Another important issue has to do with the duration of china’s trade surpluses. A mercantilist policy regime aims at persistent trade surpluses, and Japan indeed enjoyed a consistent trade surplus until 1993 through-out its economic takeoff era. In contrast, china’s global trade surpluses have been cyclical in nature, even when it has enjoyed consistent trade surpluses with the United States. China’s recent successes in export expansion can be legitimately attributed to market forces rather than to systematic, government-organized programs to promote exports. It should be acknowledged that china has made limited progress in recent years in moving away from this model. In 1994, authorities abolished the dual exchange rate and merged the market rate and the official rate at the market rate. This amounted to an effective devaluation of the Chinese currency of roughly 50 percent. The action has given a huge boost to china’s export performance. China’s merchandise trade balance has enjoyed a surplus every year since 1993, rising to US$19.5 billion in 1996 from a deficit of US$12 billion in 1993. the sizable trade account surplus is sufficient to offset relatively small nontrade account deficits to yield an overall current account surplus for every year since 1990, except for 1993. Because china has become an attractive site for foreign investments in the last few years, surpluses on current and capital accounts have led to a huge buildup of foreign exchange reserves, to the tune of US$139 billion by 1998.
以下是我的翻译。请多多指教。 Another important issue has to do with the duration of china’s trade surpluses. A mercantilist policy regime aims at persistent trade surpluses, and Japan indeed enjoyed a consistent trade surplus until 1993 through-out its economic takeoff era. In contrast, china’s global trade surpluses have been cyclical in nature, even when it has enjoyed consistent trade surpluses with the United States. China’s recent successes in export expansion can be legitimately attributed to market forces rather than to systematic, government-organized programs to promote exports. It should be acknowledged that china has made limited progress in recent years in moving away from this model. In 1994, authorities abolished the dual exchange rate and merged the market rate and the official rate at the market rate. This amounted to an effective devaluation of the Chinese currency of roughly 50 percent. The action has given a huge boost to china’s export performance. China’s merchandise trade balance has enjoyed a surplus every year since 1993, rising to US$19.5 billion in 1996 from a deficit of US$12 billion in 1993. the sizable trade account surplus is sufficient to offset relatively small nontrade account deficits to yield an overall current account surplus for every year since 1990, except for 1993. Because china has become an attractive site for foreign investments in the last few years, surpluses on current and capital accounts have led to a huge buildup of foreign exchange reserves, to the tune of US$139 billion by 1998.