【英语中国】通胀不会威胁中国稳定<br>(FT2007中国报告之二)

For China's rulers through the ages, stability has been the chief objective. The same is true for the Communist party today. For the current government, however, economic stability matters most of all.Yet observers of the Chinese economy, both at home and abroad, now worry that what looms ever closer is instability in its most dangerous guise – that of inflation. Are they right to do so? Probably not, is the answer.

Consumer price inflation did hit 6.5 per cent year-on-year in August, the highest rate in 11 years, largely because of a 49 per cent surge in meat and poultry prices. One much-respected Chinese economist remarked last month that “we have entered a very delicate stage of our development”. He is convinced, moreover, that true inflation is far higher than what he regards as the government's over-optimistic figures.

Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace takes a similarly alarmist view.* He writes that “China's economy today looks much as it did before the inflationary catastrophes of 1988-1989 and 1993-96”. The first of these episodes contributed hugely to the protests that culminated in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. The second ended up with inflation at more than 20 per cent, the sacking of the governor of the central bank and a big jump in interest rates.

Mr Keidel makes three points: first, while the price increases have indeed been limited to food, these remain of large importance to Chinese consumers, particularly to the urban Chinese; second, inflation is already visible in the data on nominal gross domestic product, which is growing at between 6 and 7 per cent a year faster than the government's estimates of real GDP; and, finally, real interest rates on deposits are negative, which is likely to encourage the Chinese to spend at least a part of their huge holdings.

For Mr Keidel, inflation has overwhelmingly domestic origins. Surprisingly, he denies that either the growth of net exports or the current account surplus plays a significant role in generating inflationary pressure.

Mr Keidel's chief policy recommendations are two: higher domestic interest rates and liberalisation of imports of wheat and rice. The former would persuade people to hold on to their money, rather than spend it. The latter would generate the additional advantage of enabling lucrative diversification towards higher-value farm products.

How far, then, is either the analysis or the recommendations shared by other competent observers? The answer is that it is not. Jonathan Anderson of UBS argues, for example, that a general inflationary process would show up across the board and not just in prices of food and, most particularly, of pork and eggs (“16 Questions on Chinese Inflation”, August 6 2007).

Moreover, while Mr Anderson accepts that the level of inflation is significantly underestimated in the Chinese data, he denies that it is increasingly underestimated, which must be the case if there were an unrecorded surge in inflation. The evidence from a range of data – the GDP deflator, prices of “corporate goods” and raw materials, import prices and producer prices – shows no such surge.

True, wages are rising rapidly, particularly of rural migrants: since 1995 these have doubled in remninbi terms, notes Mr Anderson (“The End of Cheap Labour (Period)”, August 9 2007). But this is precisely what one would expect in a rapidly growing economy with fast growth of productivity (to the extent that the latter can be measured) and a falling supply of young rural adults (the overwhelming majority of the migrants), as a result of the one-child policy.

Chinese growth is at last spilling on to real wages. No doubt this is making the prices of many services higher in real terms. Yet that is exactly what one would hope (and indeed wish) would happen as development proceeds.

Thus the argument that China is confronting a dangerous upsurge in inflation looks unconvincing. This does not mean that higher inflation than in recent years is unlikely. In the longer term, a fast-growing economy with a tightening labour market and a currency that is appreciating very slowly should show higher inflation than the majority of its trading partners. Such an appreciation of the real exchange rate – a rise in the domestic price level relative to the rest of the world – is a normal part of rapid development.

What is surprising, in China's case, is how long it was before this process began to take hold: after the mid-1990s, inflation remained consistently low and the real exchange rate flat. A part of the explanation has been the ability of the People's Bank of China to sterilise the impact of the country's enormous accumulation of foreign currency reserves upon the monetary base or “reserve money” – holdings of commercial banks at the central bank.

