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Sep 30th 2010, 20:25 by R.A. | WASHINGTON
来源：economist.com（原文点击）
YESTERDAY, the House of Representatives passed a measure that moved the American government toward acknowledging China as a currency manipulator (officially, that is, in comments the White House has made no bones about this) and slapping tariffs on Chinese goods as punishment. China has warned that passage of the bill would be detrimental to Sino-American economic ties. So far, the Obama administration has behaved as though it does not want to see the bill on the president's desk, but that stance may be changing.
Paul Krugman has not been happy with China's currency interventions, and he hasn't been satisfied with the yuan appreciation that's taken place since the Chinese government announced a new period of flexibility for the currency back in June.
I've commented on all of this before. Mr Krugman thinks that slow appreciation over the summer was due to America's taking the pressure off Beijing; I think it's just as easily explained by the serious concerns that erupted over the summer, that China's efforts to cool its economy were working too well. Mr Krugman believes that a major revaluation will provide a significant boost to the American economy. I think it's more likely that because of the extent of the structural imbalances in China's economy, a major, rapid revaluation would devastate China's economy and have a net negative impact on the global economy.
Meanwhile, structural imbalances in America would reduce the benefit of Chinese revaluation; production would, in many cases, simply shift to other export-oriented Asian nations. We got some sense of the elasticities here during China's previous episode of revaluation.
But here's the thing that really gets me about Mr Krugman's approach to this issue. He concludes his latest post by writing:
Finally, the idea that what we need is a mature discussion of global rebalancing strikes me as reasonable — if you have been living in a cave the past three or four years. We’ve been reasoning, and reasoning, and reasoning, and nothing changes. Clearly, China does not want to act — not out of national interest, but because of the political influence of its export industries. It won’t change its behavior unless it faces an additional incentive — like the prospect of countervailing duties.Mr Krugman doesn't understand Chinese internal politics. Neither do I! China's culture is vastly different from America's, and the government is secretive and autocratic. We don't know—can't know—what will happen if America slaps tariffs on Chinese goods. The best we can do—and what we must do, if we're going to think and govern like responsible individuals—is think our way through the whole set of potential outcomes and try to assign them various probabilities.
The Levin bill is a step toward a more balanced world, not away from it.
If we undertake this exercise honestly, it becomes clear that there is a set of very bad potential outcomes. They may not be the most likely outcomes. But because we can't be certain that they won't follow from the suggested course of action, they must figure into the calculation of costs and benefits.
What are these potential outcomes? Retaliation. A trade war. A significant shift in the nature of the Sino-American relationship, from workable to explicitly hostile. An end to hopes for a real solution to climate change. An end to a potential partnership for collective security in Asia. War. None of this is out of the question.
And it isn't as though Mr Krugman recognises these risks and concludes that confrontation is preferable. He doesn't even acknowledge that they exist! Never once does he seem to entertain and weigh the possibility that a significant confrontation between the world's two largest economies at a time when recovery from a major recession is in an exceedingly fragile state could be a slightly dangerous thing.
If you aren't thinking seriously about the potential downside risks to an action, then you aren't thinking seriously. I think the cost-benefit ratio of a get-tough approach to China is horribly unfavourable—particularly when there are so many other positive sum solutions to high unemployment available. I may be wrong, Mr Krugman isn't going to convince me, or anyone else who matters, of that until he stops pretending that there are no potential downsides to his suggested course of action.
作者：陈平，北京大学国家发展研究院，复旦大学新政治经济学研究中心。
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