HONG KONG — Few economic statistics have gone as quickly from obscurity to the center of attention from international financial markets lately as China’s foreign currency reserves, widely seen as the best barometer of how long China can avoid a possible devaluation someday of its own currency.

香港——几乎没有几个经济数据像中国的外汇储备这样，在最近的国际金融市场上以如此快的速度从默默无闻转变焦点，中国的外汇储备被普遍视为最佳的晴雨表，体现中国能够在避免本国货币出现可能的贬值上坚持多久。

Monthly changes in the reserves these days mainly reflect how much money is being sent out of the country by Chinese companies and families nervous about the country’s economic slowdown and sweeping anticorruption investigations. Over the last five weeks, the Chinese government has waged an aggressive campaign to stem the outflow, through almost daily pledges by officials not to devalue and through much tighter enforcement of the rules on sending money overseas.

这段时间以来，外汇储备的月度变化主要反映了中国公司和家庭由于担心国内经济增长放缓以及大范围的反腐调查，把钱送往国外的程度。在过去五周中，中国政府发动了一场遏制资本外流的声势浩大的运动，其官员几乎每天保证人民币不会贬值，政府同时更严格地执行向海外汇款的规则。

Late Monday afternoon came word that the policies are starting to bear fruit: the erosion in China’s foreign exchange reserves slowed sharply last month from the pace of $100 billion a month that prevailed through the winter. Reserves fell by $28.6 billion last month, to $3.202 trillion.

周一晚间传来消息表示，政策开始见成效：中国外汇储备上月的减少从整个冬季的每月减少1000亿美元的速度大幅放缓。外汇储备在上个月减少了286亿美元，降至3.202万亿美元。

Most economists had anticipated a somewhat larger drop in reserves — Barclays had expected a fall of $70 billion, for example. The decline announced on Monday “is an encouraging sign because the concern amongst a lot of the bears was that the outflows would keep accelerating — the fact they’ve eased is reassuring,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, the China economist for Capital Economics, a research firm based in London.

大多数经济学家曾经预期的外汇储备下降幅度比这个数字更大，比如巴克莱银行(Barclays)此前的预计是下降700亿美元。周一公布的下降数字“是一个令人鼓舞的迹象，因为很多持悲观态度的人担心，资本外流会继续加速，外流已有所缓解这一事实令人欣慰”，在伦敦的研究机构凯投宏观(Capital Economics)研究中国的经济学家朱利安·埃文斯-普里查德(Julian Evans-Pritchard)说。

Yi Gang, the senior deputy governor of the Chinese central bank, dismissed concerns about the nation’s currency during remarks earlier in the day outside the National People’s Congress session in Beijing. “The cross-border capital flows are in the normal range,” he said.

当天早些时候，中国央行副行长易纲在北京的全国人大会议期间，对有关中国货币的担忧不屑一提。他说，“跨境资本流动在一个正常范围。”

At a time of turmoil in world financial markets, the renminbi is actually among the most stable currencies, Mr. Yi added. “Our volatility, the fluctuations of the renminbi against the U.S. dollar and also the fluctuations against a basket of currencies, in reality and from a global perspective, are fundamentally the smallest.”

易纲补充说，在这个全球金融市场动荡的时候，人民币实际上是最稳定的货币之一。“中国汇率的波动性是非常小的，人民币对美元的波动和对一揽子货币的波动，在全世界来看都是最小的。”

China had caused alarm overseas and at home by devaluing its currency by 4 percent over three days in August, and by almost as much again over five weeks in late December and early January. But since then, the central bank, the People’s Bank of China, has set the daily fixing of the renminbi against the dollar in Shanghai with no clear trend toward the strengthening or the weakening of the currency.

去年8月，中国在三天中让人民币贬值了4％，在海外和国内引起惊慌，之后在从去年12月到今年1月初的五周里又让人民币贬值了几乎同样的百分比。但自那以来，央行中国人民银行在上海设的每日人民币兑美元的指导价，没有给出人民币走强还是走弱的明显趋势。

State-controlled Chinese banks have also intervened heavily in the less regulated Hong Kong market since January to protect the currency’s value here.

中国由国家控制的银行1月以来也大量介入监管不那么严格的香港市场，以保护这里的人民币币值。

Defending China’s currency, the renminbi, could nonetheless remain a challenge for Beijing. Prime Minister Li Keqiang announced on Saturday that his government would step up China’s already brisk expansion of its money supply, further flooding the economy with renminbi in an effort to make sure that banks can keep pumping out loans to companies.

然而，保持中国货币人民币的币值对北京仍是一个挑战。李克强总理周六宣布，政府将增加中国已在快速扩张的货币供应量，进一步把人民币注入经济，作为一种确保银行能向公司不断提供贷款的努力。

Mr. Li included the money supply target in a broader panoply of measures aimed at maintaining economic growth at 6.5 percent or higher through 2020. Monetary stimulus helps economic growth by holding down interest rates. But lower interest rates also make it less attractive to invest in a currency, which could fuel further outflows of money from China.

