La Cina nel mirino degli USA?

Jim Jubak dedica il suo ultimo articolo su MSN Money ad un'analisi del debito  cinese, con conclusioni poco incoraggianti, che complementano la sua altrettanto scoraggiante analisi del debito sovrano
che non salva neppure il Canada. 

Sul tema della manipolazione di bilanci e valute gli fa eco sul New York Times Paul Krugman nel suo editoriale di lunedì accusando senza mezze misure la Cina di aumentare le prospettive di crisi economica mondiale con la sua politica di renminbi debole (secondo alcuni è sottovalutato del 20-40%):

Tensions are rising over Chinese economic policy, and rightly so: China’s policy of keeping its currency, the renminbi, undervalued has become a significant drag on global economic recovery. Something must be done.

To give you a sense of the problem: Widespread complaints that China was manipulating its currency — selling renminbi and buying foreign currencies, so as to keep the renminbi weak and China’s exports artificially competitive — began around 2003. At that point China was adding about $10 billion a month to its reserves, and in 2003 it ran an overall surplus on its current account — a broad measure of the trade balance — of $46 billion.
Today, China is adding more than $30 billion a month to its $2.4 trillion hoard of reserves. The International Monetary Fund expects China to have a 2010 current surplus of more than $450 billion — 10 times the 2003 figure. This is the most distortionary exchange rate policy any major nation has ever followed.
And it’s a policy that seriously damages the rest of the world. Most of the world’s large economies are stuck in a liquidity trap — deeply depressed, but unable to generate a recovery by cutting interest rates because the relevant rates are already near zero. China, by engineering an unwarranted trade surplus, is in effect imposing an anti-stimulus on these economies, which they can’t offset.


Secondo molti la relativa tolleranza USA per la manipolazione del renminbi
è dovuta al fatto che i cinesi hanno ormai preso in ostaggio il dollaro.La tesi di Krugman è che da una rappresaglia cinese gli USA hanno più da guadagnare che da perdere:

Here, we have to get past a common misunderstanding: the view that the Chinese have us over a barrel, because we don’t dare provoke China into dumping its dollar assets.
What you have to ask is, What would happen if China tried to sell a large share of its U.S. assets? Would interest rates soar? Short-term U.S. interest rates wouldn’t change: they’re being kept near zero by the Fed, which won’t raise rates until the unemployment rate comes down. Long-term rates might rise slightly, but they’re mainly determined by market expectations of future short-term rates. Also, the Fed could offset any interest-rate impact of a Chinese pullback by expanding its own purchases of long-term bonds.
It’s true that if China dumped its U.S. assets the value of the dollar would fall against other major currencies, such as the euro. But that would be a good thing for the United States, since it would make our goods more competitive and reduce our trade deficit. On the other hand, it would be a bad thing for China, which would suffer large losses on its dollar holdings. In short, right now America has China over a barrel, not the other way around.

Krugman propone di ... tassare le importazioni cinesi del 25% (a Tremonti fischieranno le orecchie?). Niente male .... e poi ... se non funziona?