Whether the Chinese renminbi should be permitted to join the Special Drawing Right is one of those questions that appears economically substantive at a distance but rather more politically tokenistic from close up.

中国的人民币应不应该被纳入特别提款权(SDR)货币篮子？这个问题从远处看似乎是个纯粹的经济问题，但从近处看则在更大程度上具有政治象征性。

For some enthusiasts, the recommendation by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff that the renminbi become the fifth member of the basket quasi-currency — along with the dollar, euro, yen and sterling — will boost the Chinese unit’s claim to the status of a global reserve asset.

对一些热衷者来说，国际货币基金组织(IMF)工作人员建议人民币加入美元、欧元、日元和英镑行列，成为构成SDR这种准货币的第五种货币，将提振人民币取得全球储备资产地位的呼声。

The truth is less dramatic. The IMF staff’s view — very likely to be ratified by its governing board — that the renminbi is “freely usable” and hence can join the SDR is presentationally important. The renminbi will have a new imprimatur of respectability from an institution with which it has often had a tetchy relationship. But it is not a substitute for Beijing continuing to liberalise financial markets and capital flows in order to promote the use of its currency abroad.

真相则不那么具有戏剧性。IMF工作人员的观点 （很可能得到其理事会的批准）是人民币“可自由使用”，因而可以加入SDR，这在陈述意义上很重要。人民币将从一个与其经常关系紧张的机构获得一层新的名望。但它不能替代北京方面继续开放金融市场和资本流动，以推动人民币在境外得到使用。

For the most part, the SDR remains little more than an accounting device and an obscure class of official reserve assets created under the aegis of the IMF. It is neither a true currency nor a claim on the fund itself. The IMF’s members made much of their creation of nearly $300bn in new SDR assets in 2009 to boost official liquidity as part of the official response to the global financial crisis. Yet the unit has remained little used, and official SDR-denominated assets still have to be changed back into their constituent currencies to be workable. Accordingly they are little use for intervention purposes by central banks.

基本上，SDR仍只是一件会计工具，是IMF主持创建的一类让人费解的官方储备资产。它既不是一种真正的货币，也不是对IMF本身的债权。IMF的成员国大吹特吹他们在2009年创建近3000亿美元新的SDR资产，以提振官方流动性，称其为官方对全球金融危机回应的一部分。然而，这种单位仍然很少使用，而官方SDR计价的资产仍须兑换回其组成货币才可用。因此，就央行的干预目的而言，它们没什么用。

Being in the SDR basket is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for a currency to be widely held in official reserves. Before the SDR was reformed in 1981, 16 currencies were members, including such unlikely global reserve assets as the Iranian rial, to no apparent end. By contrast, the Swiss franc is still quite widely held as an official store of value despite not being a member of the present-day SDR.

要让某一种货币被官方储备广泛持有，被纳入SDR货币篮子既不是必要条件，也不是充分条件。在1981年SDR得到改革前，其成员包括16种货币，包括一些貌似不可思议、也没有明显作用的全球储备资产，如伊朗的里亚尔。与此相反，瑞郎尽管不是当今SDR的成员，但仍被当作一种官方的储值手段广泛持有。

If China wishes the renminbi to be widely used as a reserve asset, it needs to be prepared to create large amounts of the currency — as has the US with the dollar — and send it abroad. Beijing’s tight control of capital flows and its apparent fear of a large balance of payments deficit militate against that.

如果中国希望人民币被广泛用作一种储备资产，它就需要准备好创建大量人民币（就像美国大量创建美元那样），并允许其流向境外。北京方面严格控制资本流动及其明显畏惧大额国际收支赤字，对这一点有妨碍。

The decision’s political significance outweighs its economic import. By ruling that the renminbi is freely usable, the IMF has undoubtedly sided with those elements inside the Chinese system — notably the People’s Bank of China — who have consistently and rightly been arguing for Beijing to liberalise capital flows and the currency. Whether or not the decision will keep up the pressure for further deregulation or allow the Chinese government to rest on its laurels remains to be seen, but at least the signalling suggests that Beijing is moving in the right direction.

这个决定的政治意义超过它的经济重要性。通过裁定人民币可自由使用，IMF无疑站在中国体制内某些元素（特别是中国人民银行）一边，后者一贯而且正确地主张北京方面应当放开资本流动和汇率。至于这个决定能不能保持促使中国政府进一步放松管制的压力，抑或让它满足于现状，人们仍须拭目以待，但至少信号似乎表明，北京方面正朝着正确的方向前进。

Signalling, however, is about as far as this decision goes. Ultimately, the global use of a currency is based not on bureaucratic decisions taken at a supranational level but on national authorities establishing a record in competent monetary and financial policy and on the ready availability of the unit in question.

然而，发出信号也差不多是这个决定的最重大意义。最终而言，某一种货币的全球使用，并不取决于在超国家层面作出的官僚决定，而是取决于有关国家当局在货币和金融政策上树立称职的口碑，取决于相关货币的高度可获得性。

At the margin, the inclusion of the renminbi in the SDR will be a boost for the forces of liberalisation within the Chinese system, and of the further integration of China within the structures of global economic governance. But anyone expecting the decision to act as an inflection point either for the international use of the renminbi or the credibility of the SDR itself is likely to be disappointed.

至少而言，人民币被纳入SDR将提振中国体制内推动开放、推动中国进一步融入全球经济治理结构的力量。但是，任何人如果期待这个决定成为一个拐点（无论是对人民币的国际使用，还是对SDR本身的可信度而言），都很可能会失望。