【英语财经】中国经济放缓让谁“最受伤”？ Slowdown in China is going to be harder for its trading partners

For investors who are more bearish on China than consensus, Citigroup’s Asian economists suggest shorting a group of no fewer than nine currencies, including the Chilean peso, Norwegian krone, Russian rouble, Malaysian ringgit, the Australian, New Zealand and Taiwan dollars, South Korea’s won and the Thai baht.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is reversing some long-term macro calls. A decade ago it encouraged investors to short the US dollar, given slowing growth and high debt levels, take big positions in emerging markets with their clean balance sheets and growth prospects, and embrace commodities, given under-investment and supply constraints.

All these factors have reversed. “A decade of investment in commodity productive capacity and new technologies has created excess capacity in most commodity markets, which will weigh on both costs and commodity prices, creating a deflationary impulse globally,” Goldman warns.

The explicit point many economists are making is that China is slowing more than official data suggest. “We believe the actual growth rate is much lower than reported — about 5 per cent versus the reported 7 per cent in the first half,” the Citi economists note. And their implicit point is that a slowdown in China is harder for its trading partners and manufacturing competitors than it is for China itself.

Moreover, there is worse to come on both fronts. The spillover effects from a slowdown in China are likely to be severe, especially alongside a US Federal Reserve that appears finally poised to abandon its near-zero interest rate policy. The impact of rate rises will lead not only to more expensive borrowing from banks and a heavier debt servicing load, but also to slower capital inflows and a reversal in asset price inflation.

A slowing China and a Fed with less of an excuse to maintain low rates mean tighter monetary policies, diminishing credit quality and the inability for most emerging markets to grow out of problems.

In the first half, particularly the first quarter, Chinese net exports of goods rose more than 150 per cent — a performance unlikely to be repeated, economists say. Financial services were a significant contributor to gross domestic product — also unlikely to happen again given the huge correction in Chinese shares. China is no longer the engine for the growth of those that supplied it with the raw materials that powered its own growth. Indeed Goldman calculates that fixed asset investment accounted for a mere

15 per cent of GDP in the first quarter, compared with more than 50 per cent in the past.

Meanwhile emerging-market companies incorrectly assumed that Chinese growth would continue its rapid pace. In retrospect it is clear that many invested too much and paid with too much borrowed money. In the first quarter of 2015 bank credit in emerging Asia hit an all-time high of 113 per cent of GDP. That will make companies in many emerging markets feel more pain when the Fed finally moves, especially those that borrowed dollars, which seemed so cheap.

Emerging market central banks, mindful of the threat of capital outflows, will find it tough to ease their own rates to support growth at a time when both domestic and external demand are turning down.

All this implies negative second-round effects — some predictable, others not. As growth slows and trade shrinks, both shippers and shipyards remain in a funk, for example. Or consider the recent results Standard Chartered reported compared with those of HSBC, the first a proxy for emerging markets generally, the second much more of a proxy for China alone.

In the first half

StanChart

reported a 48 per cent decline in normalised earnings, while non-performing loans rose 17 per cent. “We also saw higher impairments on commodities-related exposures,” noted analysts at CreditSights, a research boutique.

The bank has almost $50bn in commodities-related exposure, energy accounting for over half, with a quarter coming from mining and quarrying. By contrast

HSBC

reported a 10 per cent rise in profits for the period. In

other words, the list of potential bearish bets grows longer by the day.

针对比主流观点更偏于看空中国的投资者们，花旗集团(Citigroup)的亚洲经济学家建议做空一组货币，包括至少以下九种：智利比索、挪威克朗，俄罗斯卢布，马来西亚林吉特，澳元，新西兰元、新台币，韩元和泰铢。

与此同时，高盛(Goldman Sachs)改变了一些长期宏观看法。10年前，考虑到美国增长放缓，债务水平较高，高盛鼓励投资者做空美元，同时在资产负债表较为干净、增长前景良好的新兴市场大举建仓，并做多投资不足和存在供应约束的大宗商品。

现在上述所有因素都颠倒了过来。“10年来，对大宗商品生产能力和新技术的投资，在大多数大宗商品市场导致了产能过剩，这将同时影响成本和大宗商品价格，在全球范围内引发通缩冲动，”高盛警告称。

许多经济学家明确指出，中国经济放缓的程度高于官方数据。“我们认为，实际增长率比公布出来的数据低得多——上半年公布的增长率为7%，实际上在5%左右，”花旗的经济学家们指出。但经济学家们没有直接点明的一点是，比起中国自己，中国经济放缓给其贸易伙伴和制造业竞争对手造成的困难更大。

此外，有两个方面可能出现更坏的情况。中国经济放缓的溢出效应可能十分严重，尤其是正值美联储(Fed)看上去终于准备放弃接近零利率的政策。美联储加息的影响不仅将导致从银行借贷的成本上升，偿债负担更为沉重，还将导致资本流入放缓，资产价格通胀出现逆转。

中国经济放缓和美联储维持低利率的理由减少，意味着货币政策将趋紧，导致信贷质量降低，并使大多数新兴国家更难以摆脱困境。

今年上半年，特别是首季度，中国的商品净出口额增长了逾150%——经济学家们表示，这样的表现不太可能再次出现。之前，金融服务是国内生产总值(GDP)的一大贡献因素，而考虑到中国股市近期的大幅调整，这种情况也不太可能再次发生。中国不再是原材料供应国的增长引擎，这些原材料在过去为中国增长提供了动力。事实上，据高盛计算，今年首季度固定资产投资只占中国GDP的15%，过去这个比例超过了50%。

另一方面，新兴市场企业错误地预计中国会保持快速增长。现在回想起来，显然许多企业投资了太多，而且其中太多的钱是借的。2015年首季度，亚洲新兴国家的银行信贷达到了GDP的113%，创历史最高纪录。在这种情况下，当美联储最终采取行动时，许多新兴市场企业将会倍加痛苦，尤其是那些借入美元（过去看上去很便宜）的企业。

顾及资本外流风险的新兴市场央行，会发现很难降低本国利率，以在国内外需求都下滑的时期为经济增长提供支持。

这些都意味着可能出现负面的二次效应——一些是可以预测的，其他一些则不能。比如，随着经济增长放缓，贸易萎缩，航运商和造船厂都会感到忧虑。或者可以将渣打银行(Standard Chartered)最近发布的业绩结果与汇丰(HSBC)的比较一下，前者可用于衡量新兴市场总体状况，后者则在很大程度上仅可反映中国情况。

今年上半年，渣打银行报告正常化盈利下降48%，不良贷款增长17%。“我们还看到，在大宗商品相关敞口方面出现更高的减值，”研究机构CreditSights的分析师们指出。

渣打银行与大宗商品相关的敞口接近500亿美元，其中能源占一半以上，采矿和采石占四分之一。相较之下，汇丰同期报告了10%的利润上升。换句话说，潜在看空押注对象的名单一天比一天更长了。

译者/许雯佳