【英语财经】中国经济增长的“中断”风险 China risks an economic discontinuity

David Daokui Lee, an influential Chinese economist, has argued that: “The stock market sell-off is not the problem?.?.?.?the problem — not a huge one, but a problem nonetheless — is the Chinese economy itself.” I agree with both points, with one exception. The problem may prove huge.

Market turmoil is not irrelevant. It matters that Beijing has spent $200bn on a failed attempt to prop up the stock market and that foreign exchange reserves fell by $315bn in the year to July 2015. It matters, too, that a search for scapegoats is in train. These are indicators of capital flight and policymaker panic. They tell us about confidence — or the lack of it.

Nevertheless, economic performance is ultimately decisive. The important economic fact about China is its past achievements. Gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) has risen from 3 per cent of US levels to some 25 per cent (see chart). GDP is an imperfect measure of the standard of living. But this transformation is no statistical artefact. It is visible on the ground.

The only “large”(bigger than city state) economies, without valuable natural resources, to achieve something like this since the second world war are Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam. Yet, relative to US levels, China’s GDP per head is where South Korea’s was in the mid-1980s. South Korea’s real GDP per head has since nearly quadrupled in real terms, to reach almost 70 per cent of US levels. If China became as rich as Korea, its economy would be bigger than those of the US and Europe combined[CLARIFY THIS? A BIT CONFUSING].

This is a case for long-run optimism. Against it is the caveat that “past performance is no guarantee of future performance”. Growth rates usually revert to the global mean. If China continued fast catch-up growth over the next generation it would be an extreme outlier [IE SINCE MID 80S?].

In emerging economies growth tends to be marked by “discontinuities”. But what Chinese policymakers call the “new normal” is not itself such a discontinuity. They believe they have overseen a smooth slowdown from annual growth of 10 per cent to still-fast growth of 7 per cent[WHEN?]. Is a far bigger slowdown possible? More important, would this be a temporary interruption, as in South Korea in the late 1990s crisis — or more permanent, as in Brazil in the 1980s or Japan in the 1990s?

There are at least three reasons why China’s growth might suffer a discontinuity: the current pattern is unsustainable; the debt overhang is large; and dealing with these challenges creates the risks of a sharp collapse in demand.

The most important fact about China’s current pattern of growth is its dependence on investment as a source of supply and demand (see charts). Since 2011 additional capital has been the sole source of extra output, with the contribution of growth of “total factor productivity” (measuring the change in output per unit of inputs) near zero. Moreover, the incremental capital output ratio, a measure of the contribution of investment to growth, has soared as returns on investment have tumbled.

The International Monetary Fund argues: “Without reforms, growth would gradually fall to around 5 per cent with steeply increasing debt.” But such a path would be unsustainable, not least because debts are already at such a high level. Thus “total social financing” — a broad credit measure — jumped from 120 per cent of GDP in 2008 to 193 per cent in 2014. The government can manage this overhang. But it must not let the build-up restart. The credit-dependent part of investment has to shrink.

The debt overhang is not the only reason why investment will wilt. Daniel Gros of the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies shows that the ratio of capital to output in China is on an explosive path. Remarkably, it is already far higher than in the US. If the capital-output ratio is merely to stabilise at current levels, and the economy is to grow at about 6 per cent, the investment share in GDP needs to fall by about 10 per cent. If that were to happen suddenly, the impact on demand would cause a slump. An investment share of 35 per cent of GDP (merely back to where it was in the early 2000s) would be a desirable outcome of reforms. But moving there swiftly would take a huge bite out of today’s domestic demand.

Many believe the economy is already growing far more slowly than the government admits. But the weaker the prospective rate of growth and the more uncertain are returns, the more rational it becomes to postpone investment, further slowing the growth of the economy.

The core argument for a discontinuity is that it is hard to move smoothly from an unsustainable path. The risk is that the economy slows much faster than almost anybody now expects. The government needs to work out a way of responding that does not increase global or domestic disequilibria. The best approach would be to continue with reforms, while trying to put more spending power into the hands of consumers and investing more in public consumption and environmental improvements. Such a response would be fully in keeping with China’s needs.

A discontinuity in China’s economic growth is now more likely than for decades; such a discontinuity might not be brief; and the challenge facing policymakers is huge. They need to re-engineer a slowing economy without crashing.

Moreover, the challenge is not only, or even mainly, technical. A big question is whether a market-driven economy is compatible with the growing concentration of political power. The next stage for China’s economy is a conundrum. Its resolution will shape the world.

