China should adjust its industrial structure by raising environmental costs and abandon its short-sighted development strategy.
For more than 20 years, China's traditional mercantilist development model has mixed advantages and disadvantages. In this process of import and export trade exchange, China's economic capital has greatly increased, but its natural capital has suffered heavy losses. At present, China has formed several large ecological danger zones, such as the South-to-North Water Transfer Project. The shortage of water resources in North China is a foregone conclusion, and China has to adjust the allocation of resources through water conservancy projects costing hundreds of billions of yuan. The black soil in the three northeastern provinces is a layer of surface black soil formed after hundreds of millions of years of vegetation decay, which is only found in Ukraine and the central United States in the world. However, after the devastating development in recent decades, the soil erosion of black land in China is serious. If we don't increase the cost of ecological protection in this area and blindly pursue cheap grain production and export, this black land will expose rocks in a few decades. The production of wool and cashmere products in China also bears an unshirkable responsibility for the desertification in northwest China, and the ecological deterioration in northwest China is becoming more and more serious.
As for the cost of controlling environmental pollution, it is even greater. The annual investment of1000-200 billion largely offsets the achievements of economic development. Generally speaking, if the environmental cost is included in the cost accounting, the trade cost of China is huge. As far as comparative advantage is concerned, many of our export products are produced at a comparative disadvantage. In order to export more cheaply, we will not hesitate to destroy and pollute the ecological environment.
It is urgent to raise the environmental cost of China. The state should formulate a series of legal protection measures, for example, not to implement export tax rebate for some products, to reduce the export competitiveness of these products through tax policies, and to increase the environmental costs of these products. At present, China should carefully check the real costs of some export industries, such as silk, leather and agricultural products, and find back the missed environmental costs. Rational utilization of international resources through tariff adjustment. Through comparative advantage, we can eliminate those domestic products that are not competitive and those export products that are losing money, and finally achieve the purpose of adjusting the industrial structure. This may affect the interests of some regions and departments on the surface and in time, but it is in line with the long-term survival and development of the Chinese nation.
Generally speaking, China has not got rid of the export characteristics of developing countries, that is, relying on resources for technology and service products. This trade is an export to developing countries. At present, the export volume of marble, cement and pig iron in China ranks among the best in the world. Another feature of this trade is that there is price inequality between primary products and industrial products, and primary product countries need to exchange more labor and resources for the products they need. If developing countries can't reverse this trade structure in time, the final result will be resource depletion and weak trade. At present, this resource-based export has put some African countries in an unsustainable situation. In recent years, the proportion of China's industrial products exports has been rising, and the proportion of processing trade is relatively large, but we should also pay attention to the environmental and resource costs.
Second, the comparison of ancient and modern mercantilism-face up to the cost of pursuing foreign exchange
In the17th and18th centuries, the essence of mercantilism in European countries was thrift, and its purpose was to enrich Qiang Bing, but the main goal in the eyes of monarchs was gold. Earn foreign exchange through export. With gold, soldiers can be recruited and hired to fight. However, blind gold hunting, even in the period of heavy metal currency, mercantilism also has great risks. Because there is more gold, the price of gold will also depreciate. When Spain imported a large amount of Latin American gold into Europe, gold depreciated sharply.
If an economy imports necessary goods and services while engaging in export trade, then export is beneficial to any economy. But if the export is only to accumulate gold or dollars, then this pursuit is extremely dangerous.
Today's mercantilism in China, to a certain extent, has also become a mercantilism against the US dollar. In the 1980s, foreign exchange was earned for import, while in the second half of the 1990s, foreign exchange was earned more to resist risks. The financial crisis created by western financial predators has brought extremely adverse effects to developing countries. In order to prevent and resist financial attacks from the west, developing countries have to accumulate extra foreign exchange, which has caused the export and waste of their own resources to a certain extent, and also contributed to the "tributary economy" of western powers to a certain extent.
