美国经济不景气以及欧洲国家的信誉可靠性仍在讨论之中，我们或许应该把希望寄托在国际货币基金组织的年会上，希望它能够统筹各国政治解决这些问题。但是没有这么做。相反，在美国的坚持下，会议着重讨论了中国及其货币——人民币问题。2

Picking up the baton from the U.S. House of Representatives — which, in one of its last acts before adjourning for the midterm elections, passed a bipartisan bill aimed at retaliatory action against China for its "significantly undervalued" currency — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged the IMF to pressure China to adopt "more flexible, more market-oriented exchange-rate management." This is a technocratic coded message to China: You're rigging your currency to keep it cheap, and the U.S. economy is paying the price. So cut it out — or else. The normally stodgy IMF meeting became the latest battleground pitting the U.S. against a surging China.

在中期选举结束之前最后一次行动中，众议院一致通过了代表两党利益的法案，该法案针对中国货币严重被低估而进行报复。得到了众议院的许可，财政部长盖特纳催促国际货币基金组织向中国施压，逼其采取“更加灵活，更加市场化的汇率管理”政策。这向中国传达了一个专业技术的信息：中国操纵货币政策使其保持低汇率，而美国经济却为此付出代价。所以就得那中国开刀——否则后果就不堪设想。平淡无奇的国际货币基金组织会议变成了美国与经济强劲的中国较量的最新的战场。1

The U.S., leading the charge for developed nations, has convinced itself that China has purposely kept its currency undervalued to make its exports more attractive. Our new conventional wisdom is that China's policy leads to escalating trade deficits and the loss of American manufacturing jobs. It has also allowed China to accumulate $2.5 trillion in foreign reserves — and become the most significant foreign creditor for the U.S. and its ballooning debts. We're even irked because the Chinese are saving way more than they consume, worsening the global imbalances that are supposedly imperiling the tenuous recovery from the financial turmoil that shook the world. To rectify these problems, China must allow its currency to appreciate dramatically — 20% to 40% — quickly.

作为发达国家的领头羊的美国，已经确信中国人为降低人民币汇率以促进本国的出口商品具有更大竞争力。新传统观点认为，中国政策是导致贸易逆差以及美国制造业岗位流失的罪魁祸首。这就使得中国的外汇储备高达2.5万亿美元——这就使中国成为了美国最大的债权国而且这一数字正在急剧膨胀。我们甚至很苦恼因为中国人储蓄的方式远比其消费多得多，这就日益恶化了全球经济平衡，而这被认为是刚从是威胁到整个全世界的金融风暴中恢复的经济平衡再一次陷入了泥潭之中。为了纠正这些错误，中国必须使其货币明显的升值——至少20%到40%之间——甚至更高。2

This thesis is animating both global economics and domestic politics. Dozens of candidates have run ads assailing an opponent for coddling China and allowing it to take advantage of us. In the election-year view, China grew 10% annually for the past decade while maintaining low inflation only by taking advantage of its artificially low currency.

针对全球经济和国内政治局势，本论文对此富有启发性。一些候选者已经利用广告攻击那些对偏向中国对手，而且允许其利用我们的优势。在大选年里普遍认为，中国在过去十几年里经济年增长高达10%并且保持了低通货膨胀，靠的就是人为压低人民币汇率。

When did we collectively go through the looking glass and end up in this distorted economic universe? The idea that the U.S. is not responsible for its own economic stagnation, housing bubble and unemployment is a black-is-white, up-is-down view that only insecurity can breed. It's not us; it's them and their cheap goods. It's not that American consumers have demanded cheaper stuff for decades and that companies have sated this demand by sourcing in low-cost labor markets in Japan and Taiwan in the 1970s, Mexico in the 1990s and China in the 2000s. It couldn't be that companies have gone where the growth is and invested overseas rather than at home. It couldn't be that the U.S. and European countries have become highly efficient and productive manufacturing zones that require fewer workers because of IT, robotics and just-in-time inventory systems. No, it's China and its currency that are causing the lion's share of harm.

什么时候我们能够一起透过镜子看到事物的本质并结束这种被扭曲的经济世界？人们认为，而美国不必为他自己的经济停滞、房地产泡沫以及失业问题负责，这种观点就是黑白颠倒，上下不分的谬论，也是因为经济动荡才会滋生这种谬论。这不是我们，而是他们的以及他们廉价的商品。这不是美国消费者在数十年来已经要求廉价商品，早在20世纪70年代企业就在日本以及台湾地区，90年代在墨西哥，而在中国大陆则是在2000年了，通过雇用廉价劳动力已经满足需求了。应该不是那些企业宁愿在国内也不会去那些经济增长海外地区去投资。也不可能是欧美国家，他们已经变成高效、多产的制造地区，在这根本不需要那么多的工作者，因为在IT，机器人以及有效地企业管理制度。不对，而是中国还有中国的货币是引起问题罪魁祸首2