中国最近的政策调整可以有效阻止人民币目前的疲软态势。
中国政府在严格控制资本投资长达十多年之后，终于开始放宽外资进入中国股市和其他金融领域的门槛。该政策调整官方并没有公开宣布，而是由一些私人货币经理人透露的。这种政策上的转变预示着中国政府急切需要平衡大批外资从中国撤离、房地产市场价格急速下滑、股市疲软以及石油进口数量陡增引起的暂时性贸易赤字给中国带来的冲击。
因为以上考虑，外资大举进驻中国可能引起的通货膨胀的担忧显然已经开始消除了。
据几位货币经理人所说，中国证券部门的官员上周已经电话告知国外几位顶尖的基金经理人关于取消外资限制的消息。
但据称中国政府还对这些基金经理人提出了要求，若想增加在中国的投资，必须立刻做出回应——这显现出中国政府正急于寻求能够重整金融市场的方案。
“中国政府的电话4点钟打来，我们必须在5：30之前给他们回复，”某在华重点投资的金融公司主席说道。他一直小心翼翼，避免冒犯中国的监管者。放宽外资进入门槛可有效抑制中国目前大量外资撤离的现象，缓解人民币最近的疲软态势。另一方面，人民币的疲软态势增加了中国制造企业在国外市场的竞争力。
投行的高管们说中国证监会和外汇管理局的官员上周在电话里告知他们，中国政府将批准他们过去增加特定几种外资投资的请求，甚至允许他们的总投资额增加到两倍。
拥有中国QFII资格的金融机构有高盛这样的大银行，也有耶鲁大学校产基金这样的留本基金。
一位货币经理人说，中国监管部门透露，外商投资总额计划扩大到原有基础的约两倍，总计达 600亿美元；之前这一数额是300亿美元且已经保持了好几年。到现在为止，中国监管部门传出已经增加了对每项外商投资的批准额度，一次数额可达数亿美元。
然而，与沪、深两个股市的价值总和或中国的外贸总额相比，以上只是很小的一个数目。吸引更多外商来华投资说明中国担心人民币会长期处于疲软态势。
这个消息在华盛顿引起了强烈的政治反响，民主党和共和党一直号召要保持人民币的强势地位，以减少美国在对中双边贸易中巨大的贸易逆差。
美国财政部长蒂莫西•F•盖特纳（Timothy F. Geithner）在星期二的国会听证会上抱怨道，中国仍有办法实现人民币对其主要贸易伙伴国家的货币升值。
中国的政治局势因上周薄熙来被免去重庆市委书记职位和国家最高领导人换届选举而变得不稳定，这时候允许更多外资进入中国，能帮助稳定中国的股票和房地产市场。
中国股市沪综指周二收市下跌1.4%，相比去年4月中旬最高点下跌了22.2%，仅比今年1月最低点高一点点。
中国政府有意压低房价，表示政府对国内购房问题的广泛关注；同时动用了大部分行政措施实现这一目标，例如颁布针对二次或三次购房的限购令。但是房地产开发商和投资者却称操控房价的行为可能引发房价的强势回弹。
中国证监会和国家外汇管理局一直对大量外资进驻可能引发的通货膨胀很警惕，但自从香港等亚洲金融中心货币市场上的人民币出现贬值时，中国政府对外资的态度就发生了180度的大转弯。
人民币自1月初直到上周对美元贬值了0.5%。人民币的疲软态势起初是因为中国经济增长放缓，但投资者认为大批外资的撤离也是一个原因。
人民币汇率在过去几天的贸易中已经恢复，现在人民币对美元汇率几乎与今年的水平持平——显然，当中国放宽外资进入门槛的消息在各大经理人之间传开后，越来越多的外资很快会涌入中国市场。
中国证监会和国家外汇管理局星期二晚上停止办公，官员对媒体的采访避而不见。
各大银行提示，增加外商投资可能不会立刻造成大量现金流入中国市场；每支基金投资的增加必须首先得到中国外汇管理局的独立书面文件许可。
但至今为止，中国给外资在华投资权的发放数量依然很少，从而导致一些投资公司不得不花钱租用其他公司的在华投资权。
目前为止，投资权租金的比例占所有QFII价值总额的约0.6%。因此，若想在上海证券交易所持有1亿美元股票的跨国公司或共同基金，每年不得不付60万美元租用必须具备的投资权。
但是，当国际近几周普遍对中国经济前景担忧时，租金的数额便开始降低了。而金融投资权扩大到两倍的最新消息将导致租金进一步下降。
投资权扩大两倍可以帮助抵消中国工厂和其他固定领域外资投入减少带来的冲击，同时对中国贸易收支平衡的恶化也起到了缓冲的作用。国外直接投资和出口的同时减少，外加资本从中国撤离，这些导致了中国外汇收支失衡，从而引起中国货币贬值。
超过3万亿美元的外汇储备让中国有足够的财力抵御金融投机者对人民币价值的攻击。同时，中国也颁布了强硬的管制政策以保持对国内人民币现货市场的掌控。
然而，仍有大量人民币目前在现货市场以外流通，香港和新加坡的期货市场已经迅速扩张，这无疑是给中国的监管者提出了挑战。
金融公司主席在去年年初时曾说，，他只需要几天时间便可以给人民币期货市场注入5亿美元的资金并保持价格稳定。
而现在，他说，这些操作在15分钟内就能实现。这预示着现在的市场更加变化多端，中国政府控制起来也更加困难。
China's recent actions could help stem the recent weakness of the country's currency, the renminbi.
