Hu Jintao's US-trip brings no change in the Chinese currency regime

The US-trip of China’s president Hu Jintao of last week has brought no real breakthrough in the Chinese-American relationship and the forex markets were quick to react. The Chinese currency yuan lost 0.6% against the US-dollar during the first hours of the meeting of the political leaders. This may underline the fact that the US is currently loosing influence over China in both political and economical matters.

In fact, Hu Jintao’s visit demonstrated clearly that China was not so much dependent on the goodwill of the American government, but rather on a good relationship with leading US corporations. In the state of Washington, Hu Jintao was received by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the chairman of Boeing, James McNerney. China is said to have ordered software and aeroplanes representing a value of several billion US-dollars.

However, China’s diplomatic policy is not without risks. The country still faces great economical and political challenges. China is currently seen as the economic driving force for Asia. Consequently, a crisis might not only have disastrous repercussions for China itself but also for other Asian countries. The Asian crisis of 1997 was still different in this respect. The US consumer demand for Asian products had been able to prevent the worst-case-scenarios. Today, China is the most important trading partner for Japan and South-Corea and was also able to support the economic recovery of Japan. But since the Chinese financial markets and its week banking systems are still in the development phase, a crisis might well produce consequences which could not be prevented by an international agency, not even the International Monetary Fund.

Source: Finanz&Wirtschaft

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China facilitates access to foreign currencies and financial markets



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