China neither seeks for larger trade surplus, nor believes larger surplus will bring more benefit. As early as at the 16th CPC Congress held at the end of 2002, China did clearly set keeping balance of international payments as one of the goals of its macro control and regulation. At the Central Economic Work Conference at the end of 2006, it was clearly proposed that the major problem of China’s balance of international payments had been shifted from the shortage of foreign exchange to excess of trade surplus and too fast growth of foreign exchange reserve and it was essential to make keeping balance of international payments as the major task for maintaining the macroeconomic stability.
Over the past years, Chinese Government has kept being engaged in enlarging domestic demand, adjusting economic structure, reducing trade surplus and promoting the balance, as well as in improving the national treatment for foreign funds, broadening market access and reducing tariff. China has fulfilled its commitment at the admission of WTO for tariff reduction that the general tariff level is reduced from 15.3% in 2002 to 9.8% in 2010, the lowest among the developing countries.

Sino-US trade relationship is one of the important economic and trade relations between China and other countries, and China has placed much concern over the Sino-US trade imbalance and has taken many measures to enlarge import of China in recent years. In the past decade, China is the US’ major export market with fastest growth. According to the statistics of the US, the US’ export to China had increased from US$19.2 billion in 2001 to US$91.9 in 2010, up 379%; while the US’ export to the other countries and regions only had an increase of 67% during the same period. The growth of the US’ export to China has been much more than that of the US’ import from China in recent years.
As many wise personnel of different circles in the US pointed out, the appreciation of RMB could neither address the Sino-US trade imbalance issue, nor mitigate the unemployment problem of the US.
First, as early as in the middle of 1960s, the US has started subject of trade deficit and the US dollar index had depreciated accumulatively by 36.1% from January 1971 to September 2011 while US’ trade deficit has never been alleviated. The current US’ trade imbalance is actually the extension of the past imbalance and it is boiled down to be an issue that even though the US does not import from China, it has to import from other countries. Without the adjustment of macro policy and structure, it is far from feasible by adjusting the international payment balance only with foreign exchange tools.
Second, the Sino-US trade imbalance reflected the shifting effect of trade surplus. From 2005 to 2010, China’s accumulative general trade surplus is up to US$272.9 billion while the processing trade surplus is US$1.46 trillion. In particular, China mainly undertook the processing and assembling chain shifted from the industries of Europe, the US, Japan and some Southeast Asian countries. For the overall commodity value of China’s export, a large portion actually is the reflection of import from other countries except the US, while along the entire industrial chain China only got the little processing fare as its benefit.
Third, the US gains substantial benefit from the Sino-US free trade. According to the survey done by American Chamber of Commerce China in 2008, among the 238 American companies running business in China, 71% of them profited higher than the global average level and 80% ready for adding investment. Morgan Stanley’s survey indicated that owing to China’s export to the US, the American consumers could save US$100 billion, and the American companies could profit of US$600 billion, which accounted for over 10% of the total profit of all the companies covered by Standard Pool. According to the estimate of Asian Development Bank, the retail price of US Apple Company’s iPhone is US$178.96, of which China earns the processing fare, only 3.6% of the total commodity value, and majority of the value is gained by the American companies in design, logistics, distribution and retailing industries. In early August 2011, two economists of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco pointed that the commodity and service imported from China accounted for only 2.7% of the total American individual consumption, and the real cost imported from China actually is less than half of the above value and the remaining all derived from cost of transportation, marketing and distribution done by the US’ native companies and workers.
Fourth, the American export restriction is one of the important factors accounting for the Sino-US trade imbalance. As the global tech-leading country, the US has apparent edge over China in the hitech product fields, and should have benefitted from this comparative advantage. However, the US has kept stuck to cold war thinking and has taken restrictive measures in hi-tech product export to China in the so-called pretext of national security. In fact, Gary Lock, the former Secretary of the US Commerce Department also had expressed that increasing export to China but not restricting the import from China is the best way to address the US’ trade deficit issue.
Therefore, it is essential to have an objective and fair understanding of the Sino-US trade imbalance. The deliberative condemnation to RMB exchange and politicization of RMB exchange issue could not help the US solve the problems of shortage of saving, trade deficit and high unemployment etc., but also may impose negative effect on China’s ongoing exchange rate mechanism reform course.