亚洲货币战争即将重演 新兴市场外汇储备规模再创新高

Before the global financial crisis, the strange phenomenon of 'uphill' capital flows--money moving out of middle-income economies and into richer ones--garnered considerable attention. While private capital was flowing in the opposite direction, net flows were driven by emerging markets' accumulation of foreign exchange reserves, mostly stashed in the government bonds of advanced economies.

全球金融危机之前，资本“倒流”的奇怪现象引起了人们的很大关注。所谓资本“倒流”，是指资本从中等收入经济体流入比较富裕的经济体。虽然私人资本的流向与此相反，但由于新兴市场国家外汇储备的积累，总体而言资本仍呈现由中等收入经济体向较富裕经济体净流出的局面。新兴市场国家的外汇储备大多以发达经济体政府债券的形式存在。

A confluence of recent events, some of them little noticed, has set the stage for this trend to resume, with emerging markets stockpiling reserves in ever-greater quantities. Currency tensions, with Asian economies again at the forefront, are set to rise. A prime cause of the problem will be the lessons leaders learned from Washington's response to the financial crisis of 2008.

近期的一些事件，加之新兴市场外汇储备规模再创新高等因素，已为这种趋势的持续奠定了基础。货币紧张局势定将加剧，而这次首当其冲的又将是亚洲经济体。各国领导人从美国政府应对2008年金融危机过程中吸取的教训将成为导致这个问题的一个主因。

Most emerging markets now have more open capital accounts. So while they benefit from the free flow of capital, they are also increasingly exposed to volatility and other byproducts of those flows. The quantitative easing operations of the Fed and other advanced economy central banks pushed capital out to emerging markets, fueling rising inflation, asset price booms, and rapid currency appreciation in the developing world. Then the Fed's tapering of its monetary policy last year temporarily reversed those flows and exposed the ongoing vulnerability of many emerging market economies.

多数新兴市场的资本项目现在都更加开放。所以，当新兴市场得益于资本自由流动的同时，它们也越来越多地暴露于波动性和资本自由流动带来的其他副作用之下。美联储(Fed)和其他发达经济体央行推出的定量宽松举措使资本流向新兴市场，推动发展中世界通胀率上升、资产价格走高、本币快速升值。之后，美联储去年缩减刺激性货币政策规模又暂时逆转了这种资本流向，暴露出很多新兴市场经济体的脆弱性。

Couldn't the Fed help countries beset by problems triggered by its policies? The recently released transcripts of the Federal Reserve Open Markets Committee meetings in 2008 provide fascinating insights into the thinking of policy makers. They show that the Fed's actions are governed by strict national self-interest, not a wider sense of responsibility given the dollar's status as the global reserve currency.

美联储就不能帮助那些受到美国政策问题困扰的国家吗？通过最近公布的美国联邦公开市场委员会(Federal Reserve Open Markets Committee)2008年会议记录可深入了解美国政策制定者的想法。记录显示，美联储的行动完全依照美国自身利益决定，并不因美元的全球储备货币地位而有更广泛的责任感。

During the financial crisis, the group of developing economies that received the Fed's benediction in the form of dollar swap lines was highly selective. The list included Brazil, Korea, Mexico and Singapore --countries with close economic ties to the U.S. Moreover, Fed officials viewed their dollar reserves as a form of implicit collateral for the swap lines. In other words, higher levels of reserves increased the chances of getting a dollar swap line at crunch time.

金融危机期间，那些受到美联储美元互换协议恩惠的发展中经济体都是经过千挑万选的。其中有巴西、韩国、墨西哥和新加坡，这些国家都与美国有着密切的经济关系。而且美联储官员将这些国家的美元储备当做互换协议的一种形式的隐性担保。换句话说，储备水平越高，在美元紧缺时期获得美元互换协议的机会就越大。

Some Fed officials considered Chile and India as possible recipients, but were reluctant to open the 'floodgates' to requests from other countries. The transcripts redact the other countries that requested swap lines, but it is clear from the context and from other sources that it was a large number.

一些美联储官员也曾考虑把智利和印度作为提供美元互换协议的潜在对象，但却不愿打开向其他国家提供美元的闸门。会议记录对于要求签订货币互换协议的国家一笔带过，但从语境和其他信息判断，显然有不少国家曾提出这一要求。

Meanwhile, turning to the IMF in times of trouble is becoming less attractive for emerging economies, mainly because the institution lacks legitimacy in the eyes of policy makers. Reforms to give these countries greater representation at the IMF that befit their rising importance have stalled. These governance reforms were initially blocked by European countries that stood to lose ground. Now political gridlock in the U.S. has stymied the reforms. The U.S. administration has been a strong advocate for change, but its hands are tied by Congress.