From this perspective, the risk of mercantilism is the same in ancient and modern times, that is, the depreciation of the target currency-gold or the dollar. The dollar is obviously overvalued today. Once devalued, the dollar wealth stored by developing countries will be wiped out. Especially in today's world, the use of gold standard and heavy metal currency has been abandoned, and it is even more dangerous to implement mercantilism under such a floating exchange rate monetary system. Therefore, the goal of traditional mercantilism must be changed, that is, from focusing on gold and dollars to focusing on physical imports, and grasping physical wealth as much as possible, rather than monetary wealth. The essence of attaching importance to import is to effectively use external resources and accelerate domestic economic construction, but this must increase domestic demand and be accompanied by RMB appreciation.
The way to expand domestic demand is not only to invest in national debt and increase investment, but also to improve the consumption power of low-income people. By reducing taxes and increasing the money supply, the living standards of the broad masses of the people will be rapidly improved, and domestic consumption will be appropriately increased by several percentage points. After 2003, China's national debt investment should be transferred to human resources, that is, to increase investment in public education and improve China's "soft power". It is necessary to properly correct the investment thinking of seeing things but not people in the past. Without the start of domestic demand, it will be difficult for China to change its long-term export-oriented economy. However, if we want to really start domestic demand, it is difficult to complete it without major changes in the development strategy. Therefore, today we should thoroughly reflect on our understanding.
China urgently needs balanced development, and China urgently needs internal development. Due to the changes in the world economic situation, it is increasingly difficult for China to rely on exports to boost its economy. China must stimulate domestic demand through internal development. Therefore, the central government should seriously consider reducing or exempting agricultural taxes and compensating farmers. Relying on external resources to develop the interior is the only way out for China in the future.
In particular, we should try our best to avoid separatist development and oppose luxury economy. The result of market economy competition will be polarization between the rich and the poor, and luxury consumption will appear because of polarization between the rich and the poor. China urgently needs to re-examine its external needs. What external demands have been caused by the inherent urban-rural dual structure, urban-rural polarization and new polarization between the rich and the poor? How to adjust the import demand for foreign countries by adjusting the domestic income distribution?
During the Westernization Movement in the Qing Dynasty, the Qing court paid hundreds of thousands of peasants' labor and mountains of agricultural products to import a German armored ship in exchange for a warship. According to the current price, the labor force of hundreds of German shipbuilders is equivalent to the labor force of 654.38 million farmers in China. This trade is at the expense of a lot of resources. But because buying a ship is a national defense need, although the price is extremely high, the Qing government also wants to buy it. During the development of China, there are many such import demands. We attribute this import demand to development or national defense demand. Although this request is extremely expensive, it must be paid sometimes.
But today we have to avoid another demand, which is the demand for luxury goods. When some people get rich first, they will consume high-end western products. In order to import these expensive luxury goods, it is extremely unfavorable for developing countries to pay a lot of foreign exchange through the export of resources and labor. As a city with a serious urban-rural dual structure, China should be especially alert to this trade object and external demand.
Generally speaking, any trade strategy is determined by the development goals of this country. If its development goal is to expand its troops and prepare for war, then all resources will inevitably gather in armaments in the end. If the goal is high technology, some industrial sectors or coastal cities, then resources will inevitably gather in this field. If the goal is to improve people's living standards, narrow the gap between urban and rural areas and break the dual structure, the allocation of resources will be different. Today, China will deeply examine his pursuit goal.
Three. Understanding the fact of "Tribute Economy" —— China should balance its import and export trade.
At present, Americans' consumption is regarded as a contribution to the world economy, and the increase of China's exports benefits from Americans' massive consumption. But we should also see the other side of the story, that is, the United States uses dollars and strong dollars to earn world resources and labor cheaply.
Foreign research shows that the productivity of the United States has increased by 70% since 1974, but if the import effect is excluded, the productivity growth of many departments is only between 0. 1%. In other words, except for the contribution of importing countries, the productivity growth in the United States is not large. In the last 20 years of the 20th century, the United States did not have any outstanding productivity boom, but there was an import boom. This prosperity is not driven by the amazing growth of the American economy, but by the debts lent to the United States by the low-income countries that generate these wealth.
Under mercantilism and the gold standard, countries that have accumulated trade surpluses have accumulated a large amount of gold, which can be used to pay for future imports. However, under the current international trade system, the foreign trade surplus is accumulated in the dollar, an irreversible currency with uncertain future value. In addition, these dollar-denominated trade surpluses cannot be converted into the exporting countries' own currencies, because they need to be stored to prevent the exporting countries' currencies from being speculatively attacked in the global financial market.
