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For many states, the Asian crisis was a warning.
对许多国家来说，亚洲金融危机是一个警告。
In the event of a future financial crisis, they wanted to avoid calling in any institutions that might interfere in their domestic affairs.
在未来发生金融危机时，他们希望避免召集任何可能干涉其内政的组织。
One way to do this was to build up huge stockpiles of foreign currency reserves.
实现这一想法的方法之一是建立巨额外汇储备。
At a moment of crisis, these reserves can be used to defend a currency’s value, pay off foreign debts and import necessities.
在危机时刻，这些储备可以用来捍卫货币价值、偿还外债以及进口必需品。
China led the way, but South Korea, Brazil, Mexico and others followed.
中国带路，韩国、巴西、墨西哥等其他国家紧随其后。
From 2000 to 2009, the total value of China’s reserve assets grew by nearly $1.8tn.
从2000年到2009年，中国的外汇储备资产总值增长了近1.8万亿美元。
Today, it’s well over $3tn – a figure higher than the total GDP of the entire African continent.
如今，这一数字已远远超过3万亿美元，高于整个非洲大陆的GDP(国内生产总值)总额。
For some countries, accumulating these reserves has been key to a strategy of export-led development, since doing so can help hold down the value of a national currency and thus make exports more competitive.
对一些国家来说，积累外汇储备是出口导向型发展战略的关键，因为这样做有助于压低一国货币的价值，从而提高出口竞争力。
But for most states, the aim has been insurance against financial turmoil.
但对大多数国家来说，此举的目的一直是防范金融动荡。
And in some cases, it’s worked remarkably well.
在某些情况下，此举见效显著。
The accumulation of currency reserves helped many emerging market economies escape the worst of the global financial crisis that began in 2008.
积累外汇储备帮助许多新兴市场经济体摆脱了2008年全球金融危机带来的最严重影响。
While the IMF played a major role in bailing out Greece in the 2010s, it did comparatively little elsewhere.
虽然国际货币基金组织在2010年代(2010年-2019年)援助希腊过程中发挥了重要作用，但对其他国家的援助却相对较少。
It was not invited back to countries where it had become so controversially involved in the 90s, such as South Korea and Russia.
上世纪90年代，在诸如韩国和俄罗斯这样的国家，该组织变得富有争议性，没有被邀请重返各国。
One striking consequence of this currency stockpiling is that capital now moves in huge quantities from poorer countries to wealthier ones, rather than vice versa.
大量储备国外货币的一个显著后果是，资本现在大量地从较贫穷国家流向较富裕国家，而非从较富裕国家流向较贫困国家。
This is because much of the world’s supply of reserves are held in US dollars, which countries tend to invest back into the safe haven of US treasury bills.
这是因为世界上大部分国家的外汇储备都是以美元形式持有的，这些国家倾向于将美元重新投资于美国国债这一避险资产。
Doing so guarantees a nearly bottomless global demand for US government debt and helps ensure the continued centrality of the US dollar to the global economy.
此举保证了全球对美国政府债务几乎无止境的需求，并有助于确保美元继续在全球经济中占据中心地位。
The fact that China sits on such a huge stockpile of US treasuries has long generated anxiety about the political leverage this might give Beijing over Washington, since a sell-off would be catastrophic to the value of the dollar.
长期以来，中国持有如此庞大的美国国债，这一事实一直引人担忧，即这可能会给北京带来凌驾于华盛顿的政治影响力，因为抛售美国国债将对美元价值造成灾难性影响。
