The friction between Washington and Beijing over exchange rates is about to get a lot worse. On April 15, the US Treasury will issue the first of two semi-annual currency reports, mandated by law since 1988, in which China may be deemed to be manipulating its currency “for the purposes of preventing effective balance of payments adjustments or gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade”. The Treasury and the Congress have been deliberating inconclusively on China's exchange rate policy since 2003, when the country's balance of payments surplus was a tenth of what it is now and its foreign exchange reserves were a sixth of the current stock of $2,500bn (€1,840bn, £1,660bn). This time, events may play out quite differently.
美中两国在汇率问题上的摩擦将明显激化。4月15日，美国财政部将发布今年首份半年度汇率报告——这是自1988年起法律赋予该部门的使命——报告中可能认定manbetx3.0 存在操纵本币汇率的行为，“其目的是避免国际收支得到有效调整，或者在国际贸易中获得不公平的竞争优势”。自2003年以来，美国财政部和国会一直在审议manbetx3.0 的汇率政策，但都没有做出确切的结论。这次，事情的结果可能大不相同。2003年的时候，manbetx3.0 的国际收支盈余是目前的十分之一；外汇储备则是目前2.5万亿美元的六分之一。