Moreover, while deposits in the banking system have grown far faster than nominal GDP – to reach 160 per cent of GDP last year, up from just 100 per cent a decade earlier – the public appears to have held these deposits willingly, as the best liquid store of value available. Recently, this stock of deposits appears to have spilled over into asset markets, including the stock market. But it has not affected consumption: as a share of disposable income, household savings have been rising since 2001, not falling.**

Overall, then, the growth of domestic demand remains subdued, rather than overheated, relative to the rapid growth of potential and actual output. Indeed, the rise in the current account surplus, in relation to GDP, has to mean, by definition, that the economy's actual (and potential) output is growing faster than domestic demand.

What then are the policy implications? First, the best way to prevent higher inflation would be faster appreciation of the renminbi: the latter has so far gone up by 10 per cent since the move to a more flexible rate was announced in July 2005. Combined with liberalisation of food imports, a faster appreciation would also be a good way to deal with the jump in food prices.

Second, the big macroeconomic issue of today is not inflation. It is the rapid growth in net exports, soaring current account surpluses and persistent weakness of domestic consumption. China suffers not from excess domestic demand, but a lack of it. Rebalancing the structure of the economy – from exports and investment towards public and private consumption and from massive current account surpluses and huge reserve accumulations towards a more balanced external position – remains the true priority.

From this perspective, worries about inflation are largely a diversion. If they led to emergency cuts in domestic spending, they would prove a damaging diversion, since that would merely exacerbate the persistent structural imbalances in the economy. But these worries might lead to a more rapid appreciation of the currency, faster liberalisation of imports, and policies aimed at stimulating domestic spending, particularly consumption. That would be the productive outcome.

* “China's Looming Crisis – Inflation Returns”, http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/pb54_keidel_china_looming_crisis_final.pdf
** Jahangir Aziz and Li Cui, “Explaining China's Low Consumption: The Neglected Role of Household Income”, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2007/wp07181.pdf

千百年来，对于中国的统治者而言，稳定一直是首要目标；这对当今的共产党而言也是如此。不过，对于本届政府而言，经济稳定是最重要的。

然而，海内外的中国经济观察人士目前都在担心，不稳定正以一种最危险的形态逼近中国——通货膨胀。他们的担心有道理吗？答案可能是否定的。

今年8月，中国的消费者价格水平较去年同期上升6.5%，创下11年来最高升幅，主要原因是肉禽价格飙升49%。上个月，一位备受尊敬的中国经济学家表示：“我们已进入一个非常微妙的发展时期”。此外，他认为政府发布的通胀数据过于乐观，相信真实通胀率远远高于这一水平。

卡内基国际和平基金会(Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)的盖保德(Albert Keidel) 也发出了类似警告。*他写道：“当前的中国经济，看上去与1988年至1989年和1993年至1996年的通胀灾难之前的情况很类似”。第一次通胀期在相当大程度上导致了1989年天安门广场的抗议活动。第二次通胀期的最终结果是通胀率超过20%，中国人民银行行长被撤，利率大幅冲高。

盖保德提出了3个理由：首先，尽管物价上涨确实仅限于食品，但食品对中国消费者仍然意义重大，尤其对于城市人群；其次，通胀已体现在名义国内生产总值(GDP)数据上，中国名义GDP增幅已较政府对实际GDP的预估值快了6%至7%；最后，实际存款利率为负，这可能鼓励中国人消费至少一部分巨额储蓄。

在盖保德看来，通胀主要来自国内因素。令人意外的是，他否认净出口的增长或经常账户盈余对引发通胀压力起到了重大作用。

盖保德的主要政策建议有二：一是提高国内利率，二是放开小麦和大米进口。第一个建议将说服居民储蓄，而不是消费。第二个建议将带来一个额外的好处，即鼓励农业生产实现有利可图的多样化，转向高价值农产品。

上述分析或建议是否得到了其他观察人士的认同呢？答案是否定的。例如，瑞银集团(UBS)的乔纳森•安德森(Jonathan Anderson)就认为，普遍的通胀过程将体现在整体物价上，而非仅仅是食品价格，特别是猪肉和鸡蛋价格（《关于中国通胀的16个问题》(16 Questions on Chinese Inflation)，2007年8月6日发表）。