When exporting countries invest their current account surplus in dollar financial assets, their economies will not benefit from exports because they export more goods than they import. The country exchanged real wealth for a bunch of currency symbols. This foreign exchange reserve is valuable only when the country imports the same amount of goods to balance its trade. If exporting countries can't balance their trade, they must invest their trade surplus in American bonds. Today, China's foreign exchange reserves are about 654.38+000 billion US dollars invested in US Treasury bonds, which has maintained the prosperity of the US economy and the glory of the world economy to a certain extent.
In the 1990s, the Federal Reserve skillfully used the strong dollar and high interest rate to attract foreign funds and withdraw a lot of dollars. Dollar hegemony allows the United States to fight inflation by printing dollar bills, but it has led to a bubble in dollar debt. At present, with the change of the situation, the dollar bubble is bursting, and the trend of dollar depreciation has appeared. China must plan ahead and adjust its export-oriented development strategy as soon as possible.
Because trade imbalance is driven by overvalued currencies of importing countries and undervalued currencies of exporting countries, this unbalanced one-way mobile trade may end due to two outcomes. One is that exporting countries have exhausted their resources and are unsustainable. The other is that the level of trade deficit of importing countries has reached an excessive level, and exporting countries are unwilling to accept the debts of importing countries. If this unbalanced trade continues, exporting countries will bear the consequences of environmental pollution, low wages, low welfare and increasing poverty.
We should also be soberly aware of the fact that the US dollar coinage income. At present, in the foreign exchange reserves of countries around the world, the proportion of US dollars accounts for more than 60%. According to the survey of the International Monetary Fund, 1998, two-thirds of the cash issued by the United States was circulated abroad, and about three-quarters of the newly issued US dollars were held by foreigners. Seven countries account for more than 50% of the money supply, and 12 countries account for more than 30%-50%. As for the ratio of 15-20%, there are more countries. At present, China's dollar deposits have reached more than 654.38+030 billion, accounting for about 654.38+00% of the total currency.
As a carrier currency, the US dollar has earned considerable coinage income, that is, the difference between the face value of paper money and the printing cost. It is estimated that the annual income from minting coins in the United States can account for 2.5% of its GDP, that is, 200 billion to 300 billion US dollars. The United States not only gets the income from minting coins, but also gets cheap goods exported by other countries in order to get dollars.
The annual economic growth of the United States is largely due to the substantial increase in imports. Emerging economies continue to devalue their currencies to subsidize and expand exports, thus repaying foreign debts denominated in dollars, which makes dollar debt more expensive than local currencies. Cheap imports from the United States have eased the pressure of domestic inflation, although the total amount of money in the United States is expanding. Behind this activity, Americans get more goods with less labor costs.
Recently, the International Monetary Fund gave Brazil an unprecedented loan of $30 billion, the essence of which is to save American multinational banks that hold Brazilian debts. This will force Brazil to export more wealth to repay the debt of $30 billion and the interest when its currency depreciates by 40%. This happened in Mexico and Indonesia. Every time the currencies of developing countries depreciate sharply, it is a huge loss of domestic resources.
At present, there is a view in western academic circles that deserves attention. This view holds that this unequal trade transfer is unsustainable because global trade has transferred wealth from poor countries to rich countries for decades. At present, this kind of wealth transfer is in crisis, and the shrinking of global trade in the past two years is an example. This shrinking trade will lead to a slowdown in world economic growth. Those economies that rely on exports to maintain their growth should clearly know that the decline of exports in recent years is not only a business cycle phenomenon, but also the result of years of unbalanced and unequal trade. In this case, only those countries whose exports complement rather than destroy domestic development can be protected from the impact of the macro environment. In view of this situation, China should pay special attention not to transfer its wealth out of the region, and should stop pursuing predatory competitive advantage and turn to balanced trade.
4. China should change from a lender to a borrower-RMB should appreciate appropriately.
China is becoming a lender, and the existence of a large trade surplus and foreign exchange reserves is essentially to export resources abroad. This is extremely unfavorable to developing countries. By the end of this year, China's foreign exchange reserves will reach nearly $300 billion. If this situation continues next year, foreign exchange reserves will soon reach 400 billion US dollars. Today, China's mercantilism echoes the "tribute economy" of western powers to some extent.
