China's Role in the Global Financial System

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China's Role in the Global Financial System 15 China’s Role in the Global Financial System ESWAR PRASAD This chapter considers China’s evolving role in the global financial system, focusing in particular on the role of its currency. China’s economy is now the second largest in the world and a key driver of global growth. But the country’s role in global finance, and the prominence of its currency, are not commensurate with its weight in the world economy. The chapter outlines some of the steps taken in recent years by the Chi- nese government to promote the international use of the renminbi (RMB), which in turn is linked to moves to open up China’s capital account. In light of China’s rising share of global GDP and trade, these steps are gaining traction and portend a more prominent role for the RMB in global trade and finance. The chapter then reviews the potential implications of these changes for capital flows into and out of China. This is followed by an evalu- ation of the progress that China has made in various aspects of financial market development and a discussion of the close relationship between those reforms, capital account openness, and the international role of the currency. Finally, the chapter discusses the prospects for the RMB becom- ing a major reserve currency.1 The RMB has come a long way in a short period. It was only in the early 2000s that the Chinese government began the process of gradually opening up the country’s capital account, allowing financial capital to flow more 355 356 ESWAR PRASAD freely across its borders. This process was very gradual at first and picked up pace only a decade later. Over the last few years, the RMB’s progress as an international currency has been remarkable in some respects. However, the currency’s seemingly inexorable progress stalled in 2014. Starting in mid- 2014, the Chinese economy seemed to be losing steam: domestic and foreign investors became less confident about the stability of China’s finan- cial markets, and, to compound these problems, China’s central bank made some missteps as it attempted to make the currency’s value more market- determined. Nevertheless, in October 2016, the RMB achieved a major milestone in its ascendance as an international currency. That month the International Monetary Fund (IMF) officially anointed the RMB as an elite global reserve currency. The RMB joined the select basket of currencies (previously com- prising the dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen, and the British pound sterling) that constitute the IMF’s artificial currency unit, the special drawing rights. However, this does not by itself mean that the RMB is already in a position to significantly reshape global finance; it still has a long way to go before it can play a major role in international finance. The Chinese government has taken a number of steps to solidify the RMB’s status as an elite global currency by increasing its international use. However, adoption of the RMB in global markets has been limited by the Chinese government’s unwilling- ness to free up its exchange rate and fully open the capital account. This chapter considers three related but distinct aspects of the role of the RMB in the global monetary system and examines the Chinese govern- ment’s actions in each of these areas. First, I discuss changes in the openness of China’s capital account and the degree of progress toward capital account convertibility. Second, I consider the currency’s internationalization, which involves its use in denominating and settling cross- border trades and finan- cial transactions— that is, its use as an international medium of exchange. Third, I trace the RMB’s evolution as a reserve currency. The RMB is likely to become a significant player in international finan- cial markets even if its rise to prominence levels off, yet its full potential may remain unrealized unless the Chinese government undertakes a broad range of economic and financial system reforms. In the long run, what the RMB’s ascendance means for the global financial system depends to a large extent on how China’s economy itself changes in the process of the country elevating its currency. China’s Role in the Global Financial System 357 CAPITAL ACCOUNT OPENING In evaluating China’s approach to capital account liberalization, one basic question must first be addressed: Why would capital account liberalization be a priority for China given the many domestic challenges the economy faces, including slowing economic growth, a weak financial system, and un- balanced growth that is still heavily dependent on investment? One reason is that such liberalization would generate a number of collateral (indirect) benefits for the domestic economy, particularly in terms of domestic finan- cial market development that, in turn, could facilitate more stable growth (Prasad and Rajan 2008). Liberalizing outflows provides Chinese households with opportunities to diversify their savings portfolios internationally and stimulates domestic financial reforms by creating competition for domestic banks that currently depend on captive domestic sources of funds (retail deposits of households and corporations). For the RMB to take on a more international role, both portfolio and foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows will need to involve more participation from the private sector. The liberalization of inflows is also an important part of the overall pic- ture in terms of attaining the collateral benefits of capital account liberal- ization. This liberalization already has allowed and will continue to allow foreign investors to play a larger role in further developing and deepening China’s financial markets. For instance, there is a significant body of evi- dence that liberalizing portfolio inflows helps improve liquidity in the do- mestic equity markets of emerging economies. This, along with the entry of foreign banks, would increase competition in the banking sector, which in turn would benefit private savers and borrowers. Other segments of China’s financial sector, including the insurance sector, have depended on capital controls and other entry restrictions to stay competitive. These segments will face greater competition with more open inflows. With effective regu- lation, this could lead to significant efficiency gains. Capital account liberalization could have broader benefits for China. An open capital account would catalyze progress toward the objective of making Shanghai an international financial center. Capital account open- ing, especially if accompanied by greater exchange rate flexibility, could also strengthen China’s domestic economic structure. It would facilitate financial sector reforms, allowing for a rebalancing of growth away from 358 ESWAR PRASAD a reliance on exports and investment- driven growth to a more balanced model of growth with higher private consumption. Financial sector re- forms can play a crucial role in this rebalancing effort by promoting a more efficient allocation of resources toward the most productive uses. A more flexible exchange rate would free up monetary policy to facilitate achiev- ing domestic macroeconomic objectives such as maintaining low and stable inflation (Prasad 2016). Consistent with all these objectives, the government has in recent years removed restrictions on capital inflows and outflows, but in a controlled and gradual manner. These schemes have been designed to generate many of the collateral benefits of financial openness while creating freer movement of capital. For instance, the government has set up a number of schemes to allow foreign investors to invest in China’s stock and bond markets. These include the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor Scheme and the Ren- minbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor Scheme. At the same time, there are now many channels available for Chinese households, corporations, and institutional investors that wish to invest some portion of their investments in foreign markets. These include the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor and Qualified Domestic Indi- vidual Investor Schemes. A few channels for two- way flows, such as the Stock Connect and Bond Connect programs, have also been opened up. But the government contin- ues to maintain a tight grip over each of these channels. How open is China’s capital account? De jure measures of capital ac- count openness typically rely on binary indicators from the International Monetary Fund’s Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions (AREAER). These binary measures reflect the existence of any restrictions on a large number of categories of inflows and outflows. Con- ventional measures of de jure financial openness drawing on the AREAER data show little, if any, change for China over the past decade. An alternative and complementary approach to evaluating an econo- my’s financial openness is to analyze de facto measures of integration into global financial markets. Figure 15- 1 shows the levels of China’s gross ex- ternal (foreign) assets and liabilities, along with the net asset position, from 2004 through 2018. At the end of 2018, China had US$7 trillion of external assets and about $5 trillion of external liabilities. Both assets and liabilities have risen sharply over the last decade, and the net asset position stood at China’s Role in the Global Financial System 359 FIGURE 15-1. China’s External Assets and Liabilities (in trillions of U.S. dollars) Assets Liabilities Net assets $2.1 trillion. Thus the country’s capital account is becoming increasingly open in de facto terms, although by this measure China is financially less open than many reserve currency economies. As China opens up its capital account, there have been important shifts in the structure of its capital outflows over the past decade. The change in the composition of gross outflows, from accumulation of foreign exchange reserves by the central bank to nonofficial outflows, reflects China’s- con trolled approach to capital account liberalization but also increasing seep- age around remaining controls.
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