{"id":459692,"date":"2010-03-22T16:27:21","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T20:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.economist.com,21005532"},"modified":"2010-03-22T16:27:21","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T20:27:21","slug":"china-importer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/459692","title":{"rendered":"China, importer"},"content":{"rendered":"

TWO weeks ago, China released<\/a> trade data for the month of February. Where monthly trade surpluses during the pre-crisis boom years had been in the $20 billion to $30 billion range, China recorded a $14 billion surplus in January, and just an $8 billion surplus in the month of February\u2014results, China’s government used to argue that currency adjustment isn’t necessary. Now, we learn this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The country will probably see a “record trade deficit” in March thanks to surging imports, Minister of Commerce Chen Deming said on Sunday, while warning that Beijing will “fight back” if Washington labels China a currency manipulator.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the three-day China Development Forum that ends on Monday, Chen said: “I believe there will be a trade deficit in March” – which will be the first since May 2004.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That would certainly complicate the arguments of those demanding a revaluation. Amid heated rhetoric on the issue, the stakes have been steadily climbing<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The US business community can no longer resist political pressure for Washington to take a tougher stand against China on trade issues, according to a senior figure from the US Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n

Myron Brilliant, senior vice-president for international affairs, who has previously helped to protect Beijing from hawkish trade policies, told the Financial Times: \u201cI don\u2019t think the Chinese government can count on the American business community to be able to push back and block action [on Capitol Hill].\u201d …<\/p>\n

Mr Brilliant said corporate America\u2019s attitude had changed in response to a range of \u201cindustrial policies\u201d pursued by Beijing, including the undervaluation of the renminbi, which made it harder for US companies to do business and compete with China. He also cited the tough economic times in the US \u2013 particularly the near 10 per cent jobless rate \u2013 as making it more difficult to argue against tough action on China.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Who knows how much stock to put in the deficit projection. What seems clear is that the possibility for an orderly and amicable resolution of this dispute is slipping somewhat, which is quite troubling. There is little to be gained from turning up the heat on this conversation and much to fear, including a round of damaging economic nationalism. The likelihood of sensible policy changes emerging from that is quite slim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TWO weeks ago, China released trade data for the month of February. Where monthly trade surpluses during the pre-crisis boom years had been in the $20 billion to $30 billion range, China recorded a $14 billion surplus in January, and just an $8 billion surplus in the month of February\u2014results, China’s government used to argue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-459692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}