Dr. Zhang Zhiwen, A Young Teacher of SYSU, Delivers Academic Lecture at Harvard

Recently, Dr. Zhang Zhiwen, a young teacher of School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Sun Yat-sen University, gave a special personal English academic lecture focusing on his recent English paper “International Reserves and Local Currency Internationalization: An Empirical Study on the Japanese Yen”. This lecture, co-hosted by Harvard University Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Program on US-Japan Relation at the Harvard University Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, was presided over by Richard Cooper (ever worked as US deputy secretary of state for international affairs during 1977 and 1981), a world famous economist and a professor from department of economics, Harvard University.

During the lecture, Dr. Zhang explained how he set benchmark regression model in the light of long-term determinant factors for the internationalization of Japanese yen and elaborated his empirical research on the relationship between Japanese international reserves and the degree of internationalization of Japanese yen during 1976 and 2009, based on GMM estimator. According to Dr. Zhang, Japanese international reserves have a complicated effect on the internationalization of Japanese yen. The odd high proportion of foreign exchange reserves can exert significant negative impact on the internationalization of Japanese yen; while the gold reserve and special drawing rights, though in low proportion, have a prominent active effect. Dr. Zhang suggested that, under the current IMF system which is based on credit currency and dominated by US dollars, and considering that local currency internationalization will experience a long process, while odd high proportion of foreign exchange reserves seem not to be a beneficial factor to promote local currency internationalization, the rising power, when carries out its internationalization strategy for domestic currency, should not simply make some adjustments to foreign exchange reserves, but energetically improve the structure of international reserves. Some particular strategic choices are to increase gold holdings, actively promote the reform of current IMF system, vigorously raise the share of gold reserves and special drawing rights in domestic international reserves and substantially reduce the ratio of foreign exchange reserves. This research provides strategic reference significance for Chinese government to promote RMB’s internationalization so as to embark on the road towards a financial power.

Koichi Hamada, world famous economist and professor of department of Economics, Yale University, Taiji Furusawa, professor of economies of Japanese Hitotsubashi University, and Hisashi Nakatomi, general consular of Japanese general consulate in Boston attended the lecture. The lecture lasted for two hours and ended in heated discussion. After the speech, general consular Hisashi Nakatomi specially invited Dr. Zhang for lunch to further discuss relevant questions.

As is reported, Dr. Zhang, financed by Chinese Scholarship Council, went to HarvardUniversity as a visiting scholar during January and December, 2010. His research topic is “Power game and Chinese policy in the reform of IMF system” (a project of 2009 Philosophy and Social Science fund for Youth by Ministry of Education). The lecture proposed previously is one of the representative research achievements within this topic. Moreover, Dr. Zhang ever studied as a visiting scholar at IMF headquarters during January and July, 2006.