Les lois de l'économie s'appliquent aussi à la Chine

Mar 23, 2012 Jeffrey Frankel

BAHRAIN – La Chine s'est-elle préparée à un atterrissage en douceur pour son économie en surchauffe, parviendra-t-elle à un taux de croissance plus durable à long terme, ou bien le dragon chinois va-t-il s'écraser comme plusieurs de ses voisins dans le passéamp#160;? C'est la question que se posent les observateurs. Mais certains, notamment les hommes politiques américains en cette année d'élection présidentielle, ne s'intéressent qu'à une choseamp#160;: la balance commerciale de la Chine.

Il est vrai que jusqu'à il y a peu le yuan était nettement sous-évalué et l'excédent commercial chinois était considérable. Cette situation change. Les forces du changement étant à l'œuvre au sein de l'économie chinoise, il faudrait qu'à l'étranger la perception s'ajuste à cette nouvelle donne.

L'excédent commercial de la Chine a culminé à hauteur de 300 milliards de dollars en 2008, mais depuis il est à la baisse (les chiffres officiels indiquent même un déficit de 31 milliards de dollars en février, le plus important depuis 1998). On sait exactement ce qui s'est passé. Depuis que la Chine a rejoint l'économie mondiale il y a 30 ans, ses partenaires commerciaux se sont rués sur les produits manufacturés qu'elle exporte, leurs prix étant super-compétitifs du fait des bas salaires chinois. Or depuis quelques années on assiste à un réajustement des prix relatifs.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 4 Comments on this article

Jeffrey Frankel Apr 6, 2012

Reply to Shriya Anand --
Thanks for your comment/question. I think the major determinants of the US trade balance in general are US macro forces: growth rate, exchange rate, national saving, and national investment. The reason that the US current account has had a downward trend over the last half-century is that national saving has had a downward trend (though the deficit is currently much smaller than in 2007-08). Of course American politicians pay a lot of attention to the bilateral trade balance with China. But economists consider the bilateral balance to be of little significance, beyond the extent to which it reflects China's overall surplus and America's overall deficit.
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Shriya Anand Apr 5, 2012

What are the implications of this for the US trade deficit? The US trade deficit is increasing, while China's trade surplus is falling (even if one disagrees with official Chinese data and is not convinced about the magnitude of the change, there is no doubt that there is a reduction in the surplus). Does that mean the composition of American trade is changing, and that the US - China trade relationship is becoming less sizable?
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Gregor Schubert Mar 29, 2012

The laws of international economics still apply indeed.

This conclusion could have been take one step further to an observation that was only hinted at in this article: The laws of politics also still apply. That is, the political process will forever see exports as glorious, and imports as treason because the mercantilist zero-sum view form gold-standard time still captures the public imagination.

Thus, accoridng to this politician view of the world, a Chinese current account surplus must be bad for other countries, whose trade deficits destroy jobs. Nevermind that the empirical evidence from the most recent decades always show rising trade deficits for booming economies (US up to 2007, Asian Tigers before 1998, Japan and Korea in the 60s and 70s) that often reverse into surpluses as domestic economies founder (the US trade deficit 2008-2009 - that must have been a great economic time then!).

The elephant in the room here is domestic aggregate demand: since central banks control the demand within their currency area, the trade balance simply becomes a matter of balancing domestic opportunities of consumption and investment with international opportunities and allowing foreigners to do the same. As GDP is roughly determined by domestic supply and domestic demand management to ensure full employment, trade balances become irrelevant for GDP growth. But if politicians understood monetary policy...well let's just say that is a world we should hope for but not wait for.
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Milo Jones Mar 27, 2012

Some people called the slowdown of China a year ago. See: "Has China peaked? An exercise in forecasting using Neustadt and May’s History framework: at http://bit.ly/v5O69i They key question to me seems to be whether they will be able to maintain political stability as the economy (and employment!) contract. And remember, Japan was a lot richer before its dramatic demographic decline began. Finally, most commentary dramatically overstates the ability of the CCP to "control" events (see"China’s Present, the World’s Future, and the Pretense of Knowledge" at http://bit.ly/vSPuX8).
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