【英语中国】观点：中国决策者的政策子弹所剩无几

BEN SIMPFENDORFER

For the last two years, China's economy has seemed like a shining light in an otherwise dark economic outlook. The country's ability to maintain respectable growth rates despite softening exports-largely thanks to the government's stimulus efforts-appeared to show it could buck trends elsewhere. Yet now, with American consumption still lagging and the European Union facing a string of sovereign-debt crises, analysts are again wondering about China's trajectory, and with reason: Despite its earlier stimulus success, Beijing is running out of silver bullets.

The central government can no longer afford to artificially prop up demand without creating dangerous imbalances in the domestic economy. The injection of 9.6 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) worth of new loans from January to December 2009 has created asset bubbles in property markets and built up nonperforming loans at big-state owned banks and smaller peers. As of now, official estimates put lending to financially shaky local investment companies alone at six trillion yuan, but that is likely an understatement of the problem.

The authorities have responded more recently by implementing curbs on wasteful public infrastructure and residential investment. The latter, however, is a difficult balancing act. Property investment has fuelled construction businesses and related industries like steel, cement, furniture and home electronics. Even if speculators account for only 20% of housing demand, their sudden departure in the event of falling prices, would leave a large hole in the market. The result would be a nasty knock-on shock for many industries.

China also can't rely on the rest of the world to prop up growth. Last month's export numbers were certainly robust. But global demand for Chinese exports will not return to its pre-crisis highs. The stronger U.S. growth of recent quarters threatens to soften again, while the economy will struggle under higher taxes and heavier regulatory burdens. European Union countries also face heavy debt loads and social unrest. And if China's domestic economy falters, institutions like the International Monetary Fund aren't big enough to step in and cushion the shock.

Yet even as China's economy slows, inflation will remain high. Last year's stimulus package created excess money and sparked inflationary pressures. Policy makers added to the risks by keeping interest rates mostly unchanged and focusing on other forms of regulatory tightening, such as increasing banks' reserve ratio requirements. The economy faces growing structural shortages in the supply of land, youth labor and raw materials. No wonder then that talk of 'stagflation' is increasingly popular in the Chinese-language press.

Policy makers are running out of options to address these concerns. A new round of stimulus so soon after the last is likely to produce an even faster rise in bad debts, in an uncomfortable echo of events elsewhere in the world, while only add to inflationary pressures. Absent a shift to greater domestic consumption as an engine of growth instead of exports, China will also remain vulnerable to external factors influencing growth. This shift is happening, but is a slow process.

Neither are there silver bullets for pricking the property-market bubble. Beijing has attempted to squeeze credit availability and tighten restrictions on second- and third-home ownership. But recent measures did not tackle the underlying causes of a property bubble-high savings rates, tight capital controls that keep money trapped in the country and limited investment options other than property. Until policy makers make some hard choices with respect to those policies, they will be fighting a rearguard action against speculation and overheating.

On the inflation front, the greatest danger is that the central bank is behind the curve. High agricultural yields have slowed the rise in consumer-price inflation. But the current expansion is producing large increases in non-food prices, from wages to base metals. And this is bound to filter through the rest of the economy eventually, unless the bank raises interest rates soon. There is also always the outlying risk of a natural disaster, such as a drought, which would worsen inflation expectations considerably.

In the immediate aftermath of the global crisis, conventional wisdom held that Beijing had found a way to spare China the worst of the slowdown. But China's growing list of seemingly intractable problems suggests policy makers have merely delayed-but not averted-their own moment of reckoning. By pumping money into the economy at a record pace, they have created a new set of problems that will be difficult to rectify without taking some painful decisions. The most painful are still to come.

