February 21, 2015
The NYT reported that efforts by rich Chinese to get some of their wealth out of the country have led to downward pressure on the value of the country’s currency. It noted that the central bank is trying to counteract some of this pressure by selling some its foreign exchange reserves to buy up yuan. It then tells readers:
“A weaker renminbi could produce greater tensions with the United States, by widening that trade imbalance. The Obama administration is in a tricky position, however. It has long argued that Beijing should guide the value of the renminbi less and let market forces prevail. But following that logic now and letting the renminbi fall further could make it even harder for American producers to compete.”
This is not accurate. As the article notes, China’s central bank holds $3.8 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. This is close to four times what a country with an economy the size of China’s would be expected to hold. The holdings of dollars and other reserves prop up the dollar against the yuan even if China’s bank decides to sell off some of its holdings.
In this way, it is very similar to the situation of the Fed with respect to quantitative easing. Even if the Fed sells off some of its bonds, the net effect of its policy is still to lower interest rates, as long as it still has a large stock of long-term debt on its balance sheets.
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