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China wants a global currency, but it's to blame for dollar's decline

Prof. Peter Morici - 10/20/2009

As the dollar falls against the euro, yen and other major currencies, China and other emerging economic powers holding lots of dollars and U.S. securities are crying foul - and urging an end to the dollar's central status in global commerce.

If they are truly disgusted, they should look to themselves for answers.

Since the end of World War II, the dollar has largely replaced gold as the reserve asset central banks hold to back up national currencies. The supply of gold is too limited, and efforts to back up currency with gold would result in chronic shortages of liquidity and global deflation.

When a merchant moves goods - for example, from Thailand to Mexico - the market to convert pesos into bahts is thin or nonexistent, so the merchant sells pesos for dollars to buy bahts. Many other cross-border trades, financial contracts and debts are denominated in dollars (although the euro is coming into greater use).

Over the years, governments and traders gravitated to the dollar because the United States has the largest and most diversified economy and a stable government. And until recently, the dollar has been a well-managed currency; the U.S. government resisted the temptation to borrow too much and flood the world with too many dollars.

The current market-determined system of exchange rates emerged by default in the early 1970s, when the old system of government-enforced fixed exchange rates failed, and the United States ended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. Trouble is, this system has no rules or effective governing structure. Consequently, some governments have seized opportunities to manipulate the system to gain competitive advantages in trade.

Since 1995, China has undervalued its currency by selling huge amounts of yuan for dollars, making Chinese exports artificially cheap and foreign products expensive in Chinese markets. China enjoys huge trade surpluses that create millions of jobs and double-digit growth - in China. Japan and others have followed suit.

These policies impose huge trade deficits and unemployment on the United States, create enormous imbalances in the global economy, and contributed importantly to the Great Recession.

The U.S. trade deficit grew from about 1 percent of gross domestic product in 2001 to more than 5 percent from 2005 to 2008, and this should have created a shortage of demand for U.S. goods and services and a recession. However, China took the dollars it obtained by suppressing the value of the yuan and purchased U.S. securities. U.S. consumers borrowed those dollars, against their homes and on credit cards and kept the U.S. economy going. Finally, the credit bubble burst and an even bigger recession resulted. Huge federal borrowing is now required to finance massive U.S. stimulus spending, bail out banks and otherwise rescue the U.S. economy.

All this borrowing floods capital markets with Treasury securities and pushes down exchange rates for the dollar against every major currency except the Chinese yuan. This reduces the value of the dollars, as expressed in euro and yen, held by China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and others.

Now China and others would like to see the dollar replaced by a basket of currencies. But instituting a global currency would pose enormous diplomatic and technical challenges. Without one, private merchants and financiers would still seek a central national currency to facilitate trade and denominate private, cross-border contracts and debts.

Even with a global currency, China could still buy dollars with yuan to keep its value suppressed against the dollar and boost exports into the United States. The United States would still have to run large federal deficits to avoid economic meltdown. And China would still be stuck holding dollars that fall in value against other currencies.

If China and others want that problem fixed, they need to abandon currency manipulation and let their populations purchase more U.S. goods and services. The U.S. economy would grow robustly, federal borrowing would subside, and the threat of too many dollars would vanish.