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2010-6-26 01:54
The best summary of the bearish case for the Chinese economy was made, as it happens, by China's Premier Wen Jiabao, who in 2007 described the country's development model as “unsteady, unbalanced, unco-ordinated and unsustainable”.
China has made a remarkable recovery from the global financial crisis, growing by 8.7 per cent in 2009, fuelled by a decisive and huge fiscal and monetary stimulus programme. But with investment in infrastructure acting as the main driving force behind growth, and exports soaring while the currency remains pegged to the dollar, the question remains about whether Mr Wen's diagnosis still stands. The principal themes of China bears are over-investment and overheating. China's investment rate as a proportion of gross domestic product, at more than 40 per cent, was exceptionally high before the stimulus plan and it was even higher at nearly 50 per cent last year. Too much investment means the new projects are likely to be inefficient and end up creating overcapacity. Critics also warn that the surge in bank lending last year, which doubled on the year before to Rmb9,600bn ($1,412bn), could end up in a pile of bad debts. Victor Shih, an economist at Northwestern University in the US, has tried to track the lending and calculates that local governments now have debts of Rmb11,400bn – well above the official figure of Rmb7,400bn. He says Rmb3,000bn could end up as non-performing. The other main sign of overheating is the housing market, where many cities have seen rapid increases in prices since the start of last year. Government housing price figures have shown record year-on-year rises over the past two months. However, the government has tried to prevent overheating. It has scaled back the pace of new bank loans since last autumn, restricted approvals for new infrastructure projects and ordered banks to reduce exposure to local government investment companies. In the housing market, the authorities have introduced a slew of policies to limit speculative buying. Some previous critics believe the authorities have done enough in the short term to prevent the investment boom from running out of control. Yu Yongding, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who warned last year about the risks of over-investment, says that the current situation is much more manageable. “In the long run, we need to make deep reforms in the economic structure, but in the short run the government has effectively used monetary policy to bring down investment,” he says. The flipside of an economy relying too much on investment is one where consumption plays too small a role – in recent years, consumption has accounted for only a third of GDP. Yet there are signs this is beginning to change. Household consumption grew strongly last year, despite the crisis. Some analysts believe a structural shift is under way. Li Daokui, a professor at Tsinghua University and a member of the Chinese central bank's monetary policy committee, says: “Chinese consumers are beginning to consume.” The last piece of the Chinese rebalancing equation – and the most controversial – is China's exchange rate. Amid growing international pressure, not just from the US but also India and Brazil, China abandoned its currency peg with the dollar and began appreciating the renminbi on June 21, although the central bank stressed that any changes in the exchange rate would only be very gradual. Although the policy shift appears to be enough to prevent the renminbi from dominating the G20 summit, China could still come under attack in the US Congress in the next few months if the pace of appreciation is slow. Yet if pressure does increase again, Beijing can point to the sharp drop in its current account surplus. Before the crisis, China was running a current account surplus equivalent to 11 per cent of GDP but that dropped to 6.1 per cent last year. And in the first five months of this year, it has fallen further – even if exports have started to pick up sharply, rising 53 per cent in May, year-on-year. Officials argue that the big surpluses are being brought under control. China's economy still has a lop-sided quality to it and its role in global rebalancing could start to become more politically controversial. But there are also signs of progress in the shift to a more