However, due to the changes in the international economic situation, the risks of foreign exchange reserves are increasingly apparent. The accumulation of China's foreign exchange reserves is essentially that China sells its domestic products and assets to the world in large quantities, and obtains foreign exchange at the expense of selling RMB assets or labor. An increase in foreign exchange reserves means a decrease in the proportion of domestic assets and an increase in the proportion of other countries, which means an increase in foreign economic components in GDP. With the rapid growth of foreign exchange reserves and the influx of foreign direct investment, the renminbi is still undervalued, which is a manifestation of the loss of domestic assets.
In particular, foreign exchange reserves are the monetary form of assets and wealth, and it is extremely risky to master a large amount of monetary wealth in the changing situation of currencies around the world. In 2002, the dollar depreciated 18% against the euro. Therefore, monetary wealth must be transformed into material wealth as much as possible. Meat is meat only when it is rotten in the pot.
Mercantilism will inevitably lead to RMB appreciation, so RMB appreciation is irreversible. In 1995, I clearly stated that "RMB has entered the era of appreciation. The appreciation of local currency is an inevitable law in a country like China. The RMB was seriously undervalued when the exchange rate of 1994 was merged. Therefore, despite the high domestic inflation 1994 and 1995 and the southeast Asian financial crisis 1997, the RMB has not depreciated, but has appreciated against the trend. Today, the era of strong RMB has arrived. The essence of strong RMB and RMB appreciation is to make more use of international resources to benefit the people of China. At this stage of development, China urgently needs external resources to integrate domestic resources. The core of this strategic adjustment is the question of who will borrow it. Judging from the stage of development, developing countries should be borrowers, at least they should not become creditors too early.
With the increasing foreign investment, China has the conditions to make use of the surplus under the capital account to make up the deficit under the current account. China should promptly converge its long-standing strategy of "earning foreign exchange" and change its low international status of assets, products and labor as soon as possible. China's assets and labor force should appreciate appropriately. Competitiveness at the expense of poverty and ecological environment destruction is not worth promoting.
Fifth, China's assets should appreciate.
Due to the globalization of the world economy and China's accession to the World Trade Organization, more foreign capital has entered China, and more domestic assets have been purchased by foreign capital. In recent years, China's direct investment has been increasing, which is exactly the performance of western capital buying China assets. In this case, how to sell their assets at a good price and how to keep their assets from being bought when the RMB is undervalued is something that China attaches great importance to at present.
China's low labor force and low assets were formed in a certain historical stage, and they must be adjusted in a certain historical stage. With the continuous improvement of China's international status, its intangible assets and tangible assets are constantly appreciating. However, for many years, China has adhered to the policy of weak RMB and undervalued RMB, which makes it possible for foreign investors to buy our assets at low prices in the process of property rights transactions. Therefore, while adjusting the import and export trade policies, China must adjust its monetary policy and asset prices.
China's asset appreciation should be regulated by monetary means and capital market. The contents of monetary means include: appropriate domestic inflation and appropriate exchange rate adjustment, that is, the appreciation of the local currency. However, China's monetary policy is relatively conservative in demand due to the limitation of traditional ideas in recent years. In recent years, there has been deflation in China, and besides the lack of domestic demand, the conservatism of monetary policy has also had some influence.
Due to the continuous commercialization and monetization of China's economy, the growth of China's money volume cannot be balanced by traditional means. Especially after the existence of capital markets such as stocks, the amount of money and the real economy have opened up the distance and imagination. The emergence of stock market and virtual economy will greatly affect China's monetary policy.
Before the stock market, human society has been living in the real economy, and the amount of money and physical objects are basically in balance. When the balance is broken, there will be inflation and deflation. During this period, the amount of money and physical objects maintained a close correspondence. With more money, prices will rise, while with less money, prices will fall. However, since the stock market came into being, especially since the 1980s, the corresponding relationship between money and objects has changed greatly.
