When Japan opened its capital market and signed the Plaza Agreement, the yen appreciated sharply. The bullet fired at Japan has been loaded, but it has not yet reached the best firing time. In order to hit hard, the American financial community keeps waiting to create the best opportunity to shoot.
A well-designed hunting ground
After the rapid appreciation of the yen, 1987 Japanese banks accounted for 35% of the assets of all international banks in the world, while 1983 was only 26%. This rapid growth makes European and American countries feel scared.
Of the 10 banks with the largest assets in the world, 7 belong to Japan. In terms of Japanese yen, Japanese assets increased by 80% from 1983 to 1987, and increased by 200% in terms of depreciated dollars. The Bank of Japan owns California 15% savings. In London, the world's major international banking center, Japanese banks have 36% non-sterling loans.
However, after Japan's bubble burst, among the 10 banks with the largest assets in the world, only 1 bank remained in Japan.
According to some economists, the reason why Japan suffered heavy financial losses in 10 was that Japan was lured into a well-designed hunting ground.
In this hunting ground, Japan's wealth is prey; The advantage of yen appreciation after Plaza Agreement is bait; The real bullet to Japan is to fully open the Japanese financial market.
A large number of experts believe that the plan of hunting the sun began to be laid out as early as two years before the square agreement. 1983, the American business community put forward the Morgan report. One of the core contents of this report is to urge the US government to put pressure on Japan to open its financial market as soon as possible. Analysts believe that the purpose of this move is to obtain more business opportunities for US-funded financial institutions; The second is to assist American-funded institutions to remit funds, use "market forces" to promote greater appreciation of the yen, and take the opportunity to obtain exchange gains from it; The third is to let American capital with stronger risk management ability expand investment in the bubble formation stage and flee quickly when the bubble is about to burst, so as to seize the ups and downs of the market and put Japanese enterprises and banks in danger.
The Morgan report soon achieved its goal. Under the pressure of the United States, Japan accelerated the pace of internationalization of the yen, and began to introduce measures to internationalize the yen from June 65438 to June 0983, including allowing international trade to be settled in yen, allowing non-residents to buy domestic stocks, allowing Japanese companies to invest freely abroad, and expanding the scale of European yen bonds issued to residents. On the surface, these measures are aimed at improving the international status of the yen, but in essence they are also a step to kill chess: through the internationalization of the yen, international hot money can be more easily transferred and freely exchanged across borders.
A deadly bullet
1September, 985, Japan signed the Plaza Agreement. Within 17 months after the signing of the agreement, the yen appreciated by 57%. The appreciation of the yen attracts a large number of foreign hot money to flood into Japan, which on the one hand forms a market force to promote the further appreciation of the yen, and on the other hand provides a strong financial impetus for the skyrocketing housing prices and stock prices.
1987 In February, the finance ministers of seven western countries signed the Louvre Agreement at the Louvre in France. Under the pressure of the United States, Japan implemented ultra-low interest rates from February 1987 to May 1989. Although the ultra-low interest rate slowed down the influx of hot money brought about by the appreciation of the yen, banks began to lend a lot in order to make profits, and interest rates were reduced. In the early 1980s, banks began to lend in large quantities. From 1987 to 1989, the annual growth rate of Japanese money supply was 10.8%, 10.2% and 12%, respectively, which kept a high level. The long-term low interest rate policy has flooded Japan with cheap funds. However, due to the lack of innovation ability and small profit margin, most of the funds were invested in stocks and real estate, which triggered a bubble economy.
As a result of the appreciation of the yen and the ultra-low interest rate, from 1987 to 1989, the Japanese share price rose by 94% on average, and the urban land price rose by 103% on average.
Until now, bullets aimed at Japan have initially met the conditions for firing, but the American financial community is still very patient. They are waiting for the Japanese economy to enter a crazy stage before firing deadly bullets.
In order to make Japan's property market and stock market crazy as soon as possible, American financial institutions began to put a "Trojan horse"-stock index futures in Japan.