与此同时，对于新兴经济体来说，在困难时向IMF求援的吸引力已经降低了，这主要是因为在决策者看来IMF缺乏合法性。此前IMF曾推进改革，赋予新兴国家更多代表权以反映其不断上升的重要性，但这项改革已经停滞。这项IMF治理权改革最初受到欧洲国家的阻挠，因为他们需要在改革中让渡权力。现在则是美国的政治僵局妨碍了IMF的改革。美国政府曾积极倡导改革，但受到了来自国会的束缚。

Emerging markets realize that, no matter how sound their policies may be, they are subject to whiplash from the policies of advanced economy central banks. Top G-20 officials spoke loftily of central bank coordination at their recent summit in Sydney. But in reality, there is no mechanism to make central banks take measures that would contravene their national mandates for the benefit of other countries.

新兴市场国家意识到，无论他们的政策多么完善，他们都会受到来自发达经济体央行政策的影响。G-20会议的高级官员们最近在悉尼的峰会上大谈特谈央行协调的问题。但现实情况是，没有一种机制能够使得央行采取违背国家使命而施惠于他国的措施。

So it's not irrational for emerging-economy policy makers to conclude that the best way to insure themselves against a future crisis is to act today in a way that would encourage developed-economy leaders to help. And a reading of the criteria the Fed used when parceling out international assistance suggests dollar reserve accumulation is the best way to force the Fed to take notice.

因此，新兴经济体的决策者得出结论，规避未来危机的最好方式是现在就采取可以鼓励发达经济体领导人出手相救的措施，他们得出这样的结论也不无道理。美联储实施国际援助的标准显示，累积美元储备是迫使美联储予以关注的最好方式。

The key question now is how much of a reserve is enough. Conventional views of reserve adequacy--enough to cover short-term external debt or six months of imports--are no longer relevant. During the worst of the crisis, some emerging markets with massive reserves lost nearly a third of them in less than a year.

现在关键的问题是，多少美元储备才足够。传统观点认为，可以覆盖短期外部债务或六个月进口额的外汇储备规模是适当的。但这一观点已经不再适用。在危机最严重的时期，一些拥有大量外汇储备的新兴市场国家的外汇储备在不到一年的时间内缩水了近三分之一。

What's for sure is that once speculators smell blood, they attack a currency relentlessly and reserves can evaporate quickly. The only way to protect a currency is to have enough reserves to deter speculators. No one knows exactly how much that will take. So the motto of central bankers has become more is better.

可以确定的一点是，一旦投机者闻到了血腥味，他们会无情地攻击一种货币，而该国的外汇储备可能很快消失殆尽。保护一种货币唯一的方式是拥有足够多的外汇储备以便遏制投机者。没有人知道确切的数目。因此央行官员的座右铭变成了：越多越好。

Today, while the Fed continues to taper, private capital has begun to flow back to emerging markets. Even economies such as India and Indonesia that were battered by capital flight last year have benefited. The Bank of Japan recently signaled it was getting ready to open the monetary spigots wider. The People's Bank of China has taken forceful steps to prevent the yuan from appreciating even as it widened the currency's trading band. These trends only add to the pressure on other Asian emerging economies to hold down the value of their currencies and accumulate reserves.

如今，在美联储继续缩减购债规模之际，私人资本开始重新流入新兴市场，甚至印度和印尼这种在去年遭遇了资本大规模流出的国家也被惠及。日本央行最新暗示，已经准备好进一步放松货币政策。而尽管扩大了人民币汇率浮动区间，但中国央行采取了强力措施抑制人民币升值。这种趋势只会增加其他亚洲新兴经济体压低本币汇率并积累外汇储备的压力。

All told, the events of the past year presage a return to uphill flows of capital and rising currency tensions. It certainly feels like monetary d谷j角 vu all over again.

总之，去年的变化预示着资本重新出现“倒流”现象，汇率紧张关系升级。这种感觉似曾相识。

Mr. Prasad is a professor at Cornell University, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and author of 'The Dollar Trap' (Princeton, 2014).

Prasad是康奈尔大学(Cornell University)教授，布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)资深研究员，并且是《美元陷阱》(The Dollar Trap)一书的作者。