【英语中国】中国债务的危险路口

The Chinese government says its debt problem is under control, but the people of Pianpo village have cause to disagree. Over the past year they have seen their water cut off, rubbish pile up in the streets and their wages go unpaid as debt has mounted.

An elevated motorway soars over the villagers’ concrete homes, meant to connect them to central Guiyang, one of China’s fastest-growing cities. Instead, the slip road to Pianpo ends in a patch of gravel.

The state-owned company building the road took on too much debt and could not pay its construction workers. Water pipes were dismantled when the roadworks began but were never repaired when cash ran short. A couple of times a day, Chen Xiuxiang, 75, trudges up a hill to fetch his weight in water – 120 pounds – from a working tap, carrying two buckets on a wooden pole across his shoulders. Most Pianpo residents do the same.

“They keep promising they’ll fix things but they never do,” says Mr Chen.

For most of its past 30 years of growth averaging 10.5 per cent, China did not rely on credit. But it has become ever more reliant on debt since the global financial crisis, drawing on banks, bonds and an array of lightly regulated institutions to keep its economy roaring.

This debt dependency has put China at a dangerous crossroads. If the government is serious about containing financial risks, growth may slow sharply as it weans the country off debt, burdening the global economy. Yet that prospect is less frightening than the alternative. If the government loses its nerve, the debt bubble will continue to expand, raising the spectre of economic turmoil.

“Risks over China’s financial stability have grown. Credit has grown significantly faster than gross domestic product,” Fitch Ratings gave warning this year when it cut China’s sovereign rating, the first such downgrade by a big international agency since 1999.

Total debt in China – government, corporate and household – has shot up from 130 per cent of gross domestic product in 2008 to nearly 200 per cent today, or more than Rmb100tn ($16.3tn), according to Chinese central bank data. Such a rapid increase in borrowing has historically led to crises in countries from Argentina to South Korea.

The trail of debt in China starts on the desks of ambitious government officials, especially at the municipal level. Capital of the southwestern province of Guizhou, Guiyang is one of China’s poorer cities, but it has boomed in recent years – and it is a prime example of its debt-fuelled economic model. “We need to struggle for GDP,” Yuan Zhou, Guiyang’s then mayor, thundered in a radio interview in 2011. “Only with higher GDP will people’s lives be improved.”

To stimulate growth, local officials deployed a simple technique, one replicated throughout the country. The government appropriated rural land on the cheap from farmers, sold it to property developers at a mark-up, and the developers in turn built dense clusters of tower blocks.

“The government is the engine and the market gives it a push,” is the slogan at an urban planning hall, where a diorama of the Guiyang of the future looks like Manhattan on steroids.

Guiyang’s growth has relied on a constant ratcheting up of investment. To keep the local economy growing at 15 per cent a year, the government has needed real estate companies to buy ever more land and build ever more homes.

One of the city’s first big developments was Century Town, completed in 2010 and designed for 40,000 people. Soon after came Future Ark, planned to accommodate 170,000 residents. Cranes are now erecting towers for Garden City, which will be large enough for 350,000 people – more than one in 10 of Guiyang’s residents.

Garden City will have 31 bus lines, 10 shopping centres and eight schools. Its showroom, which sits just beyond a fake lake festooned with plastic dinosaurs, has been buzzing with prospective homebuyers this summer. But the property developments that preceded it offer cautionary tales.

Zheng Wei, a salesman at Century City, says that its rows upon rows of identical grey flats are only half occupied. Many of the shop spaces at its base are shut, a thick film of dust coating their windows. “Because there are so few people here, no businesses dare open,” he says.

Future Ark has plastered Guiyang in advertisements – motorway hoardings, glossy leaflets, signs on taxis and jingles on the radio. “Buyers used to chase us. Now we chase them,” a saleswoman says.

The slowdown in housing sales is not just a problem for the developers. It has also started to expose the extent to which government debt has underpinned the property frenzy.

Officially, Guiyang’s debt load is tiny, just 17 per cent of its municipal GDP. Yet any accurate tally has to look beyond the official figures to what are known as “local government financing vehicles”.

