Gaining Currency


Book Description

China's currency, the renminbi, has taken the world by storm. This book documents the renminbi's impressive rise to global prominence in a short period but also shows how much further it has to go before becoming a major international currency. The hype about its inevitable ascendance to global dominance is overblown.




Chinese Yuan Renminbi Derivative Products


Book Description

Since late 2002 there have been many disputes and discussions around the world on whether or not the Chinese yuan (CNY), or renminbi (RMB), should be revalued. Based on various arguments and discussions, the CNY has been expected to be revalued worldwide, as evidenced by the significant premiums for the CNY non-deliverable forwards in the offshore marketplace. With the CNY revaluation perspectives, hundreds of billions of US dollars have been invested in various types of CNY-related derivatives products. The purpose of this book is not to tell the reader whether the RMB should be revalued, or by how much it should be revalued, as these questions are the work of economists. Instead, as a derivatives specialist with more than te years' experience in the international financial market and with working experience in China in the past few years, the author presents trading of CNY-related derivatives products in the offshore marketplace. The book is organized into five parts. The first part familiarizes readers with the Chinese economy in transition and the Chinese financial market, so that they can make their own judgment as to whether or not the CNY should be revalued. Part II presents major foreign exchange derivatives trading in organized exchanges and the over-the-counter marketplace around the world. Part III reviews what foreign exchange products were involved both before and during the Asian financial crisis, because many of them were used to speculate or hedge against devaluations of the Asian currencies. Part IV studies various CNY-related derivatives products and embedded derivatives products. Finally, Part V examines the possible impacts of these derivatives products on the CNYexchange rate, based on the experiences of other currencies such as the Korean won and the New Taiwan dollar.




Renminbi Internationalization


Book Description

A Brookings Institution Press and Asian Development Bank Institute publication Meet the next global currency: the Chinese renminbi, or the "redback." Following the global financial crisis of 2008, China's major monetary policy objective is the internationalization of the renminbi, that is, to create an inter-national role for its currency akin to the international role currently played by the U.S. dollar. Renminbi internationalization is a hot topic, for good reason. It is, essentially, a window onto the Chinese government's aspirations and the larger process of economic and financial transformation. Making the renminbi a global currency requires rebalancing the Chinese economy, developing the country's financial markets and opening them to the rest of the world, and moving to a more flexible exchange rate. In other words, the internationalization of the renminbi is a monetary and financial issue with much broader supra-monetary and financial implications. This book offers a new perspective on the larger issues of economic, financial, and institutional change in what will eventually be the world's largest economy.




Exchange Rate, Credit Constraints and China’s International Trade


Book Description

This book, by one of China's leading economists, explores the past and present of the RMB—the people's currency—as it is poised to compete with the dollar as the international reserve currency. Exchange rate movement and its pass-through to changes in domestic prices have been topics of wide concern among economists. However, relatively few studies have empirically investigated the relationship between exchange rate movements and China's international trade.This book fills this gap, using the general equilibrium theory of the western economic science norm systems, integrating the leading heterogeneous firm theory of international trade, attempting to set up a theoretical structural model for further prediction, and applying the data from sample cases to examine the structural model. This book will be of interest to economists, financiers, and China watchers.




Yuan Shikai


Book Description

Statesman or warlord? Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) has been both hailed as China’s George Washington for his role in the country’s transition from empire to republic and condemned as a counter-revolutionary. In any list of significant modern Chinese figures, he stands in the first rank. Yet Yuan Shikai: A Reappraisal sheds new light on the controversial history of this talented administrator, fearsome general, and enthusiastic modernizer. Due to his death during the civil war his actions provoked, much Chinese historiography portrays Yuan as a traitor, a usurper, and a villain. After toppling the last emperor of China, Yuan endeavoured to build dictatorial power and establish his own dynasty while serving as the first president of the new republic, eventually going so far as to declare himself emperor. Drawing on previously untapped primary sources and recent scholarship, Patrick Fuliang Shan offers a lucid, comprehensive, and critical new interpretation of Yuan’s part in shaping modern China.




