1/4
"China has had a long-standing objective of greater 'internationalization' of the yuan - but its mantra on seeking stability would likely trump that for the foreseeable future."
reuters.com/markets/europe…
2/4
In fact "internationalizing" the RMB means that Beijing must give up control of its capital and current accounts, force down the national savings rate, liberalize the banking system and eliminate policy distinctions between Chinese and foreign financial institutions.
3/4
Beijing won't want to do that any time in the foreseeable future. In fact until it rebalances domestic demand, cleans up the banking system and eliminates moral hazard, internationalizing the RMB would be financially very disruptive.
4/4
Five years from now there will have been little meaningful change in the global status of the RMB, but I expect that the discussion over its internationalization will be as heated as ever.

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More from @michaelxpettis

Mar 16
1/14
Good piece by @TomFStevenson on one of the reasons why, for all the damage it does to the US economy, Washington is unlikely to want to constrain the global use of the US dollar.
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/…
2/14
“The fact is," he notes, "that Washington controls access to the international financial system. Much as a naval blockade denies access to the seas, US sanctions are based on monopoly power over a global commons: the world’s reserve currency and medium of exchange.”
3/14
But this comes at a cost to the US too. The dollar is widely used not because of US military power but rather in spite of it. Much of the world suffers from growth policies that reward domestic elites at the cost of structurally weak domestic demand and excess savings.
Read 15 tweets
Mar 16
1/5
To me what's most impressive about this story is not the story itself, but rather its relatively muted impact. Even a few years ago I suspect this story would have unleashed an orgy of predictions about the imminent demise of the US dollar.
wsj.com/articles/saudi… via @WSJ
2/5
Today, while there has been some hyperventilating, the reaction is generally much less excited than it would have been. More people seem to understand that the dominance of the dollar has nothing to do with the currency denomination of the price of oil (or anything else).
3/5
After all, with a smart phone you can denominate any trade in any currency you like. What matters ultimately is how trade surpluses are recycled into assets and which countries will accept the corresponding deficits, and this has nothing to do with currency denomination.
Read 6 tweets
Mar 16
1/4
After several terrible days, culminating in a 4.95% drop in the SCI Tuesday, a very worried Beijing demanded that government departments should “actively introduce policies that benefit markets” and otherwise signaled support for the stock markets.
caixinglobal.com/2022-03-16/sha…
2/4
The response was immediate, with the SCI up 3.48%, and most other indices up even more. This is a strong reminder that the most important driver of financial markets in China continues to be government signaling.
3/4
While I am sure investors are relieved, its worth pointing out that this doesn't help stock markets allocate capital efficiently. Investors aren't judging the long-term productivity of businesses at all. They are mainly judging the likely extent of government support.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 15
1/5
Caixin expects that to reach 2022's aggressive 5.5% GDP growth target, Beijing "will boost infrastructure spending to offset the weakening real estate sector. "Infrastructure investment" it insists, "will remain a crucial growth driver this year."
caixinglobal.com/2022-03-14/ana…
2/5
This seems already to be happening. In the first two months of the year fixed-asset investment grew much faster than industrial output and retail sales – by 0.66% percent on a month-on-month basis, relative to 0.34% and 0.30% respectively.
3/5
But citing a recent report by Moody's, the article also claims that "policymakers are aiming to keep the macro-leverage ratio stable and total social financing in line with nominal GDP growth."

The problem is that these are conflicting objectives.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 12
1/11
Yesterday, in his final NPC press conference, Li Keqiang explained that Beijing was choosing tax rebates to business over consumption support or even more infrastructure spending because it was a more efficient way to deliver growth.
china-embassy.org/eng/zgyw/20220…
2/11
But supply-side measures like tax rebates to businesses would only be ta more efficient way to boost the economy if businesses had major investment needs that they were unable to satisfy because of lack of retained earnings or access to capital.
3/11
They would however be very inefficient in an economy suffering from demand-side constraints.

This doesn't mean businesses wouldn't prefer tax rebates anyway. Tax rebates boost profits directly, whereas spending on infrastructure and consumption does so indirectly.
Read 11 tweets
Mar 11
1/8
According to the WSJ, "Shifting more production domestically will inevitably add to the inflation that is already on the rise." I know inflation has become the thing we most like to worry about, but I don't think this claim is true at all.
wsj.com/articles/econo…
2/8
There is no evidence that a less globalized world is more inflationary than a more globalized one. Trade restrictions on a particular good may raise the price of that good inside the protected market, but it lowers the price of that good outside the protected market.
3/8
Even inside the protected market, the price increase on that good is a one-off event, not a continuous (inflationary) one, and anyway puts downward pressure on the prices of other goods within the protected market.
Read 8 tweets

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