By law, China’s local governments are not allowed to fall into debt – they cannot borrow from banks or issue bonds. But there is a loophole. Cities, towns and villages can create financing vehicles at arm’s length. Owned by local governments but incorporated as companies, they have a free hand to borrow cash.

And borrow they have, playing a crucial role in the transfer of government-owned land to property companies. The financing vehicles raise the funds needed to resettle displaced farmers, build roads and dig sewers, making the land attractive to investors.

In Guiyang, there are at least five official financing vehicles, all established since 2008. If their liabilities are added up, the city’s debt ratio last year would have tripled to 58 per cent of GDP. It’s a similar picture across China: analysts think government debts run anywhere from 40 to 80 per cent of GDP, up at least twofold since the start of the financial crisis.

The biggest of Guiyang’s financing vehicles is the City Construction and Investment Group, the company that was responsible for building the half-finished motorway through Pianpo.

For a company so central to Guiyang’s development, it is very discreet. Its listed address does not exist. With help, it can eventually be tracked down to a four-floor villa in a quiet residential neighbourhood, identified only by a small doorplate. Guiyang City Investment, as it is known, declined to comment for this article, saying it was too busy.

Disclosure requirements have forced it to be more forthcoming when issuing bonds. It has explained that it is the “main body” for financing Guiyang’s infrastructure development. Those bond documents also reveal that its debt-to-asset ratio fell to 51.2 per cent this year from 73 per cent in 2010. If all was well, this decline would indicate a reduction in leverage. But what it actually reflects is an increase in its asset holdings – that is, land – and in the value ascribed to that land. Its assets nearly doubled from Rmb35bn in 2010 to Rmb64bn this year.

And those assets have not fared so well of late. With the property market coming off the boil, Guiyang City Investment has not sold enough land to real estate developers meet its financial commitments. “Its ability to service its debt is continually declining,” says Dagong, a Chinese rating agency. So vast are its land holdings that Dagong estimates it would take 28 years to sell them.

Late last year the worries about debt stopped being hypothetical for Guiyang City Investment. Regulators deemed it unable to make interest payments in full and China Development Bank, a large lender, refused to advance it any more money, according to a local government notice.

The motorway through Pianpo was one casualty. Unpaid construction workers went on strike. “We blockaded the motorway with trucks until we got what was owed us,” says Wen Zhang, a burly driver.

The residents of Pianpo did not have the same influence. First, they lost their running water. Then the government stopped paying sanitation workers, leaving rubbish to pile up on the streets. Determined to complete the motorway, Guiyang City Investment went back to China Development Bank to negotiate financing.

When enough land was posted as collateral, the bank relented, though only in part. It lent Rmb1bn – half of what had been requested. The money was enough to pave the road through Pianpo but not to finish the sliproad or connect the water pipes.

Additional reporting by Emma Dong

【编者按】本文为英国《金融时报》“中国债务困局”系列报道的第一篇。FT中文网将在近期陆续刊发该系列其它文章，敬请关注。

中国政府声称，国内债务问题已经得到了控制，但偏坡村的民众却有理由不同意这种说法。在过去一年中，由于当地债务不断攀升，该村曾一度出现供水被切断、街道上垃圾堆积成山、以及村民工资被拖欠的情况。

一条高架车道从村民们居住的混凝土房屋上方越过，其本意是把偏坡村与贵州省会贵阳联接起来，后者是中国发展最快的城市之一。然而，通往偏坡的支路却在一个碎石堆处戛然而止。

修建这条公路的国有企业借入的债务过多，已无力支付建筑工人的薪水。路段附近的供水管在公路开始修建时被拆除，但由于资金短缺一直没有修复。一天中有好几次，现年75岁的陈秀祥（Chen Xiuxiang，音译）会用一根木棍肩挑两个水桶，步履艰难地爬上一座小山取水——约110斤的水和他的体重差不多——那里有一个水龙头仍能出水。偏坡村的绝大多数居民都是这么做的。

陈秀祥表示：“他们不断许诺会把水管修上，可他们说话不算数。”

过去30年，中国的年均经济增速达到了10.5%。在其中的绝大多数时间内，中国并没有依靠信贷来推动经济发展。但自全球金融危机爆发以来，中国对于债务的依赖程度越来越高，依靠银行贷款、债券发行以及一系列监管宽松的机构来维持着经济快速增长。

