From Brendan Brown at mises.org:
From reading the commentaries you might have imagined that the process of a currency winning international reserve status depends on getting the IMF seal of approval. At least that seems to be the story with China.
So, strange to tell, the great international monies of the past evolved either before the IMF was created or without its help. Think of the Deutsche mark and Swiss franc — the two upstarts of the 1970s and 1980s — or briefly the Japanese yen when it enjoyed great popularity. Their emergence was due to the path of monetary stability chosen by their issuing authorities together with complete freedom from restrictions.
So why is the world of currency diplomacy now playing along with the nonsense of the IMF examining whether the Chinese yuan has met the criterion to become a reserve currency?
Incidentally, the last time that Washington body bestowed “reserve currency status” it was with respect to the Australian dollar and Canadian dollar, on the eve of the bust for the respective commodity and carry trade bubbles which sent them to their respective skies.
Beijing and DC Pick the Winners and Losers
The question as to why the Western world is playing along with the official Chinese currency charade is part of a more general point. Why do Western governments pursue non-market trade diplomacy so enthusiastically with Beijing?
Think of the repeated times that Chinese communist party dictators traveled to a particular Western capital to hand out their list of chosen beneficiaries of Chinese corporate (mostly state) spending. These dictators were welcomed by fawning officials and bureaucrats who assured us that they also brought up, with muted whispers and inaudible comments, the problem of human rights to their guest.
And, by the same token, why are there high profile visits of Western leaders to China, presenting their own list of chosen industrialists selected to pick up the new business deals? This is not the way free markets, and global free trade, in particular, is meant to work.
If it smells like a rat it probably is a rat, and so it is with respect to these deals by collusion between China and Western governments, and their chosen corporate protégés, whether on currency or trade or investment matters. This is all an exercise in some combination of crony capitalism (with cronies on both sides!) and diplomacy by stealth. The gains and gainers are deliberately kept opaque. The losers are much less evident than the gainers, on whichever side of the fence, but principle and practice tells us that the total losses are much larger than the gains.
To continue reading: How Beijing and the West Work Together to Manipulate the Global Currency War
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