During this period, due to the accumulation of surplus money in the capital market, the world economy temporarily avoided deflation. The stock market and bond market have actually become reservoirs for storing surplus funds, especially when the world enters an era of overproduction. The oversupply of products makes the price have no room to rise at all, and it is still falling. Extra money can only be speculated in the capital market. This is also the reason why the European, American and Japanese stock markets soared in the 1980s and 1990s. However, both Japan and the United States have fallen into the quagmire of bubble economy because of their inexperience. The biggest harm of bubble economy is overdraft consumption and excessive investment, which consumes economic strength prematurely and excessively, causing economic waste and ultimately making economic development weak.
The emergence of the stock market makes it difficult to grasp the money supply of various countries. Even if more money is issued, there will be no inflation. The sale of stock assets is different from the sale of physical goods. It is an abstract asset value symbol and a virtual price. So there can be more room for improvement.
China is currently in the primary stage of virtual economy, while Japan and the United States are already in the final stage of virtual economy. China can't stop because Japan and the United States are mired in a bubble economy. In fact, China can better learn from the experience of Japan and the United States, seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, and eliminate the current currency bottleneck. There is no danger of inflation in China at present, and moderate inflation is beneficial and harmless. There are still a lot of physical assets to be monetized and commercialized in China. Therefore, China's money supply policy should not be conservative.
Measured by purchasing power parity, China's tangible and intangible assets are cheaper than those of developed countries. It is this low price that makes developed countries occupy the labor force of developing countries to a certain extent. With the prosperity of national strength, developing countries should reverse this unequal transaction.
Advantages and disadvantages of the appreciation of intransitive verbs in local currency —— Lessons from Japan and Argentina
The appreciation of local currency is the law of thrifty mercantilist developing countries. So, what impact does the appreciation of the local currency have on a country? We can draw a conclusion from the experience of America, Japan and Argentina.
In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration implemented the policy of strengthening the US dollar, which made the exchange rate of the US dollar against the Japanese yen rise from 65438+ 1: 175 to 1: 250/985. The weak yen has led to a huge current account surplus in Japan, while the United States has a serious deficit. 1In September, 1985, the finance ministers of seven countries, including the United States, Germany, France and Britain, met in new york Plaza Hotel to intervene in the yen. At this time, the yen began to appreciate. To 1988, the yen ranges from 250 to 1 and to 1. Fearing that a strong yen will cause economic recession, the Japanese government has continuously lowered the interest rate of bank deposits. Low interest rates make Japanese capital cheap, so Japanese companies borrow a lot and issue shares. At the same time, the stock market and the bond market also stimulated the speculative boom. In this case, foreign capital also joined in the fun, a large number of speculative funds poured into Japan, and the stock and real estate markets rose one after another, and the stock market index tripled in four years. From 65438 to 0989, the speculative boom reached its peak, the stock market and real estate market began to fall back, and foreign capital began to retreat in large numbers. From then on, Japan began the foam digestion and finishing time of 10 year.
Looking back at Japan's experience now, we can clearly see that Japan was the first country to be hit hard by international hot money. Now many people regard the disaster in Japan as the result of the appreciation of the local currency, which is a wrong understanding. The lesson of Japan mainly lies in the excessive speculation in the capital market and the high bubble of assets, which leads the Japanese to show excessive conceit and blind overseas investment in the case of excess funds. 1989, Japanese overseas investment reached170 billion USD. In the second half of 1980s, Japanese overseas investment reached more than 400 billion US dollars, and its overseas net assets once ranked first in the world. However, the later results proved that most of Japan's overseas investments were unsuccessful, and it was the waste of these investments that plunged Japan into a debt quagmire.
Recently, it was reported that a report by the Cabinet Office of Japan revealed that Japan's national wealth has been declining for four consecutive years, and it has now dropped to 2,906 trillion yen. In just 200 1 year, Japan's national wealth decreased by 52.6 trillion yen compared with the previous year. The main reason why Japan's national wealth has been declining year after year is the sharp drop in land prices. This year, the land price in Japan has shrunk by 88 trillion yen compared with a year ago, reaching 1.455 trillion yen. Compared with 2,454 trillion yen at the peak of Japanese land price at the end of 1990, Japan's land assets have shrunk by 40%, which means that more than 1000 trillion yen has gone up in smoke. This shows how serious Japan's asset appreciation and bubble economy are.
