On paper, the case for a revaluation of the Chinese Yuan seems rock solid: China’s forex reserves have swollen to $800 Billion, its annual trade surplus exceeds $100 Billion, and its exports have soared. However, delve deeper into the figures, and a vastly different picture emerges. First, the country’s forex reserves are largely the result of ‘hot money,’ inflows of foreign capital hoping to instantaneously capitalize on a Yuan revaluation, rather than long term investment in capital projects. In addition, China’s trade surplus is increasingly a story of slowing imports, rather than growing exports. As investment in fixed capacity has declined, so has the demand for equipment and machinery, much of which is imported. In addition, while China’s trade surplus with the US exceeded $200 Billion in 2005, China runs a deficit with most other countries it trades with. The Economist reports:

So the balancing act, for the [Chinese] authorities, is to keep up the expectation of a revaluation through talk and an exchange rate that crawls up fractionally—by another percent or two here or there.

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