李克强宣布的旨在到把经济增长速度到2020年保持在6.5％或更高的一整套措施，包括了货币供应量目标。货币刺激政策通过压低利率来帮助经济增长。但是，低利率也使投资一种货币的吸引力减小，这可能进一步促使中国的资本外流。

The reserves are a far from perfect measure of money leaving China. For starters, the change in the total value of the reserves is not influenced just by how much the central bank spends in currency markets to offset the outflow of money by Chinese companies and families.

外汇储备的数量并不是中国资金外流的完美衡量。首先，外汇储备总量的变化不只受央行在货币市场花了多少钱来抵消中国企业和家庭送出的资金的影响。

Changes in the value of China’s vast hoard of government securities and some equities denominated in euros, yen, pounds and other currencies also affect the overall level of the reserves, which is quoted in dollars. Economists estimate that about two-fifths of the reserves are held in currencies other than the dollar, and the dollar weakened slightly against most currencies during February.

中国贮存的大量政府债券和欧元、日元、英镑及其他货币计价的某些资产的价值的变化，也影响其外汇储备以美元计价的总额。经济学家估计，中国外汇储备中的五分之二是以非美元的货币持有的，而在2月份，美元相对大多数货币有小幅贬值。

That suggests that the overall value of the reserves increased by about $13 billion last month because of currency moves — and indicates that the outflow of money in the last month may have been $13 billion greater than the figure of $28.6 billion that was announced on Monday morning.

这意味着，中国外汇储备的总额由于汇率波动在上个月增加了约130亿美元，也表明，上个月的资金外流可能比周一上午公布的286亿美元多130亿美元。

Another consideration is China’s huge trade surplus, which brings another $50 billion or so into the country each month. The decline in reserves last month suggests that capital outflows may have totaled about $90 billion, using up all of the $50 billion or so from the trade surplus and the $13 billion or so from valuation changes, in addition to nearly $30 billion from the reserves.

另一个要考虑进来的因素是中国巨大的贸易顺差，这使每月有500亿美元左右的资金进入中国。外汇储备上个月的下降表明，该月的资本外流总额可能约为900亿美元，这包括贸易顺差所带来的500亿左右的美元，以及外汇储备130亿美元左右的价值变化，再加上近300亿美元的外汇储备下降。

The change in central bank reserves does not include one other variable that will not be released until later this month and will provide a further clue on outflows: how much state-controlled banks spent on intervention last month.

央行储备的变化没有包括另一个变量，它将在本月晚些时候公布。该变量可以为资本外流状况提供进一步线索：国有银行在上个月的干预中花了多少钱。

In the last two weeks, Chinese officials have said repeatedly that they do not see a need to devalue the country’s currency against the three baskets, or weighted averages, of various foreign currencies against which the central bank measures it. The Chinese central bank strengthened the renminbi against the dollar by nearly 0.3 percent on Monday morning in fixing the daily band of values within which the renminbi is allowed to trade in Shanghai.

在过去的两周内，中国官员曾多次表示，他们认为没有必要让人民币相对于三个货币篮贬值——货币篮是被央行用来与人民币做比较的多种外币加权平均数。周一上午，通过设定人民币在上海交易市场的每日价格浮动空间，中国央行让人民币对美元上涨近0.3%。

Based on one model of reserves adequacy proposed by the International Monetary Fund, China needs a minimum of $1.5 trillion if it bars practically all investment flows in and out of the country. A minimum of $2.7 trillion is needed if China allows money to move in and out of the country freely. The central bank has been gradually tightening the enforcement of its regulations on capital flows.

根据国际货币基金组织(IMF)提出的一个储备充足性评估模型，如果中国基本上禁止了所有投资流入流出该国，它需要至少1.5万亿美元。如果中国允许资金自由流入和流出该国，则需要至少2.7万亿美元。中国央行已经在逐渐收紧资本流动监管规则的执行。

The level of China’s reserves has become a subject of intense international interest as some large American hedge funds, like Hayman Capital Management in Dallas, have placed big bets in financial markets on a Chinese devaluation in the coming 12 to 18 months. “I’m not someone who hates China,” said J. Kyle Bass, the founder and principal of Hayman Capital, in a telephone interview last week. “What I’m good at is spotting credit bubbles.”

中国的外汇储备水平已经在国际上引发了强烈兴趣，一些大型美国对冲基金，比如达拉斯的海曼资本管理(Hayman Capital Management)，在金融市场下重注赌人民币在未来12至18个月里贬值。“我不仇视中国，”海曼资本创始人和总监J·凯尔·巴斯(J. Kyle Bass)上周在接受电话采访时表示。“我擅长的是察觉信贷泡沫。”

But Chinese officials and many Chinese economists disagree with that gloomy prediction. They contend that official statistics showing limited bank exposure to nonperforming loans are credible, and that bank reserves to handle these loans are ample.

但中国官员和很多中国经济学家不同意如此悲观的预测。他们辩驳说，官方统计数据显示银行对不良贷款的风险敞口并不大，而这些数据是可信的，银行也有充足的准备金来应对这些贷款问题。