1986, the financial futures exchange of Singapore first created the Nikkei 225 index futures, but such index futures gave institutional investors in the United States and Europe an advantage over those in Japan, because the former could hedge their stocks invested in Japan by using the Nikkei 225 index futures contract of SIMEX. However, Japanese funds are obviously at a disadvantage because they are prohibited by domestic laws from investing in SIMEX's Nikkei 225 index.
Although some people suspect that Singapore forced Japan to open the stock index futures market when it started the Nikkei 225 index futures, it acted as an accomplice to the murder of Japan, but no one got the exact evidence.
1June 9, 987, forced by the disadvantage of domestic institutional investors, Japan launched the first stock index futures contract-50 stock futures contract, and started the Nikkei 225 index futures trading on 1988, which also provided the best tool for European and American institutional investors to murder Japan.
The establishment of stock index futures pushed the Japanese stock market to a crazy height. Japanese stock market 1989 rose sharply, and stock index futures also began to rise sharply in the same period. Although Japan began to tighten monetary policy in May this year, the Nikkei 225 index continued to rise abnormally after the bad news was announced.
Affected by the Nikkei 225 index, the Japanese stock market remained optimistic. The Nikkei 225 index and the stock price climbed each other, and finally reached the highest point that the bubble could reach at 1990.
1989 65438+February 3 1, the last day before the bubble burst, the Nikkei average index of Tokyo Stock Exchange opened as high as 389 15 for the last time.
1990 on the first trading day, the stock market price began to fall. By June 1990, the stock index had fallen below 20,000 points. 199 1 rebounded slightly in the first half of the year, but the decline was even greater in the second half. On April 1992, the Nikkei average index of Tokyo stock market fell below 17000 points, and the Japanese stock market fell into panic.
By 1992, the stock index had dropped by 63% compared with the peak period, and the total current price of listed stocks had dropped from 630 trillion yen at the end of 1989 to 299 trillion yen, a decrease of 33 1 trillion yen in three years, and the bubble in Japanese stock market was completely burst.
While the stock market bubble burst, Japan's property market reached a sensational high of 1990. At that time, the price of the Japanese imperial palace plot was equivalent to the sum of all real estate prices in California. After the bubble burst, the decline in Japanese real estate prices began to stabilize by nearly half, and the wealth of the whole country shrank by nearly 50%. In the following 10 year, Japan's economy stagnated, which was called the "lost decade". From 199 to 1996, the average number of bankrupt enterprises in Japan is as high as 14000. Statistics show that the losses caused by the collapse of Japanese stock market and real estate reached 6 trillion US dollars. At the same time, Japanese banks also suffered heavy losses, and many banks even closed down. 1In July, 1995, the Banking Department of the Japanese Ministry of Finance announced that the non-performing assets of Japanese banks reached 50 trillion yen. However, a large number of Japanese companies are unable to cope with financial difficulties and have to sell American assets they bought in the past cheaply.
Ineffective efforts to internationalize the yen
At the same time of economic downturn, Japan has not given up its efforts to enhance Japan's competitiveness through the internationalization of the yen. 1in may 1998, at the APEC finance ministers' meeting held in Canada, Song Yong, former finance minister, raised the issue of "taking urgent measures to further promote the international use of the yen" in his speech. Subsequently, the Ministry of Finance put forward "Policies and Measures on Promoting the Internationalization of the Japanese Yen". Taking this as an opportunity, the internationalization of the yen has once again become a policy topic of the Japanese government.
With these ideas of currency internationalization, Japan really wants to seize this favorable opportunity to make the yen rapidly rise to the status of international currency in such a historical period, stabilize its position in East Asia, become the core currency of East Asia, and put the currencies of other countries under its position.
While trying to promote the internationalization of the yen, Japan made a serious mistake, which made its most important ally lose confidence in the yen.