If China absorbs and draws lessons from the previous experience today, it can completely avoid the negative impact brought by the appreciation of its currency. The biggest difference between China and Japan is its vast hinterland and domestic demand. The appreciation of the local currency can introduce more resources for the country and increase domestic construction, rather than exporting resources abroad. However, China should be prepared to deal with two possible situations after RMB appreciation. One is the situation in Japan, that is, resource outflow and overseas investment. The second is to cause overheating of domestic consumption or investment. China and Japan are thrifty countries in East Asia, so they probably won't have consumption problems like Latin American countries. But it may be due to investment mistakes, whether at home or abroad. Especially in the case of diversified property rights, how to solve this problem in China is worth studying.
Let's take a look at Argentina's experience and lessons. Argentina pursues Iberian Catholic culture. One of the characteristics of this culture is to encourage people to spend, so most Latin American countries have low savings rates and rely heavily on foreign capital. Judging from the level of economic development, the level of economic structure in Argentina is relatively low, but the level of social welfare is relatively high. Take 1998 as an example, the savings rate in Argentina is 17. 4%, not only lower than the average level of Latin America 19%, but also lower than 18. Brazil 6%, Mexico 22.4%, Chile 25%, even below 33. South Korea is 8%. In this case, Argentina has to rely on external funds to expand reproduction.
1989 When Menem came to power, inflation in Argentina was very serious. Therefore, 199 1 Carvalho, who became the minister of economy, made a famous "exchange plan" and fixed the exchange rate at 1000 Austral = 1. In 1992, 1, Austral is replaced by peso (1 peso = 65. Facts have proved that this special fixed exchange rate system is very successful in reducing the inflation rate. From 65438 to 0994, the consumer price in Argentina only rose by 3. 9%, even negative growth in the late 1990s. During this period, foreign direct investment flooded into Argentina. During 2000 199 1 to 10, Argentina * * * attracted $80 billion in foreign direct investment and a large number of foreign bank loans. This situation enabled Argentina to achieve rapid development in the 1990s, with the growth rates of 199 1 and 1992 as high as 10. 6% and 9 6%, during the eight years of 199 1- 1998.
However, during this period, due to the continuous strength of the US dollar and high interest rates, the peso pegged to the US dollar has been continuously appreciated, especially affected by the East Asian financial crisis. After the devaluation of currencies in a large number of developing countries, the value of peso is obviously overvalued. This led to the slow growth of Argentina's agricultural export income, especially when the Brazilian currency, the real, depreciated, which greatly affected Argentina's exports to Brazil. Since 1999, Argentina's economy has been in trouble because of its huge fiscal deficit, heavy foreign debt burden and reduced foreign investment. Its fiscal revenue has decreased by 20% every year, and the unemployment rate has reached 18%. In 2002, the financial crisis finally appeared.
Through the case of Argentina, we can clearly see the harm caused by currency appreciation without adjusting the exchange rate in time, but Argentina is another example of currency appreciation, which is very different from Japan. The main reasons for Argentina are that the domestic government's financial debt is too high, foreign debt is too high, the national savings rate is too low, and the export competitiveness is not strong. Japan's virtual economy has gone too far, failing to balance trade in time and injecting the gains from the appreciation of the yen into domestic construction.
Summing up the experience of these two countries, China can foster strengths and avoid weaknesses. The advantages of RMB appreciation in China lie in a large number of cheap labor costs, a vast domestic market and a high national savings rate. To sum up, we can safely draw the conclusion that China, which pursues a thrifty culture and draws lessons from other countries' experience, will basically not affect the competitiveness of foreign capital entry and export after a proper appreciation of the RMB, and will not repeat the mistakes of Japan and Argentina. On the contrary, a proper appreciation of RMB will enable China to gain more international resources, or it can reserve more resources for domestic development. As long as China returns the benefits of RMB appreciation to the international market and increases the demand for other countries' products in the external market, it will not only boost other countries' economies, but also benefit China. In fact, the appreciation of RMB and China's domestic demand are both win-win for China and other countries in the world.
We should keep a clear head in the current debate on appreciation, devaluation and stability. We should have our own main line and angle to understand the problem, and our thoughts should not be disturbed or confused by the voices of some interest groups.