另外，尽管安德森承认中国的数据大大低估了通胀水平，但他否认这一低估程度正日益加剧。若有未被记录的通胀飚升，那就肯定存在通胀低估加剧的情况。然而，一系列数据（GDP平减指数、“企业商品”和原材料价格、进口价格以及生产者价格）显示，这种飚升并不存在。

没错，薪资正迅速上涨，尤其是进城务工的农村人口：安德森指出，以人民币计算，进城务工人员的工资自1995年以来已经翻了一番（《廉价劳动力的终结》(The End of Cheap Labour (Period))，2007年8月9日发表）。然而，这正是人们在一个快速发展的经济体期望看到的结果——在这个经济体，生产率快速增长（至少在可以测算的范围内是如此），而独生子女政策导致年轻的农村成年人（进城务工人员的主力）数量减少。

中国的经济增长终于体现在实际薪资上。毫无疑问，这正在提高许多服务的实际价格。然而，这正是人们希望（而且确实期盼）看到的发展带来的结果。

因此，关于中国正面临危险的通胀飙升的主张，看起来不足为信。这并不意味着中国不太可能出现高于近年水平的通胀。从长期来看，一个增长迅速、劳动力市场吃紧、货币升值又非常缓慢的经济体，其通胀应该会高于它的大部分贸易伙伴国。这种实际汇率的提高（国内价格水平相对于世界其它地区的上升），是迅速发展过程的正常现象。

就中国的情况而言，令人意外的是，在这个过程形成之前过了那么多年：20世纪90年代中期之后，通胀一直保持在低水平，实际汇率也持平。对这种现象的一种解释是，中国央行有能力冲销中国积聚的庞大外汇储备对基础货币（或“储备货币”）的影响。基础货币是指商业银行存放在央行的货币。

此外，尽管银行体系的存款增速比名义GDP快得多（去年达到GDP的160%，而十年前仅仅为100%），但作为最好的、具有流动性的价值储藏手段，公众似乎还是很愿意持有这些存款。近期，这些存款似乎溢入资产市场，包括股市。不过，这并没有影响消费：自2001年以来，家庭储蓄在可支配收入中所占份额一直在增加，而不是减少。**

如此看来，相对于潜在和实际产出的快速增长，国内需求的增长总体而言仍然处于被抑制状态，而非过热。的确，经常账户盈余相对于GDP出现增长，必定意味着经济体的实际（和潜在）产出增长快于国内需求。

那么，这有什么政策影响呢？首先，预防更高通胀的最佳方法，是人民币更快升值：自中国政府2005年7月宣布转向更灵活汇率机制至今，人民币迄今升值10%。加速升值，再加上放开粮食进口，也将是应对食品价格上涨的一个好办法。

其次，宏观经济层面当前的大问题不是通胀，而是净出口的快速增长、经常账户盈余的激增和国内消费的持续疲弱。中国的问题不在于国内需求过多，而在于缺乏国内需求。重新平衡经济结构仍然是真正重要的头等大事——从出口和投资转向公共和私人消费，从庞大的经常账户盈余和巨额外汇储备积累转向更为平衡的对外格局。

以这种观点来看，对通胀的担心基本上属于偏离主题。如果这些担心导致紧急削减国内支出，那就会成为有害的偏离，因为那只能加剧这个经济体中一直存在的结构失衡。不过，对通胀的担心也可能导致人民币更快升值，进口更快放开，并出台旨在刺激国内支出（尤其是消费）的政策。那将是有益的结果。

明日预告：FT驻上海记者杰夫·代尔谈中国股市

* 《危机逼近中国——通胀再现》(China’s Looming Crisis – Inflation Returns)，参见：

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/
pb54_keidel_china_looming_crisis_final.pdf

**贾汉吉尔•阿齐茨(Jahangir Aziz)、Li Cui, 《中国消费低迷解释：被忽略的家庭收入角色》（Explaining China’s Low Consumption: The Neglected Role of Household Income），参见：

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2007/wp07181.pdf

译者/何黎