1997, an economic crisis swept across southeast Asia broke out. During the crisis, Japan had the opportunity to stabilize the yen exchange rate and establish the confidence of Southeast Asian countries in the yen, but Japan chose to escape. Ding Jianping, Ph.D. in Economics in hitotsubashi university, Japan and director of the Center for Modern Finance Research at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, commented on Japan's behavior: "This is because Japan has played a very bad role in it. Japan withdrew all its funds from Southeast Asia, which was unstable. When I withdrew my capital, the yen also depreciated, which was worse than that in Southeast Asia. In this Asian financial crisis, the depreciation of the yen in Southeast Asia was attacked by groups. "
At the end of 200 1, facing another round of economic recession after the Asian financial crisis, the Japanese government released a large number of data on economic deterioration, which played up Japan's economic difficulties and induced the yen to depreciate. However, this move also triggered the loss of confidence of people at home and abroad in Japan's economy, which made the already depressed Japanese economy sink deeper and deeper. At the same time, due to the depreciation of the yen, the yen assets held by Southeast Asian countries have also depreciated, hurting the interests of Southeast Asian countries.
Southeast Asia is the most important market for the globalization of the yen, but Japan's repeated performance has made the yen lose the trust of these countries. After the Southeast Asian financial crisis, some countries began to abandon the practice of pegging the yen to the US dollar and instead implemented a floating exchange rate system. Countries are exploring new monetary systems, and may choose to peg to a basket of currencies and float with the exchange rate of a basket of currencies. Under the currency basket system, the exchange rate of Asian currencies will fluctuate with the exchange rates of major international currencies such as the US dollar, the German mark and the Japanese yen, thus creating conditions for the Japanese yen to play its role as the basic currency.
In order to expand the influence of the yen, Japan once again began to increase loans to Southeast Asian countries, hoping to enhance the influence of the yen in Southeast Asia through these measures. According to Ding Jianping, a doctor of economics in hitotsubashi university, the effect is not obvious. "It wants to make up for the distrust of Southeast Asia and has taken a lot of loans, that is, Japan said: I will give you all the yen exported to me from Southeast Asia, and the premise of financing you is to use yen. This was effective at the time, but the yen fluctuated so much that people were still reluctant to use it. "
In 2005, although Japan held more than one-third of the world's US Treasury bonds and became the world's largest foreign exchange reserve country, the internationalization of the yen was not successful. Ding Jianping, a doctor of economics in hitotsubashi university, said: "The internationalization of the yen has been implemented for a long time. In the international financial market, the yen is used to price financial assets, but it has remained at around 7%, which is almost negligible for successful and mainstream international currencies. "
According to economists, the euro was born in 1, and from June 1999 to June 1999, Western European countries not only achieved economic unity and union, but also monetary unity and union, thus, the euro zone was formally formed. In contrast, in East Asia, not only has there been no unification and union in the region economically, but the Asian dollar has just begun to be discussed in terms of currency. So it's just an idea to establish the so-called yen circle based on the yen.
With the rise of China, the possibility of the yen circle is further reduced, because as a big country, China has embarked on a journey of RMB internationalization, and when the global financial crisis raged in 2008, China remained a big country, the exchange rate remained stable, and the confidence of Southeast Asian countries in holding RMB increased. At the same time, as a big import and export country, more and more international trade began to tend to use RMB for settlement. Various phenomena show that China's huge market and huge international trade are accelerating the internationalization of RMB.
Therefore, from the current situation, the internationalization of the yen has lost the best opportunity.
Analysis of Currency War: How the Dollar Hinders the Internationalization of Japanese Yen
As the world's second largest economy after the United States, Japan is trying to make the yen go global. However, until today, it has not become the dominant world reserve currency. So, what enlightenment can the setback of the internationalization of the yen bring to China?
Continue our report on the currency war. Today, let's pay attention to the internationalization of the yen. As the world's second largest economy after the United States, Japan is also trying to make the yen go global. However, the road to internationalization is full of ups and downs, and it has not become the dominant world reserve currency until today. Today, China's economic development is strikingly similar to that of Japan, which started with manufacturing and accumulated huge foreign exchange reserves with its trade surplus. So, what enlightenment can the setback of the internationalization of the yen bring to China?
There is a developing trend of "three-pole monetary system" of US dollar, Japanese yen and German mark in the world.