The Troubled Empire


Book Description

The Mongol takeover in the 1270s changed the course of Chinese history. The Confucian empireÑa millennium and a half in the makingÑwas suddenly thrust under foreign occupation. What China had been before its reunification as the Yuan dynasty in 1279 was no longer what it would be in the future. Four centuries later, another wave of steppe invaders would replace the Ming dynasty with yet another foreign occupation. The Troubled Empire explores what happened to China between these two dramatic invasions. If anything defined the complex dynamics of this period, it was changes in the weather. Asia, like Europe, experienced a Little Ice Age, and as temperatures fell in the thirteenth century, Kublai Khan moved south into China. His Yuan dynasty collapsed in less than a century, but Mongol values lived on in Ming institutions. A second blast of cold in the 1630s, combined with drought, was more than the dynasty could stand, and the Ming fell to Manchu invaders. Against this backgroundÑthe first coherent ecological history of China in this periodÑTimothy Brook explores the growth of autocracy, social complexity, and commercialization, paying special attention to ChinaÕs incorporation into the larger South China Sea economy. These changes not only shaped what China would become but contributed to the formation of the early modern world.




The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History


Book Description

This volume seeks to study the connections between two well-studied epochs in Chinese history: the mid-imperial era of the Tang and Song (ca. 800-1270) and the late imperial era of the late Ming and Qing (1550-1900). Both eras are seen as periods of explosive change, particularly in economic activity, characterized by the emergence of new forms of social organization and a dramatic expansion in knowledge and culture. The task of establishing links between these two periods has been impeded by a lack of knowledge of the intervening Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). This historiographical "black hole" has artificially interrupted the narrative of Chinese history and bifurcated it into two distinct epochs. This book aims to restore continuity to that historical narrative by filling the gap between mid-imperial and late imperial China. The contributors argue that the Song-Yuan-Ming transition (early twelfth through the late fifteenth century) constitutes a distinct historical period of transition and not one of interruption and devolution. They trace this transition by investigating such subjects as contemporary impressions of the period, the role of the Mongols in intellectual life, the economy of Jiangnan, urban growth, neo-Confucianism and local society, commercial publishing, comic drama, and medical learning.




The World of Khubilai Khan


Book Description

Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Sept. 28, 2010-Jan. 2, 2011.




China 2049


Book Description

How will China reform its economy as it aspires to become the next economic superpower? It's clear that China is the world's next economic superpower. But what isn't so clear is how China will get there by the middle of this century. It now faces tremendous challenges such as fostering innovation, dealing with ageing problem and coping with a less accommodative global environment. In this book, economists from China's leading university and America's best-known think tank offer in depth analyses of these challenges. Does China have enough talent and right policy and institutional mix to transit from input-driven to innovation-driven economy? What does ageing mean, in terms of labor supply, consumption demand and social welfare expenditure? Can China contain the environmental and climate change risks? How should the financial system be transformed in order to continuously support economic growth and keep financial risks under control? What fiscal reforms are required in order to balance between economic efficiency and social harmony? What roles should the state-owned enterprises play in the future Chinese economy? In addition, how will technological competition between the United States and China affect each country's development? Will the Chinese yuan emerge as a major reserve currency, and would this destabilize the international financial system? What will be China's role in the international economic institutions? And will the United States and other established powers accept a growing role for China and the rest of the developing world in the governance of global institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, or will the world devolve into competing blocs? This book provides unique insights into independent analyses and policy recommendations by a group of top Chinese and American scholars. Whether China succeeds or fails in economic reform will have a large impact, not just on China's development, but also on stability and prosperity for the whole world.




Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution


Book Description

As the world’s only English-language historical dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), this book offers a comprehensive coverage of major historical figures, events, political terms, and other matters relevant to this unique period of modern Chinese history that had profound influence on social and cultural movements of the world in the 1960s and 1970s. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this important period in Chinese history.