sustainable growth model that Mr Wen demanded three years ago. The best summary of the bearish case for the Chinese economy was made, as it happens, by China's Premier Wen Jiabao, who in 2007 described the country's development model as “unsteady, unbalanced, unco-ordinated and unsustainable”. China has made a remarkable recovery from the global financial crisis, growing by 8.7 per cent in 2009, fuelled by a decisive and huge fiscal and monetary stimulus programme. But with investment in infrastructure acting as the main driving force behind growth, and exports soaring while the currency remains pegged to the dollar, the question remains about whether Mr Wen's diagnosis still stands. The principal themes of China bears are over-investment and overheating. China's investment rate as a proportion of gross domestic product, at more than 40 per cent, was exceptionally high before the stimulus plan and it was even higher at nearly 50 per cent last year. Too much investment means the new projects are likely to be inefficient and end up creating overcapacity. Critics also warn that the surge in bank lending last year, which doubled over the previous year to Rmb9,600bn, could end up in a pile of bad debts. Victor Shih, an economist at Northwestern University in the US, has tried to track the lending and calculates that local governments now have debts of Rmb11,400bn – well above the official figure of Rmb7,400bn. He says Rmb3,000bn could end up as non-performing. The other main sign of overheating is the housing market, where many cities have seen rapid increases in prices since the start of last year. Government housing price figures have shown record year-on-year rises over the past two months. However, the government has tried to prevent overheating. It has scaled back the pace of new bank loans since last autumn, restricted approvals for new infrastructure projects and ordered banks to reduce exposure to local government investment companies. In the housing market, the authorities have introduced a slew of policies to limit speculative buying. Some previous critics believe the authorities have done enough in the short term to prevent the investment boom from running out of control. Yu Yongding, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who warned last year about the risks of over-investment, says that the current situation is much more manageable. “In the long run, we need to make deep reforms in the economic structure, but in the short run the government has effectively used monetary policy to bring down investment,” he says. The flipside of an economy relying too much on investment is one where consumption plays too small a role – in recent years, consumption has accounted for only a third of GDP. Yet there are signs this is beginning to change. Household consumption grew strongly last year, despite the crisis. Recent wage increases for factory workers should also feed into rising consumption. 对于看空中国的理由，最佳概括恰好来自中国国务院总理温家宝。2007年，他对中国的发展模式做了如下描述：“不稳定、不平衡、不协调、不可持续”。
在果断的大规模财政与货币刺激措施的推动下，中国经济已从全球金融危机中强劲复苏，2009年增长了8.7%。 然而，鉴于经济增长背后的主要推动力是基础设施投资，而出口的飙升伴随着人民币汇率盯住美元，因此温家宝的诊断是否依然成立的问题仍然存在。 看空中国人士的主要论调是过度投资和经济过热。 实施刺激方案之前，中国投资与国内生产总值(GDP)的比率异常之高，超过了40%，去年甚至更是高达近50%。过多的投资意味着，新项目可能效率低下，并最终造成产能过剩。 批评人士还警告，去年银行贷款较前年翻了一番，达到9.6万亿元人民币（合1.412万亿美元），而飙升的银行贷款最终可能变成堆积如山的坏账。 美国西北大学(Northwestern University)经济学家史宗瀚(Victor Shih)一直努力追踪中国的银行贷款情况。据他估算，地方政府如今的债务高达11.4万亿元人民币，远远超过7.4万亿元的官方数据。他表示，其中3万亿元可能最终变成不良贷款。 过热的另一个主要迹象出现在房地产市场——自去年初以来，许多城市的价格都出现了快速上涨。政府房地产价格数据过去两个月的同比涨幅达到创纪录水平。 不过，中国政府已采取措施，努力预防过热。去年秋季以来，中国政府放慢了银行新增贷款的步伐，限制新基础设施项目的审批，并勒令银行减少与地方政府投资公司的关联。在房地产市场，政府推出了一系列政策，以限制投机性购房。 一些此前持批评态度的人士认为，在预防投资热潮失控方面，政府短期内已做得足够多。去年曾警告过过度投资风险的中国社科院(Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)经济学家于永定表示，当前的形势要可控得多。 他表示：“长期而言，我们需要深入改革经济结构，但短期而言，政府已有效利用货币政策减少了投资。” 一个经济体过度依赖投资的反面是消费发挥的作用过小。最近几年，消费仅占中国GDP的三分之一。然而，有迹象显示，这种局面已开始发生转变。尽管危机爆发，但中国的家庭消费去年仍增长强劲。 一些分析人士相信，结构性转变正在进行之中。清华大学(Tsinghua University)教授、中国人民银行货币政策委员会委员李稻葵表示：“中国消费者已开始消费。” 中国再平衡等式的最后一个要素（也是最具争议的一个）是中国的汇率。随着国际压力不断增大（不仅来自美国，也来自印度和巴西），中国放弃了盯住美元的汇率机制，于6月21日开始让人民币升值，不过中国央行强调，汇率的任何变化都只能是渐进性的。 尽管政策调整似乎足以让人民币不再成为20国集团(G20)峰会的主题，但未来几个月，如果人民币升值速度缓慢，中国仍可能会遭受美国国会的抨击。 不过，如果压力确实再次上升，中国政府可以提到自己经常账户盈余的急剧下降。此次危机前，中国经常账户盈余相当于GDP的11%，但去年下降至6.1%。今年头5个月，即便在出口开始大幅回升的情况下（5月份同比增长53%），这一比例也在继续下滑。政府官员表示，中国正在将巨额盈余纳入控制之下。 中国经济仍然具有不平衡的特质，而它在全球再平衡中的作用可能会开始变得更有政治争议。但也有迹象表明，在转向温家宝3年前要求的更可持续增长模式方面，中国已取得进展。 译者/梁艳裳 |