At the end of World War II, Japan, as a defeated country, was in a dying state, and the hyperinflation caused by the economic policies formulated by the Allied Supreme Command for postwar Japan completely destroyed Japan's economy. The turning point comes from 1948 10. The National Security Council of the United States passed the 13-2 bill and decided to help Japan accelerate its economic recovery. Two months later, Joseph, a banker from Chicago? Dodge came to Japan to help Japan establish a strong monetary policy system. After stabilizing the declining exchange rate of the Japanese yen against the US dollar, Dodge linked the value of the Japanese yen to gold through the Bretton Woods system, further stabilizing the exchange rate at 360 yen 1 US dollar, and helping the Japanese government achieve a balanced budget.
After Japan's economy stabilized, the Korean War broke out in 195 1, which brought opportunities for the rapid rise of Japan's economy. From 1950 to 1960, the cumulative orders from the United States to Japan alone reached $60 billion, and these orders also quickly stimulated the recovery of Japan's economy.
Ding Yifan, deputy director of the World Development Research Institute of the State Council Development Research Center: "Some requirements put forward by the United States have been given to Japan, so Japan has developed rapidly through these things."
During the period of 18 years after 1955, Japan's economy maintained an average annual high-speed development of more than 10%. Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba and many other electronic companies have sold their products to various markets around the world from imitation to innovation. With the support of the United States, Japan's GDP exceeded $65,438 +0.3 trillion in 1985. The total export volume is about 42 trillion yen, of which 56.8 billion dollars is exported to the United States, and the trade surplus is as high as 31200 million dollars. In the same year, Japan's foreign exchange reserves reached $27.9 billion.
Ding Jianping, Ph.D. in Economics, hitotsubashi university, and Director of Modern Finance Research Center, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said: "It has accumulated a lot of dollar assets. At that time, Japan wanted to buy some American assets, and American assets were depreciating and worried. "
At the same time of Japan's economic rise, the dollar has occupied the dominant position of the global currency, but this dominant position has brought a lot of harm to Japan's economy. The United States used its hegemonic position to issue more money and spread the cost of its war expenditure and economic crisis to the whole world, which not only caused Japan's huge foreign exchange reserves to shrink sharply, but also dealt a blow to Japanese enterprises. According to statistics, there were four crises of the US dollar, namely 1960, 197 1 and 1973, which depreciated by 7.89% and 10% respectively.
Lian Ping, chief economist of Bank of Communications (6.88, -0.0 1, -0. 15%): "This difficulty makes it consider my currency. If it can be internationalized, the risks of these exchange rates can be basically locked. "
Looking around the world, the dollar has achieved monetary hegemony, and West Germany, which is also a big exporter, has also begun the process of currency internationalization. At its peak, the Deutsche Mark accounted for 18% of the total international reserve currency, making it the main currency after the US dollar. 197865438+February, the Japanese Ministry of Finance put forward the policy of "facing up to the internationalization of the yen and making the yen and the German mark play a complementary role in international currency". 1985, Japan's total trade reached $305.2 billion, and the yen continued to appreciate, accounting for 8% of the total foreign exchange reserves of various countries. Under these favorable conditions, Japan's foreign exchange review bureau
Ding Jianping: "The biggest advantage of internationalization is to give others risks and give them safety. Because enterprises use their own currency, there is no risk and no exchange. Then the exchange risk will be handed over to others. There are many exchanges and many risks. "
Despite such bright prospects, the internationalization of the yen still faces a major problem. At that time, Japan was the largest trade surplus country in the world, and it received a lot of dollars every day, so there were not many opportunities to spend yen.
In order to solve this problem, taking advantage of abundant funds, Japan began to lend a lot of yen to Asian countries including China. 1972- 1982, Japan's total direct investment in the five ASEAN countries was101660,000 USD, 1960- 1972. In China, projects such as Beijing Metro 1, Beijing Capital Airport and Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge have all used yen loans. With these loans and assistance, the yen has achieved a certain degree of internationalization in Asian countries.
