August 12, 2015
Several of the articles discussing the decision of China’s central bank to lower the value of the yuan have referred to the assessment of the I.M.F. that the Chinese currency now reflects its market value. Many have pointed out that China’s central bank has stopped buying large amounts of foreign exchange to keep the yuan from rising, implying that the current value now reflects the market rate.
The problem with this story is that China’s central bank is still sitting on more than $4 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. If we apply the rule of thumb that it should keep around 6 months worth of imports on hand as a buffer, this implies $3 trillion of excess reserves. This large holding of excess reserves, helps keep up the price of the dollar and other reserve currencies relative to the yuan.
This is the same situation as the Fed is in with its holding of $3 trillion in assets as a result of its quantitative easing programs. There are few people who would argue that the Fed’s holding of these assets doesn’t have the effect of keeping interest rates down. It would be very difficult to come up with a story whereby the Fed’s holding of assets keeps interest rates down, but China’s central bank’s holdings of foreign exchange doesn’t keep the value of the yuan down.
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