廉。他们的这种说法直到2012年之前都是对的。

For much of the past year, however, the central bank has in fact tipped the scales in the opposite direction, preventing a depreciation even as the Chinese economy weakened and the dollar surged. In recent months especially, trading of the yuan has regularly swung towards the weak end of the 2% band, but the central bank has nudged it back up by orchestrating stronger midpoints.

然而，在过去一年的大部分时间内，为了防止在中国经济趋弱和美元上涨的情况下的贬值，央行实际上已经让波动幅度向相反的方向倾斜了。尤其是在最近几个月中，人民币的交易时常向2%区间的弱势端波动。但是，央行会通过集体提高中间价的方式将汇率推回到强势端。

The reform the PBOC announced on August 11th sought to change this. From now on, the central bank declared, the midpoint would simply be the previous day's closing value. Given that traders had been selling and buying yuan at a big discount to the manipulated midpoint, the new market-determined midpoint immediately fell by 1.9%, the biggest single-day drop in the yuan's modern history.

中国人民银行在8月11日宣布的改革就是为了改变这种情况。央行宣布，从现在起，中间价将直接是前一天的收盘价。鉴于交易者一直都在以对被操纵的中间价打了很大折扣的价格买卖人民币，新诞生的市场中间价立即下跌了1.9%，这是人民币的当代史上最大的单日下跌。

That led to an even weaker market-determined midpoint on August 12th, whereupon the yuan fell yet again, sparking fears that the currency might be on the brink of a rout. It was at this point that the central bank intervened. It ordered state-owned banks to sell dollars and buy yuan, propping up the exchange rate at the very time that it was beingaccused of devaluing it. This tug-of-war could play out for weeks, with traders repeatedly testing the limits of the PBOC's tolerance for depreciation.

这种下跌在8月12日带来了一个更弱的市场中间价。当天，人民币再次下跌，引发了这种货币可能正处于崩溃边缘的担忧。在这个节骨眼上，央行介入了。它下令国有银行卖出美元买入人民币，就在被指责让人民币贬值的那一时刻推升了汇率。由于交易者会反复测试央行所容忍的贬值极限，这种拉锯战可能会持续数周。

This raises the question of what the central bank is hoping to achieve. The most popularexplanation is that it wants to stimulate its sluggish economy by cheapening its currency. The depreciation, after all, came just a couple of days after a surprisingly big drop in exports. However, the scale of the yuan's weakening belies such a motive (see chart). The initial 2% devaluation only undid the previous ten days' worth of appreciation in trade-weighted terms. The yuan remains more than 10% stronger against the currencies of China's trading partners than it was a year ago. Much bigger falls would be needed to make a difference. But Chinese officials have forsworn a large one-off devaluation, believing it would undermine faith in the yuan and would do little to help the economy, since it would just persuade others to let their currencies weaken too.

这提出了中国央行希望达到何种目标的问题。最流行的解释是，中国央行希望通过让人民币更加便宜的方式来刺激中国疲弱的经济。毕竟，这次贬值是在出口令人吃惊地大跌后没有几天就出现了。然而，人民币走弱的幅度掩饰了这样一个动机（见图表）。最初的2%的贬值，仅仅是抵消了过去十天中以贸易加权计算的升值。相对中国贸易伙伴的货币，人民币仍然比一年前强了10%。要想让贬值起作用，更大的下跌是必需的。但是，中国官员已经发誓放弃一次性的大幅贬值，认为这会消弱对人民币的信心，而且不会对经济有什么帮助。因为，一次性的大幅贬值只会让其他国家也放任他们的货币走弱。

Instead, another event seems the main trigger for the central bank's actions. Later this year the IMF will decide whether to include the yuan in the select group of currencies it uses to calculate the SDR, its unit of account. Inclusion would amount to declaring the yuan a global reserve currency. Just last week the fund hinted that the yuan is still too heavily controlled.

相反，另一个事件似乎才是央行行为的主要触发点。今年晚些时候，国际货币基金组织将决定是否把人民币纳入他们用来测算特别提款权——它们的记账单位——的一篮子精选货币之中。将人民币纳入提别提款权相当于宣布人民币为一种全球储备货币。就在上周，国际货币基金组织暗示说，人民币仍然被太过严重地操纵。

For the PBOC, getting into the SDR has never been just about prestige. Rather, it has been using this objective as a means to push for reforms that remove some of the policydistortions still hobbling the economy. Introducing a truly floating exchange rate is an essential part of its programme.

对于中国人民银行来说，进入特别提款权从未仅仅事关特权。相反，他们一直在把这个目标当做是推进改革的一种手段，这些改革能够去除某些仍在困扰经济的政策扭曲。引入一种真正的浮动汇率是这项计划的一个基本部分。

Yet there is another complication. Some $250 billion of “hot money”, equivalent to roughly 2.5% of GDP—an unprecedented amount—has left China over the past year as theeconomy has slowed. Strong inflows via the trade surplus have allowed the PBOC to absorb these losses so far, but it is wary of doing anything that might accelerate capital flight. A sustained devaluation would do just that, inviting speculators to short the yuan. Hence the central bank's apparently contradictory actions, in letting the yuan fall and then trying to make it stop. As ever, China's willingness to trust market forces extends only so far.

然而，还存在一种复杂性。在过去的一年中，随着经济放缓，已经有大约2500亿美元热钱离开了中国。这部分资金大致相当于GDP的2.5%，是一个史无前例的数字。到目前为止，通过贸易盈余的强劲流入一直在允许央行吸收这些损失。但是，央行已经在小心做出任何可能加速资本逃离的事情。持续的贬值恰恰可以做到这一点，刺激预期者卖空人民币。因此，中国央行先是放任人民币下跌，继而又试图让这种下跌停下来的行为，显然是矛盾的。中国信任市场力量的意愿仍然是一如既往的到此为止。