Lian Ping: "One is to expand the proportion of yen in international transactions. This international transaction includes many aspects, including trade payment and settlement, including financial transactions. These ratios should be greatly improved. The second is to make the yen the core currency of East Asia. "
1990, the proportion of Japanese exports and imports settled in Japanese yen was 37.5% and 14.5% respectively, which was 8. 1 and 12. 1 percentage point higher than that in 1980 respectively. In the foreign exchange reserves of all countries in the world, the proportion of Japanese yen is 8.0%, although it is still far lower than 50.6% in the United States and 16.8% in the German mark, but it is more than 3.0% 1 times that of British pound. 1In April, 1989, the proportion of Japanese yen in global foreign exchange transactions was 13.5%, which was the same as the German mark, second only to 45.0% of the United States, but higher than 7.5% of the British pound and 5.0% of the Swiss franc. As the international status of the Japanese yen is rising, the international status of the US dollar is relatively declining, and there is a trend that the "three-pole monetary system" of the US dollar, the Japanese yen and the German mark begins to develop.
After 1990s, the internationalization of the yen stagnated and regressed.
1985 or so, as the second largest economy in the world, when Japan internationalized the yen, it also caused anxiety in the United States. The trade friction between Japan and the United States has intensified year by year, and the American manufacturing industry has been losing ground under Japan's export offensive. Japan's trade surplus with the United States has increased year by year, with 1987 exceeding $50 billion. At the same time, the American economy is under great pressure. In 1984, the trade deficit reached 109 billion US dollars, and in 1984, the fiscal deficit was close to 100 billion US dollars. Finally, when Japanese exports began to threaten the high-tech industry that the United States was proud of, the United States was finally fed up.
Ding Yifan, deputy director of the World Development Institute of the State Council Development Research Center: "There is a great trend of annexing the United States, and then American public opinion is calling for Japanese wolves."
1983 5438+00 In June, the US dollar began its first confrontation with the Japanese yen, and US Treasury Secretary Donald? In a letter to Noboru takeshita, Minister of Finance of Japan, Regan pointed out: "Due to the undervalued yen and the widening trade surplus between Japan and the United States, there has been a strong wave of criticism and great protectionist pressure in the United States. If the US government wants to try its best to stop those actions that try to drive Japanese products and services out of the US market, then it is necessary for Japan to take strong and bold measures in opening up financial markets and internationalizing the yen. " However, the Japanese side believes that the fundamental reason for the depreciation of the yen and the appreciation of the dollar is not Japan's "artificial operation", but the high interest rate policy of the United States. 1983165438+10, Japanese prime minister Nakasone told visiting president Reagan that "due to the unstable world economic situation, the US dollar has become very strong, and I hope the US will make more efforts to lower interest rates". This polite exchange also shows that Japan does not want to see the yen appreciate.
Ding Jianping, Ph.D. in Economics in hitotsubashi university and Director of Modern Finance Research Center of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics: "At that time, in the United States, it said, I devalued, let your yen appreciate, and American assets continued to depreciate."
1September, 985, at the request of James, Treasury Secretary of Reagan Administration? At the invitation of Baker, the finance ministers and central bank governors of the United States, Japan, the Federal Republic of Germany, France and Britain held a meeting at new york Plaza Hotel. The meeting reached a resolution, and the five governments jointly intervened in the foreign exchange market, so that the exchange rate of the US dollar against other major currencies fell in an orderly manner. This is the famous "Plaza Agreement".
The agreement to force the yen to appreciate was surprisingly smooth for Americans. Paul, former chairman of the Federal Reserve? Walker recalled: The most surprising thing was that Noboru takeshita, then Japanese Finance Minister, proposed to allow the yen to appreciate by more than 65,438+00%, which far exceeded our expectations. Even when Noboru takeshita expressed his willingness to help the dollar depreciate, he generously said that "it's okay to depreciate by 20%". So, what caused Japan to make such a big concession? Tian Fengxiong, former governor of the Bank of Japan, later explained, "The Japanese government was alert to the rise of protectionism in the United States and was prepared to accept a sharp appreciation of the yen to ease trade relations with the United States."
After the Plaza Agreement, the yen began to appreciate continuously. From February 1985 to February 1988 1 1, the yen appreciated against the US dollar 1 1%. From April 1990 to April 1995, the appreciation was 89%; From August 1998 to February 1999, the appreciation was 4 1%.
