【英语国际】美国不怕中国减持国债

Of the many nightmares that keep investors awake, fear that China's central bank will start to sell its piles of U.S. Treasuries is the most unlikely. Not only would that action cause far more damage to China, the real risk to investors is precisely the opposite problem -- that more, not less cash will flood into America.

The People's Bank of China cannot simply sell Treasury bonds, pocket the cash and go home. If it wants to reduce its holdings, it must swap them for something else. There are broadly four options.

First, Beijing could sell U.S. Treasury bonds and buy other dollar-denominated assets. This would have little net impact on the U.S. market, except perhaps to cause a slight increase in Treasury yields and an equivalent, and welcome, contraction in U.S. risk premia. Those who sold assets to China's central bank receive money that becomes part of the larger pool that funds U.S. Treasury obligations.

Second, the People's Bank could sell U.S. Treasury bonds and buy assets denominated in euros or yen. Any major exchange would immediately cause the dollar to drop sharply, giving the U.S. economy an export-related boost as European or Japanese exports collapse and imports surge. But both countries would almost certainly retaliate strongly against Chinese trade. Recent reports that China has sharply increased its purchase of yen are already causing worry in Japan.

Third, China could sell its U.S. Treasury bonds and use the dollars to buy hard commodities. This simply reassigns the problem of recycling China's trade surplus to commodity exporters, with almost the same net results.

Finally China could sell U.S. Treasury bonds for cash and purchase assets in China. This option would be most damaging for China. The People's Bank currently sells huge amounts of yuan to Chinese exporters to suppress the value of its currency versus the dollar. Switching strategies and buying yuan would cause that exchange rate to soar, wiping out China's export industry and causing unemployment to surge.

Any sharp reduction in China's Treasury bond holdings is thus likely either to be irrelevant to the U.S. or to cause far more damage to China than to the U.S. If anything, China is likely to buy more dollar-denominated assets. And there are other global trends that will reinforce this buying spree.

The world's major capital-exporting countries are desperate to maintain or even increase their capital exports, which are simply the flip side of trade surpluses. China, for example, is unwilling to allow the yuan to rise against the dollar because it wants to protect and even increase its trade surplus. In Japan, any trade-surplus contraction will lead almost directly to reduced production and higher unemployment. So Japan, too, is eager to maintain capital exports. The same goes for Germany.

On the flip side, the world's capital importers face a dire situation. The second-largest importers of capital, behind the U.S., until now have been the highly-indebted trade-deficit countries of Europe. The Greek crisis caused a sharp drop in private capital inflows, as investors worried about insolvency. Only official lending has prevented defaults. These countries are unlikely soon to see a resurgence of net capital inflows. The world's second-largest net capital importer, in other words, is about to stop importing capital.

This leaves the U.S., which has the largest trade deficit in the world and is also the world's largest net importer of capital. As capital exporters try desperately to maintain or increase their capital exports, and deficit Europe sees capital imports collapse, the only way the world can achieve balance without a sharp contraction in the capital-exporting countries is if capital surges into the U.S.

The U.S., in other words, is not likely to face the 'nuclear option' of a Chinese disruption of the U.S. Treasury bond market. It is far more likely to be swamped by a tsunami of foreign capital. This tsunami will bring with it a corresponding surge in the U.S. trade deficit and, with it, a rise in U.S. unemployment.

Therein lies the problem: A reduction in net foreign capital inflows means a welcome decline in the U.S. trade deficit, but the U.S. is likely to see just the opposite, as foreign capital pushes into U.S. markets and the U.S. trade deficit surges. The problem isn't too little capital inflow. On the contrary, the U.S. faces too much.

在让投资者睡不着觉的诸多噩梦中，中国央行开始减持美国国债的情形是最不可能发生的。这种行为不仅会给中国造成大得多的损失，而且，它给投资者带来的真实风险恰恰是相反的问题：涌入美国的现金将会更多，而不是更少。

中国人民银行无法径直抛掉美国国债、把现金装入囊中然后回家。如果它想减少储备，那就必须将这些储备置换为另外某些东西。大体上有四种选项：

第一个选项，北京可以出售美国国债，并买入其他以美元计价的资产。除了有可能造成美国国债收益率小幅上升、美国风险溢价相应受欢迎地下降以外，这对美国市场的综合影响微乎其微。向中国央行出售资产的人获得的资金，又充实了为美国财政部债务融资的现金基础。

第二个选项，中国央行可以出售美国国债，并买入以欧元或日圆计价的资产。如果进行大规模的置换，美元汇率将会立即大幅下跌，从而使美国经济获得一种与出口相关的提振，同时欧洲或日本出口崩溃、进口飙升。但欧洲和日本几乎肯定会对中国的贸易采取强烈报复措施。最近有报道说中国已大幅增加日圆购买量，已经在日本引起了担忧。

第三个选项，中国可以出售手中的美国国债，并用美元买进硬商品。这不过是把回收中国贸易顺差的问题转移给了大宗商品出口国，综合结果差不多是一样的。

最后一个选项，中国可以出售美国国债换得现金，并在中国购买资产。这种选项对中国的损害是最大的。中国人民银行目前把大量人民币卖给中国的出口商，以压制人民币兑美元的汇率。调换策略、买进人民币将造成人民币兑美元汇率飙升，彻底摧毁中国的出口行业，并造成失业率大幅增加。

所以，中国如果大幅减持美国国债，有可能要么是跟美国无关，要么是对中国的损害远远大于对美国的损害。中国如果要采取什么措施的话，可能就是买入更多以美元计价的资产。而全球其他一些趋势，也会加强这种买入潮流。

世界主要的资本输出方急于维持甚至增加它们的资本输出，而资本输出和贸易顺差不过是同一件事情的两个方面。以中国为例，它不愿意让人民币对美元升值，就是因为它希望保护甚至增加它的贸易顺差。在日本，贸易顺差一旦萎缩，差不多就会直接造成产量下降、失业率上升。所以日本也急于维持资本输出。德国也是同样的情况。

在另一面，世界的资本输入方则面临着艰难的局势。美国之外的世界第二大资本输入方，一直是欧洲高负债的贸易赤字国，直到最近。希腊的危机让投资者担心它不能偿债，造成私人资本流入量急剧下降。只是有了官方的贷款，才避免了违约的发生。这些国家的资本净流入量不太可能很快回升。换句话说，世界第二大资本净输入方即将停止输入资本。

于是就只剩下了美国，这个贸易逆差和资本净输入量都是世界之最的国家。随着资本输出方竭尽全力维持或增加它们的资本输出，随着欧洲赤字国家资本输入陷入崩溃，整个世界在不导致资本输出国出现急剧衰退的情况下实现均衡的唯一办法，就是美国的资本流入量大幅增加。

换句话说，美国不太可能面临中国扰乱美国国债市场的“核选项”。相反，它被一场外资流入的海啸淹没的可能性要大得多。这场海啸将带来美国贸易逆差相应飙升，美国的失业率也会相应上升。

问题就在这里：要是外资净流入量下降，那就会带来美国贸易逆差受人欢迎地下降，但随着外资大量涌进美国市场、美国贸易逆差大幅增长，美国出现的情况可能恰恰相反。问题不在于资本流入量太少，而是太多。