HONG KONG — The Chinese government has begun making it much easier for foreign investors to put money into China’s stock market and other financial investments, in a slight relaxing of more than a decade of tight capital controls.
The move, not publicly announced but disclosed by some private money managers, indicates that Chinese officials are eager to counter a rising flight of capital from the country, a worsening slump in real estate prices, a weak stock market and at least a temporary trade deficit caused by a steep bill for oil imports.
Those concerns have evidently started to offset fears of the potentially inflationary effects of big inflows of foreign cash.
Chinese securities officials made a series of phone calls to top fund managers outside China late last week telling them of the relaxation of the capital restrictions, according to several money managers.
But if the fund managers wanted to increase their requested allotments for investing in China, they were told they would have to answer almost immediately — a sign of the government’s haste to come up with a plan to reassure financial markets.
“It literally was phone calls coming in at 4 and you had to give an answer by 5:30,” said the chairman of a financial company heavily invested in China. He insisted on anonymity to avoid offending regulators. Easing the path of foreign money into China could help offset a nascent exodus of investment money there and stem the recent weakness of China’s currency, the renminbi. The renminbi’s weakness is making Chinese manufacturers even more competitive in foreign markets.
Investment executives say officials at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, in coordination with foreign-exchange officials, informed them in the phone calls last week that the government would approve all of their past requests to increase certain types of foreign investments and would even let them double their total invested.
The range of financial institutions with so-called Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor rights in China include big banks like Goldman Sachs and endowment funds like Yale University’s.
Regulators indicated that they would roughly double the overall cap on all foreign investments to about $60 billion, one money manager said; the cap has been $30 billion for several years. Until now, Chinese regulators have dribbled out each increase in authorized foreign investment, a few hundred million dollars at a time.
While still a tiny amount, compared with the combined value of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets or relative to the volume of China’s international trade, raising the foreign investment cap is the latest signal that Beijing is worried about a potentially prolonged weakness in the renminbi.
The issue is politically volatile in Washington, where Democrats and Republicans alike have been calling for a stronger Chinese currency as a way to limit China’s large bilateral trade surplus with the United States.
The American Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, complained at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday that China still had “some ways to go” in allowing its currency to appreciate against the currencies of China’s main trading partners.
Allowing more foreign money into China could help stabilize its stock market and real estate markets when the country’s political environment is unsettled over the dismissal last week of Bo Xilai as the Communist Party secretary of Chongqing and over the approach next autumn of a once-in-a-decade change in the country’s top leadership.
The Shanghai stock market dropped 1.4 percent on Tuesday and is down 22.2 percent from its high in mid-April last year, although up slightly from its lows in early January.
The government has deliberately engineered a fall in real estate prices to address widespread concerns about housing affordability, and has used mostly administrative tools to do so, like banning most purchases of second or third homes. But real estate developers and investors say the plunge in prices has taken on its own momentum.
China’s securities regulators and a separate government agency, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, had long been leery of the inflationary effects of being swamped with foreign cash. But that view has reversed in the last several weeks, as the renminbi’s value has slipped in currency markets on very heavy selling in Asian financial centers like Hong Kong.
The renminbi was down 0.5 percent against the dollar from the start of January through the middle of last week. The weakness was initially attributed to weakening performance of the Chinese economy, but investors increasingly see it as a sign of capital flight as well.
The renminbi has recovered in the last few days of trading and is now virtually unchanged against the dollar this year — evidently as word has circulated among top fund managers that more foreign money could soon begin washing ashore in China.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission and State Administration of Foreign Exchange were closed on Tuesday evening and its officials could not be reached for comment.
A raising of the foreign investment cap may not necessarily produce an immediate flow of cash into the Chinese market, bankers cautioned; each fund’s increase in investment rights will require separate paperwork from the foreign exchange agency.
But until now, investment opportunities for foreign capital in China have been so scarce that some investment companies have paid to rent other companies’ rights to invest in China.
The going rate on these investment rents until recently was about 0.6 percent of the value of the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor rights. So an international company ormutual fund that wanted to hold $100 million worth of stocks on the Shanghai stock exchange would have to pay about $600,000 a year to rent the necessary investor rights.
But the value of those rents has begun to decline as international worries about the Chinese economy have increased in recent weeks. The new doubling of financial investment rights is likely to depress the rents further.
The doubling of rights could help offset a slowdown in foreign investment into factories and other fixed assets in China, as well as a deterioration in China’s trade balance. Slowing foreign direct investment and weaker exports, together with some capital flight from China, has upset the balance of foreign exchange inflows and outflows in China, weakening the Chinese currency.
With more than $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, China has more than enough financial firepower to defend its currency against serious attacks on its value by speculators in financial markets. China also controls the spot market for renminbi within China through heavy regulations.
But so many renminbi are now circulating offshore that spot and forward trading have expanded rapidly in Hong Kong and Singapore, posing a challenge for Chinese regulators.
The financial company chairman said that as recently as early last year, it could take him a couple of days to move $500 million into forward renminbi contracts without causing the price to change.
Now this can be done in just 15 minutes, he said, indicating it was a sign of how liquid the market has become and hard it now is for the Chinese government to control it.
