China digs deep to resist dollar steamroller
SHANGHAI: Chinese authorities have rolled out an array of tried-and-true manoeuvres in recent weeks to slow the yuan’s slide, showing relative success compared with other battered currencies, but analysts say they face long odds against an unstoppable dollar.
The stepped-up efforts, taken as the yuan tumbled about 7% from mid-august to a 14-year-low around 7.25 per dollar on Sept 28, range from unusually strong signals to the market – last week the central bank told stateowned banks to prepare to sell dollars – to administrative measures that raise the cost of shorting the yuan.
That helped the yuan to regain some traction against the dollar, which also paused for breath against other currencies, but analysts expect the yuan to weaken further in the months ahead with a risk of volatile gyrations along the way.
“Considering the strength of the dollar, we now expect the dollar and yuan rate to trade around 7.40 around October and November,” Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB said.
While that was among the more bearish forecasts, ANZ and Goldman Sachs saw a yuan rate of 7.20 per dollar within the next three months or so, with Goldman also noting upside dollar and yuan risks, and Citi said it could push to 7.3 in a strong dollar environment. The yuan late on Friday was trading around 7.12 per dollar.
In a sign that investors do not foresee the new measures tamping down swings in the yuan, expectations of future volatility priced into one-month yuan options have doubled in the past month.
For Chinese authorities, who were particularly keen to stabilise the yuan rate before a week-long national holiday in China this week, the stakes are high.
This is a a politically sensitive time for China’s ruling Communist Party, which is set to open its once-in-five-years congress on Oct 16. President Xi Jinping is expected to secure a precedent-breaking third term during the gathering.
A weaker yuan also risks stoking financial instability fuelled by capital outflows. Foreign
investors cut holdings of Chinese bonds for the seventh straight month in August.
On the monetary policy front, the weaker yuan, fuelled by the wide gap between low Chinese interest rates and rising US rates, makes it harder to ease policy to support China’s faltering economy, the world’s second largest.
The yield gap between China’s benchmark 10-year government bonds and the US Treasury for the same tenor is hovering at the widest in 15 years.
Still, analysts do not expect Beijing to mount a desperate defence of any particular yuan level, in contrast to the last two times the yuan breached the psychologically significant seven to the dollar level in 2019 and 2020, during the height of the China and United States trade tensions and the initial outbreak of Covid-19.
“The central bank needs to play a balance between being market-oriented and also ensuring financial stability,” said Ju Wang, head of Greater China foreign exchange and rates strategy at BNP Paribas.
“Hence the official line will still be ‘no-linesin-the-sand-but-two-way-volatility’.”
China’s economy also reaps some benefit from the yuan’s weakness, which bolsters its exports by making them relatively cheaper in dollar terms. The export sector has become a vital pillar for the economy as it struggles with Covid outbreaks and a property crisis.
Further, the yuan has not fallen as sharply against the greenback as have the euro, the yen and other major currencies this year, keeping the yuan comparatively resilient against a basket of currencies of China’s main trading partners, with a fall of only 1.4% yearto-date.
Chinese authorities, who have emphasised that they want to make the yuan more international and market-driven, are aiming not to control the long-term value of the yuan, but to prevent a sudden short-term depreciation that would disrupt its economy and capital flows, analysts said.
“As China goes on a week-long holiday, the threat of intervention in the offshore yuan could keep a lid on near-term depreciation,” said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research at ANZ.
Mainland China’s financial markets are closed for the National Day holiday from Oct 1, during which there will be no onshore trade or daily guidance through midpoint settings. Trading resumes on Oct 10.
Goh added, however, that how long the threat remains effective will depend on the dollar’s trend.
“While the authorities will want to maintain foreign exchange stability into the Party Congress, the widening yield differential between the US and China could still see yuan weakness re-emerge later in the year.”