【英语中国】该不该看好中国？

This spring, a curious type of underground banking is proliferating in parts of China. Called minjian jeidai, it enables Chinese companies to borrow short-term money from wealthy households, rather than banks, via a broker armed with a mobile phone.

On paper, the practice seems almost logical. Many small and medium-sized companies in China are currently finding it hard to get loans from banks; and many Chinese households desperately need somewhere to put their money (other than the overheated property sector or falling stock market).

But there is a catch. Since the practice is illegal, lending rates are very high; moreover nobody knows how large this practice might be. In the City of Qingdao, which I happened to visit yesterday, for example, some bankers and officials “guessed” that minjian jeidai accounts for more than 10 per cent of local finance, a huge sum. “But nobody really knows,” one official hastily added, officially, this practice does not even exist.

This is thought-provoking stuff for investors trying to make sense of global financial markets. In recent days, as markets have gyrated violently, there has been a plethora of public hand-wringing about the dramas erupting in the eurozone. The markets are also being hit by financial regulation uncertainty.

However, on the other side of the world there is another, less discussed set of risks now: the uncertainties hanging over China (of which the mysterious activities of the minjian jeidai sector are but one, tiny example). To be sure, China has produced plenty of upbeat macro-economic news in recent months. And some observers remain very bullish about the country's outlook.

Goldman Sachs, for example, sent a research note to its clients earlier this week which suggested that it was ridiculous for investors to spend too much time fretting about the eurozone's woes when it is emerging market countries such as China – not Europe – which are likely to provide the main motors of growth in the coming years. “China is about 14 times bigger than Greece,” this note tartly declared, before concluding that China still appeared to be on track for steady, sustainable growth.

But not everyone is so upbeat. In the past month the Chinese stock market has tumbled 20 per cent, as local investors have taken fright at efforts by the Chinese government to cool the over-heated property market. In cities such as Qingdao, there is also concern about the degree to which Chinese exporters will suffer if there is now a fall in European demand as a result of the euro dramas.

Then there is concern about the official side of Chinese finance (never mind all those underground banks). The People's Bank of China recently ordered China's large banks to raise their reserve requirement ratios to 17 per cent, partly because authorities want to allay fears that a credit binge last year could have created too many non-performing loans.

That is perfectly sensible. However, the Chinese government is also assuming in its growth projections that banks will advance some Rmb7,500bn worth of new loans over the next year. The only way banks can square that circle will be to raise vast quantities of capital; indeed, the big-four banks alone would need to raise almost Rmb300bn. But it seems highly unlikely that they will be able to do that unless stock markets rebound. So what then? Will the banks slash credit later this year, tipping the economy into a downturn? Will the Chinese government step in? Or is it possible that those “underground banks” might expand lending in a way that nobody expects? The only honest answer is that nobody knows.

This has at least two implications. For one thing – as my colleague Geoff Dyer observes – all this economic uncertainty and euro turmoil makes it very unlikely that the Chinese will agree to revalue the renminbi anytime soon. For another, the uncertainty also has the potential to inject a lot more volatility into global markets.

After all, although a vague sense of optimism about China has underpinned the investment debate in the western world during the past year, the fact is that very few western investors really know that much about what is – or is not – happening at the grass roots in China now. The pattern is not that different from the US housing market five years ago, when investors had vague assumptions that American property markets always rise, and thus gobbled up mortgage bonds – but ignored the granular details of how subprime loans worked.

This time round, there is still reason to think that the China tale will have a better ending than the subprime saga; after all, the Chinese leadership is (generally) acting in sensible ways. But if that optimism turns out to be wrong, the future “shock” could be painful. Just remember, to quote Goldman Sachs, that China is 14 times bigger than Greece; and perhaps even more opaque.

今年春季，一种奇怪的地下银行业务在中国部分地区迅速蔓延。这种被称之为“民间借贷”的业务，使一些中国企业能够从富裕家庭拆借到短期资金，而不用向银行伸手。居间牵线搭桥的人只需随身携带一部手机。

理论上，这种做法看起来俨然合情合理。中国许多中小企业目前很难从银行获得贷款，而许多家庭则亟需给自己的资金找到去处（在过热的房地产市场和持续下跌的股市之外）。

但这里面存在一个问题。因为这种做法违反了相关规定，贷款利率非常高；而且没人知道民间借贷的规模有多大。就拿我前几天去的青岛来说，据当地一些银行界人士和官员“猜测”，民间借贷占到信贷总额的10%以上，数额庞大。“但没人确切知道，”一位官员连忙补充道。按照官方的口径，这种做法甚至是不存在的。

对于试图参透全球金融市场状况的投资者来说，上述情况值得深思。近日来，随着市场剧烈波动，人们对欧元区爆发的一幕叫苦不堪。而金融监管方面的不确定性也对市场造成了冲击。

然而，在世界的另一端，存在另一类人们较少提及的风险：那就是围绕中国的不确定性（神秘的民间借贷，只是其中一个微不足道的例子）。诚然，近几个月来中国发布了大量乐观的宏观经济信息，部分观察人士仍非常看好中国经济的前景。

例如，上周高盛(Goldman Sachs)向客户提供了一份研究报告，表示投资者花太多时间为欧元区危机发愁十分可笑，因为未来许多年内，有可能充当主要增长引擎的是中国等新兴市场国家，而不是欧洲。报告尖锐地指出：“中国比希腊大了差不多14倍。”其结论是，中国看起来仍有望实现持续、稳定的增长。

但并非所有人都这么乐观。过去一个月来，中国股市大跌20%，主要因为中国政府旨在抑制房地产市场过热的举措令投资者感到惊慌。在青岛等城市，人们还担心，假如欧元区危机导致欧洲需求下降，中国出口企业会受到多大的冲击。

中国金融业的官方状况也让人担心（不用去想那些地下银行）。中国央行近期命令各大银行将存款准备金率提高到17%，一定程度上，这是为了缓解以下担忧：即去年的信贷狂潮可能已造成了大量不良贷款。

这种做法十分明智。然而，中国政府又在增长预测中提出，明年银行新发放的贷款将在7.5万亿人民币左右。要完成如此棘手的目标，银行只能大量融资。事实上，仅四大银行就需要融资近3000亿元人民币。除非股市回升，否则这不太可能做到。那么，接下来将怎样？银行今年晚些时候会大举减少放贷，令经济陷入低迷吗？中国政府会出手干预吗？抑或，那些“地下钱庄”将以无人能够预料的方式扩张？唯一靠谱的答案是：谁也不知道。

这至少有两层含义。其一，正如我的同事杰夫?代尔(Geoff Dyer)所言，考虑到经济不确定性和欧元区危机，中国在近期内同意人民币升值的可能性微乎其微。其二，这种不确定性也可能大大加剧全球市场的波动。

过去一年来，对中国模糊的乐观感觉，在西方世界引发了一场投资辩论。然而，真正透彻了解中国目前正在发生（或没有发生）什么的西方投资者实际上少之又少。这种情形与5年前人们对美国楼市的观感何其相似。当时投资者模糊地认为，美国楼市会一直向好，因此大家都争抢抵押贷款债券——却忽略了次级贷款粗糙的运作模式。

这一回，我们仍然有理由认为，中国市场的结局会强于美国次贷。毕竟，（一般来说）中国领导人行事明智。但如果事实证明，对中国抱持乐观态度是错的，未来的“冲击”可能很惨重。只需记住一点——用高盛的话说——中国比希腊大了14倍；而且，中国或许更不透明。

译者/杨远