一位有影响力的中国经济学家李稻葵提出：“股市抛售不是问题所在……问题——这不是个很大的问题，但无论如何是个问题——是中国经济本身。”（此文中文译文标题是《中国经济需要“针灸”刺激》，刊登于2015年9月1日FT中文网——编者注）我同意这两个观点，只有一点除外。事实可能证明，这个问题很大。

市场动荡并非无关紧要。很重要的一点是，中国政府拿出了2000亿美元救市（结果没有成功），同时在截止2015年7月的一年里，中国外汇储备下降了3150亿美元。同样重要的是，寻找替罪羊的行动已经在进行。这些替罪羊是衡量资本外逃和政策制定者惊慌心态的指标。它们向我们透露出信心状况，或者说缺乏信心的状况。

然而，从根本上来说，经济表现才是决定性的。中国经济中一个很重要的事实是其过往的成就。按购买力平价衡量，中国国内生产总值(GDP)从美国水平的3%升至约25%（见图）。GDP并不是衡量居民生活水平的完美指标。但如此巨大的变化不是人为捏造的统计结果，而是切实可见的。

二战后，缺乏宝贵自然资源而能取得类似成就的“大型”经济体（比城市国家大）只有日本、台湾、韩国和越南。然而，按相对于美国的水平计算，当前中国人均GDP仅相当于韩国在上世纪80年代中期的水平。韩国人均实际GDP自那以来几乎增长了3倍，达到美国水平的近70%。如果中国变得和韩国一样富裕，其经济规模将超过美国和欧洲的总和。

这是从长远而言让人乐观的一个理由。但须知“过去表现怎样，不代表未来也会怎样”。增长率通常会向全球平均水平回归。如果中国在下一代人的时间里延续快速的追赶式增长，那将是极端异常的。

新兴经济体的增长往往带有“不连续性”(discontinuity)。但中国政策制定者所说的“新常态”并没有这种不连续性的意味。他们相信，在他们的掌管下，中国经济增长年率已经从10%平滑地放缓至7%，这仍然是个较快的速度。是否可能出现大得多的放缓？更重要的是，那将是暂时性的，就像韩国在上世纪90年代末那场危机中一样，还是像上世纪80年代的巴西或者上世纪90年代的日本那样是长期性的？

中国经济增长可能呈现不连续的轨迹，原因至少有3点：当前模式是不可持续的；巨大的债务负担；以及应对这些挑战可能导致需求骤降的风险。

说到中国当前增长模式，最重要的一点是，中国经济依赖投资作为供给与需求的来源（见图）。自2011年以来，新增资本一直是新增产出的唯一来源，“全要素生产率”（total factor productivity，衡量单位投入的产量变化）对增长的贡献接近于零。此外，随着投资回报率暴跌，增量资本产出比率(incremental capital output ratio，衡量投资对增长贡献率）大幅飙升。

国际货币基金组织(IMF)指出：“如果不改革，增长将逐步降至5%的水平，同时债务急剧增加。”但这样的道路将是不可持续的，主要因为债务已经处于极高水平。“社会融资总量”（一个宽泛的信贷指标）与GDP的比例从2008年的120%升至2014年的193%。中国政府能够管理好这些债务。但必须避免让债务再次累积。投资中依赖于信贷的部分必须收缩。

债务负担不是投资将会萎缩的唯一原因。总部位于布鲁塞尔的欧洲政策研究中心(Centre of European Policy Studies)的丹尼尔?格罗斯(Daniel Gros)指出，在中国，资本产出比率处于急剧上升当中。引人注目的是，该比率已经远高于美国的水平。如果资本产出率在当前水平企稳，而且中国经济将以大约6%的速度增长，那么，投资占GDP的比重需要减少10%左右。如果突然发生这种情况，其对需求的冲击可能导致萧条。投资占GDP比重降至35%（这只是回到本世纪头十年初期的水平）将是令人满意的改革结果。但迅速降至这一水平将会让内需减少一大部分。

许多人相信，中国经济增速已经远远低于政府承认的水平。但预期增长率越低，回报率就越不确定，推迟投资就越显得合理，而这将进一步减缓经济增长的步伐。

可能出现不连续性的核心理由是，在一条不可持续的道路上很难平稳顺当地走出来。风险在于，中国经济放缓的速度可能远快于几乎所有人当前的预期。中国政府需要找到不会加剧全球或国内失衡的应对之策。上策是继续推进改革，同时增强消费者的购买力，并在公共消费和改善环境方面加大投资。这样的应对将完全符合中国的需要。

中国经济增长出现不连续状况的可能性是几十年来最高的；这种中断局面可能不是短暂的；政策制定者面临着巨大挑战，他们必须在不崩盘的情况下，对不断放缓的经济进行转型。

此外，技术上的挑战不是唯一的挑战，甚至也不是最主要的挑战。一个大问题是，市场经济是否能与政治权力的集中化相兼容？中国经济的下阶段走向成迷。其解决方案将影响全世界。

译者/何黎