Nic, China issued a forceful and coordinated warning today that if this legislation passes, it could spark a trade war. Is this a fight worth having?

 

--Well, I think it’s certainly questionable in the current environment given the fragility of the global economy that you want to start a trade war. On the other hand, I think China's response was fairly measured, it was not overly shrill, it was very well calibrated. They are certainly not looking to start a trade war and they probably share the very widespread view that the House is not likely to pass this legislation. So they won't really turn up the volume on this until they see both Senate and the House pass. All we saw today I think was just a little warning short across the bow that was fairly, fairly low key. 

 

All right,Let’s talk about politics, House Republicans backed the bill a year ago. Why do you think it won’t pass? 

 

--Well, certainly that’s the readout that I’m hearing from people that are doing notes counting the Republicans in the House don’t want to make this a priority. They get a lot of other things on agenda up there. And it’s not likely to pass. I mean part of it,it's being portrayed in some quarters has been increasing taxes and so there’re a lot of conservatives that they're gonna vote against it on the grounds that increase tariffs would constitute to the tax. 

 

 

 

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke weighted on this issue today. He said, quote "Right now our concern is that the Chinese currency policy is blocking what might be a more normal recovery process in the global economy." Do you agree with that assessment?

 

 

 

--Well, I certainly think it’s a risk if you go into a trade war where you one side starts something, and other retaliates and escalates. It’s certainly will have an adverse effect on everybody and given, as I said before, the fragility of the global economy, the weakness of demand, you are at risks certainly of undermining whatever recovery there is or might be or making a downturn worse than otherwise would be.

 

The Yuan has risen some 30% since 2005, is it still undervalued and if so by how much. 

 

--Well, I am certainly of the view that it is still undervalued. We certainly see the Chinese foreign exchange reserves building up. Now over 3 trillion, 3.2 trillion, that’s because the Central Bank is in the market for foreign exchange, buying it up to prevent the RMB from appreciating. So clearly, if market forces were playing a greater role, the Chinese currency would have appreciated a great deal more over the last 6 years or so. Exactly how much it's undervalued, you know, there are a lot of different studies. I have colleagues that try to estimate that. My view is we won’t know how much it's really undervalued until the Central Government quits intervening in the foreign exchange market. And we see the rate determined more by supply and demand. 

 

 

 

If this bill as your headcount indicates is not going to get through Congress, how does the dialog about China and its currency change? 

 

--I don’t think it’s going to substantially change. I don’t think the Chinese are really going to change their currency policy until they feel it's in there interest to do so. I happen to think it isn’t their interest. But I think foreigners lecturing to them about why they should be doing it, isn’t necessarily the most effective way to do it, particularly if their lecture is in public seems to be threatening, there’s a whole band of people in China. If the United States is recommending something, they don’t need to know anything else about it, they’re automatically against it and those...