华盛顿时报:中国积聚黑暗的非传统力量

空气稀薄

http://www.singtaonet.com/ed_china/200807/t20080730_837902.html
星岛环球网 www.stnn.cc

    北京奥运让中国获得健康剂量的“软实力”，暗示真正的国际合法性。但中国目前在积聚另一种较为黑暗的非传统力量。中国或中国投资者持有大约1.2万亿美元的美国债券，预计明年北京将会拥有2.4万亿美元的外汇储备，让中国政府可以在危机情况下取得非常合适的、常常被忽视的工具。且听听中国国家媒体是怎么描述假如中国倾销其迅速增长的资产储备的：核选项（nuclear option）。　　两天前，我们在《华盛顿时报》的头版报道中透露，在台海战争或共产主义中国和美国之间发生其他一些冲突升级的情况下，中国日益增长的经济实力会意味着什么。
　　以下是数字。中国外汇储备如今高达1.8万亿美元。国际货币基金组织预计这个数字明年会再增加0.5万亿美元。尽管具体数字不得而知，据说1.8万亿美元中大约有四分之三是美元资产。共产主义中国把这些数字当成“国家机密”，再次表明这些持有物并非是西方民主国家或大多数其他国家的那种日常业务。
　　它也不仅仅是外国货币。中国持有的美国证券从2004年的3000亿多美元增长到去年年中的9000亿多美元。不过这些并不能说明中国人是杰出的投资者。到目前为止中国是房利美和房地美资产支持型证券的最大外国持有者。
　　中国的意图不能是纯经济的吗？中国问题专家温伯格（Carl Weinberg）表示，那是一种金融恐怖平衡，在这个平衡中，大倾销对中国的伤害比对美国的大。很多分析家乐观地持这种观点。当然，这是一种共生的关系。
　　但中国人知道他们自己的实力，而且他们有时候会在地缘政治环境下公开提及。中国发展研究中心金融研究所所长夏斌（Xia Bin）去年就说外汇储备可以成为影响美国政策的“谈判筹码”。尽管比中国媒体有时候讨论的“核选项”要温和，但官方还是予以否认。
　　即使中国大规模倾销资产的噩梦情景不大可能发生，但这种力量仍然可以用于阻挠某种行动或者在危机中影响美国的政策。最近，黑石集团共同创办人彼得森（PetePeterson）拿艾森豪威尔总统的苏伊士运河外交说明这一点。艾森豪威尔威胁说，如果英国不放弃运河，美国就倾销英镑储备——结果英国人放弃了。（原标题：美元外交）

英语原文：
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/29/dollar-diplomacy/

EDITORIAL: Dollar diplomacy 美元外交
The Beijing Olympics give China a healthy dose of "soft power,"implying, as the games do, real international legitimacy. But there's another, darker kind of nontraditional power China is currently amassing. The estimated $1.2 trillion in U.S. securities currently held by China or its investors and the expected $2.4 trillion in foreign currency reserves Beijing will hold by next year give this Communist government a very appreciable, oft-overlooked tool in the event of a crisis. Just listen to the word the Chinese state-run media use to describe the hypothetical dumping of China's appreciable and rapidly growing store of assets - the "nuclear option."

We draw readers' attention to a must-read cover story of The Washington Times two days ago, which shows the full implications of China's growing financial muscle in the event of a Taiwan Strait war or some other escalation between Communist China and the United States.
Here are the numbers. China's foreign-exchange reserves today total$1.8 trillion, a quadrupling over the last four years. The International Monetary Fund expects that figure to rise by more than another half trillion next year. As The Times report notes, about three-quarters of the $1.8 trillion is said to be U.S. dollars, though the figure isn't known. Communist China treats the number as a "state secret" - another indicator that these holdings are not routine business as they would be in Western democracies and most other countries.
It is not just foreign currency. China's holding of U.S. securities have tripled over a comparable period, from over $300 billion in 2004 to more than $900 billion by the middle of last year. (None of which should suggest that the Chinese have proven themselves brilliant investors. China is by far the biggest foreign holder of Fannie Mae'sand Freddie Mac's asset-backed securities.)
Couldn't China's intentions here be purely economic? "There is a balance of financial terror," China expert Carl Weinberg told TheTimes, and in this balance a mass dumping would harm China more than it would harm the United States. A great many analysts are sanguine on this account. Surely the relationship is symbiotic.
But the Chinese know their own power, and they occasionally refer toit publicly in geopolitical terms. Xia Bin, finance chief at China's Development Research Center, last year suggested that foreign reserves could serve as a "bargaining chip" to influence U.S. policy, as TheTimes weekend story reports. Though milder than the "nuclear option"the Chinese state media sometimes discuss, this nevertheless prompted an official denial.
Even if the nightmare scenario of mass Chinese asset-dumping is unlikely, this power could still be used to deter certain actions or shape U.S. policy in a crisis. Recently, Pete Peterson, co-founder ofthe private equity firm the Blackstone Group, referred to President Eisenhower's Suez Canal diplomacy to illustrate the point. Ikethreatened to dump U.S. reserves of the British pound unless the British relinquished the canal - which they did.

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