(Mr. Simpfendorfer is chief China economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland and author of 'The New Silk Road' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). )

BEN SIMPFENDORFER

过去两年，中国经济像是一道灿烂的光芒，如果没有它，世界经济的前景将变得晦暗不明。在出口走弱的情况下，很大程度上依靠政府的刺激措施，这个国家得以维持了一种不错的增长率。这似乎说明，它可以不受其他地区的大势影响。但在目前，美国的消费仍然停滞不前，欧盟(European Union)也面临着一连串的主权债务危机，在这种环境下，分析师们对中国的增长轨迹再次感到怀疑，而且怀疑得不无道理：虽然前面的刺激措施取得了成功，但北京手中的良方正变得越来越少。

中央政府再也不能够承受人为地提振需求，同时又避免国内经济出现危险的失衡。2009年1月至12月注入价值9.6万亿元（合1.4万亿美元）的新增贷款，已经在房地产市场吹起泡沫，并在大型国有银行和规模更小的银行积累了不良资产。据官方估计，仅向财务不佳的地方投资公司发放的贷款，目前就已经达到了六万亿元，但这有可能存在低估。

为应对这些问题，近期有关部门对浪费性的公共基础设施和住房投资实施了限制，但针对后者需要进行谨慎的权衡。房地产投资刺激了建筑业，也刺激了钢铁、水泥、家具和家电等相关行业。即使房地产市场的投机需求只有两成，倘若房价下跌，投机客突然撤离，那么市场将会出现一个巨大的空洞。这样一种结果，将给很多行业带来沉重的连锁打击。

中国同样不能依赖外界来提振增长。上个月的出口数据无疑是强劲的，但世界对中国出口商品的需求不会回到危机前的高水平。近几个季度美国经济增长走强，但有可能再次走软，并将背负更加沉重的税收和监管负担。欧盟国家也面临着沉重的债务负担和社会动荡。而如果中国国内经济陷入泥潭，国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)等机构是没法出手提供缓冲的，它们没有那么大的实力。

即使中国经济放缓，通货膨胀水平仍将高企。去年的刺激措施造成流动性过剩，引起了通胀压力。政策制定者基本上维持利率不变，而关注于提高存款准备金率等其他形式的监管紧缩，这又进一步加剧了通胀风险。整个经济体在土地、年轻劳动力和原材料方面面临着越来越严重的结构性短缺。这样来看，中文媒体中“滞胀”一词用得越来越多，也就不足为奇。

政策制定者可用于处理这些问题的选择正越来越少。要是在上一轮刺激过后马上再来新一轮刺激，则有可能导致不良债务以更快的速度增加，让人不安地想起世界其他地方发生的事情，同时也只会进一步加剧通胀压力。如果不把增长引擎从出口转变为国内消费的提高，中国的增长就仍然很容易受到外部因素的影响。这种转变正在进行，但进展缓慢。

刺破房地产市场泡沫亦无良方可言。北京曾试图紧缩信贷、进一步限制二套房和三套房的持有，但近期措施没有触及房地产泡沫的基本成因：储蓄率居高不下，严格的资本管制导致资金囿于国内，房地产之外的其他投资选项十分有限。直到政策制定者在这些方面做出艰难的政策选择，他们才不至于在投机和过热面前显得被动。

在通胀方面，最大的危险是央行行动过迟。农业收成高延缓了居民消费价格水平的上升速度，但目前的扩张正造成包括工资和贱金属在内的各种非食品价格大幅上涨。如果央行不尽快加息，这最终无疑会渗入经济体的其他部门。另外，干旱等自然灾害这种非眼前的风险始终是存在的，如果发生，通胀预期会出现很大程度的恶化。

在全球危机过后不久，人们一般认为，北京找到办法让中国避开了危机的最严重阶段。但中国看起来难以驾驭的问题越来越多，说明政策制定者只是延缓了清算日的到来，但终究不能逃脱。他们以创纪录的速度把资金注入经济体，造成了一系列新的问题，如果不做出一些艰难的决定，这些问题将难以得到纠正。最最艰难的决定尚待做出。


作者贝哲民（Ben Simpfendorfer）为苏格兰皇家银行(Royal Bank of Scotland)首席中国经济学家，《新丝绸之路》(The New Silk Road)（Palgrave Macmillan出版，2009年）作者。