Lian Ping, chief economist of Bank of Communications, said: "Japan's economy is close to that of the United States because its exchange rate has greatly appreciated. If converted into US dollars at the exchange rate of Japanese yen, it accounts for about three-quarters of the US economy, and before that, 1986 was less than 50%, so it also has an encouraging effect on Japan. "
The sharp appreciation of the Japanese yen against the US dollar weakens the price competitiveness of export enterprises, but the Japanese yen can be exchanged for more US dollars, which also greatly increases Japan's wealth. As a result, Japan started a wave of buying American assets, and Sony bought Columbia Pictures, one of the symbols of American culture, for $3.4 billion. Mitsubishi Corporation bought Rockefeller Center, a more important national symbol of the United States, for10.40 billion dollars. By the end of 1980s, 65,438+00% of American real estate had become Japanese property.
Lian Ping: "The proportion of payment and settlement of Japanese exports has reached 42.8%, from less than 1% to 42.8% at once, and it has reached 8% in the country's official reserves, which is the figure of 90 years."
The appreciation of the yen has also brought about a sharp rise in domestic housing prices and stock prices. 1985 The index of commercial land price in Tokyo was 120. 1, and 1988 soared to 334.2, which nearly tripled in just three years, including the land price in the central area. 1990, the land price in Tokyo alone was equivalent to the land price in the United States, creating an unprecedented real estate bubble in the world. As for the stock market, in 1985, the Nikkei average index was only about 14000 points, but by 1989, it had reached 38900 points. Under the pressure of double bubbles in real estate and stock market, the Bank of Japan began to cut interest rates continuously.
Ding Yifan: "Let its interest rate be lower than that of the United States, so that people will have benefits, and they will buy dollars and sell yen, so that the pressure on the yen will be less."
The continuous decline in bank interest rates has reduced the influx of international hot money, but the decline in interest rates and the appreciation of the yen have brought difficulties to Japanese export enterprises in rising costs and declining competitiveness. In the decade after the Plaza Agreement, the export of Japanese automobile industry dropped by 20%. In order to cope with this situation, Japanese companies began to shift outward one after another. The proportion of overseas production was only 3% in 1985 and increased to 14% in 1999. The economic crisis began to break out.
Lian Ping: "Due to the excessive appreciation, many investors holding yen assets around the world found that the yen would definitely depreciate in the future, so they began to sell yen assets one after another, which led to a sharp depreciation of the yen."
In the following 10 year, Japan's economy stagnated, which was called the "lost decade". 1990- 1996, the average number of bankrupt enterprises in Japan was as high as 14000. Statistics show that the losses caused by the collapse of Japanese stock market and real estate reached 6 trillion US dollars. At the same time, Japanese banks also suffered heavy losses, and many banks even closed down. 1In July, 1995, the Banking Department of the Japanese Ministry of Finance announced that the non-performing assets of Japanese banks reached 50 trillion yen. However, a large number of Japanese companies are unable to cope with financial difficulties and have to sell American assets they bought in the past cheaply.
Lian Ping: "From 1993 to now, during about 16 years, its average economic growth rate is negative when it is around 1%, and sometimes it may increase by 2%, but the average is around 1%, so the economy is relatively depressed."
After 1990s, due to the collapse of bubble economy and long-term economic stagnation, the internationalization of Japanese economy and finance suffered setbacks, as did the internationalization of Japanese yen. Ji Chuan Yuan Zhong, a Japanese scholar, wrote sadly in his book Financial Failure: "Who can realize that the war has started in a period of peace and prosperity? If it is a war with live ammunition, no one will personally hand over his interests to the hostile party. In an invisible war, people often lose because they are willing to give their great rivers and mountains to each other without knowing it. This defeat is even worse and more painful. "
Japan's choice led to a setback in the internationalization of the yen.
Just as Japan's economy was stagnant, an economic crisis that swept through Southeast Asia broke out again at 1997. In this crisis, Japan has the opportunity to stabilize the yen exchange rate and establish the confidence of Southeast Asian countries in the yen. However, Japan chose to escape.
