Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн

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White's continued adherence to gold at the centre of the system was, in part, because he simply did not believe that the world was ready to accept that the dollar could play the global role he envisioned without the backing of gold.ssss1 However, the fact that the US held two-thirds of the global reserves of monetary gold also gave it an incentive to ensure that its monetary value was protected. America's large gold holdings at that time nevertheless legitimised the dollar to be ‘as good as gold’ and, by setting all other currencies’ exchange rates by reference to the dollar, the dollar's role at the centre of the global monetary system would be cemented.

White's plan also reflected America's position as a large balance of payments surplus country at that time. Keynes’ proposal would have made surplus nations unsecured creditors to deficit countries that made use of the ICB's liquidity support facility. This was unacceptable to the Americans, as was Keynes’ proposal that countries running persistent large surpluses be subject to automatic upwards revaluations of their currencies, since this would have served to penalise the US. This may seem ironic in light of fierce American criticism of China's large trade surpluses in recent years.