Ding Jianping, Ph.D. in Economics in hitotsubashi university, Japan, and Director of Modern Finance Research Center of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said: "This is a very bad role for Japan. Japan's funds in Southeast Asia have all been withdrawn, and Southeast Asia is unstable. I withdrew my capital and the yen depreciated, which was worse than that in Southeast Asia. In this Asian financial crisis, Southeast Asia's depreciation of the yen was attacked by groups. "
Southeast Asia is the most important market for yen globalization, but Japan's performance has lost the trust of these countries. However, after the Southeast Asian financial crisis, some countries have begun to abandon the practice of pegging to the US dollar and switch to a floating exchange rate system. Countries are exploring new monetary systems, and may choose to peg to a basket of currencies and float with the exchange rate of a basket of currencies. Under the currency basket system, the exchange rate of Asian currencies will fluctuate with the exchange rates of major international currencies such as the US dollar, the German mark and the Japanese yen, thus creating conditions for the Japanese yen to play its role as the basic currency.
1in may 1998, at the meeting of APEC finance ministers held in Canada, former finance minister Song Yong raised the issue of "taking urgent measures to further promote the international use of the yen" in his speech. Subsequently, the Ministry of Finance put forward "Policies and Measures on Promoting the Internationalization of the Japanese Yen". Taking this as an opportunity, the internationalization of the yen has once again become a policy topic of the Japanese government.
Lian Ping, chief economist of Bank of Communications (6.88, -0.0 1, -0. 15%), said: "Japan really wants to grasp these ideas of currency internationalization. This favorable opportunity will enable its yen to quickly upgrade to the status of an international currency in such a historical period, and stabilize its position in East Asia and become the core currency of East Asia.
In order to expand the influence of the yen, Japan once again began to increase loans to Southeast Asian countries, hoping to enhance the influence of the yen in Southeast Asia through these measures.
Ding Jianping: "It must make up for the distrust in Southeast Asia and get a lot of loans. It is Japan that says you export from Southeast Asia to me and import from me. I'll give you all the Japanese yen and help you, provided that you use Japanese yen. It was effective for a while, but the yen fluctuated so much that people were still reluctant to use it. "
In 2005, Japan held more than one-third of US Treasury bonds, making it the largest foreign exchange reserve country in the world. However, the internationalization of the yen was not successful.
Ding Jianping: "Japanese internationalization has been implemented for a long time. It uses Japanese yen in the international financial market, and financial assets are priced in Japanese yen, but it has remained at around 7%, which is very low and 7% can be ignored. "
Half-hour observation: a lesson from the past, a lesson from the future.
Thirty years ago, the Japanese economy was somewhat different from that of China today. Products made in Japan are continuously exported abroad, and Japan's GDP is growing at an average annual rate of 9%. Japanese financial institutions have entered the top ten in the world. At that time, many people optimistically predicted that Japan would surpass the United States to become the world's number one economic power in the near future. However, 30 years later, Japan, once full of ambition, was trapped in the economic downturn. The long economic recession has made its GDP only 40% of that of the United States, and the Nikkei index is only 46% of the highest level 1989 when it peaked again in 2007. At the same time, Japanese financial institutions have also withdrawn from the top ten banks in the world.
The ups and downs of Japan's economy and the fate of the yen are of course related to the constant mistakes of its macro-monetary policy, to the external pressure exerted by the United States, but more to Japan's own determination and goals. In several trade frictions between Japan and the United States, Japan always chose to make concessions and compromises at critical moments, thinking that it would temporarily ease the dispute, but it laid the groundwork for a long-term recession in the future. In the Asian financial crisis, the yen depreciated with the wind, thinking that it could stop the attack of hot money and protect the safety of assets, but it lost the trust of Southeast Asian countries. The story of the imperfect yen tells us that there is an all-round currency contest among countries in the world. Whether a country's currency can be internationalized depends not only on its wealth and dreams, but also on whether the country dares to face the pressure. Dare to take risks Do you dare to take on a great responsibility?
This experience is full of lessons for China today. When we are not only confident, but also able to answer the questions just now, we will have more say in the international financial market.