对于债务的依赖把中国带到了一个危险的十字路口。如果中国政府对于遏制金融风险动真格，那么切断对债务的依赖可能导致增长显著放缓，并因此拖累全球经济。但与另一种可能的前景相比，这种情况还不算太严重。如果中国政府不敢出手，那么债务泡沫将继续膨胀，发生经济动荡的可能性将会增大。

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“威胁中国金融稳定性的风险已经增大，信贷增速大大超过了国内生产总值(GDP)的增速，”惠誉评级(Fitch Ratings)今年下调中国主权信用评级时发出了以上警告，这是这家国际大型机构自1999年以来首次做出此类评级下调。

根据中国央行提供的数据，中国债务总额（政府、企业以及家庭债务之和）已超过100万亿元人民币（合16.3万亿美元），2008年其对GDP的比例达到130%，目前上升到了200%。历史上，从阿根廷到韩国，信贷增长这么快的国家都爆发了经济危机。

中国债务问题源于雄心勃勃的政府官员的办公桌，尤其是在地市一级。贵阳是中国西南部省份贵州的省会，其城乡居民收入在国内处于较低水平，但该市近年来发展非常快——这是债务驱动型增长模式的典型例子。2011年，时任贵阳市长袁周在一次电台访谈中大声疾呼：“在我们贫困地区，我觉得GDP是个好东西，我们要追求的东西，要奋斗的东西。只有GDP提高了，增加了，老百姓的生活才能得到改善。”

为刺激经济增长，地方官员采取了一种简单的策略，这种办法在中国各地被广泛复制。政府以低价从农民手中征得农用土地，按一定溢价幅度出售给房地产开发商，开发商随后再建起密集的高层小区楼群。

“政府是发动机，市场是助推器”——这是贵阳城乡规划展览馆里的一条标语，馆中展示着贵阳未来面貌的立体模型，看起来就像是打了类固醇激素的曼哈顿。

贵阳的经济增长依靠的是不断扩大投资规模。为了保持当地经济实现每年15%的增速，贵阳市政府需要房地产公司购买更多土地，建造更多房屋。

世纪城(Century Town)是贵阳首批规模最大的房地产开发项目之一，于2010年完工，计划住户数量达到4万人。而不久之后又推出了未来方舟(Future Ark)楼盘，计划容纳17万名居民。花果园(Garden City)楼盘的高楼正在建设当中，该小区能够容纳35万人——占贵阳全市人口比重超过十分之一。

花果园将配套建设31条公交路线，10个购物中心，以及8所学校。该楼盘的展示大厅与住宅区仅间隔了一个人工湖，湖中用塑料恐龙作为装饰。今年夏季来此看房的潜在买家络绎不绝。但在该小区之前的楼盘开发则出现了令人警醒的信号。

世纪城的销售员郑伟（Zheng Wei，音译）表示，该楼盘一排又一排完全一样的灰色公寓，入住率只有五成。很多位于底楼的商铺已经关门歇业，窗玻璃上积了一层厚厚的灰尘。郑伟称：“因为小区的居民太少，没有商家敢于在此开业。”

未来方舟在贵阳市内大做广告宣传——包括公路两旁的巨幅广告牌，花哨的宣传手册、出租车上的宣传标记以及电台广播中的广告歌曲。一名售楼小姐表示：“过去是客户追着我们要买房，现在是我们倒过来央求客户买房。”

房屋销售放缓已不仅仅是房地产开发商的问题，也开始彰显政府债务在多大程度上为房地产开发热潮提供了支撑。

按照官方说法，贵阳的债务负担很低，仅相当于该市GDP的17%。但准确测算债务规模需要越过官方数据，考察所谓的“地方政府融资工具”。

按照法律规定，中国地方政府不能借债——既不能从银行贷款，也不能发行债券。但相关法律存在一个漏洞，市、县、乡可以设立间接的融资工具。这类机构由地方政府所有，但按公司形式组建，它们拥有借款的自由。

而它们的借款行为在将政府所有土地转让给地产开发商的过程中扮演了关键角色。这些融资工具筹集资金用于重新安置被征地农民，此外还修建道路，挖好下水道，使地块在投资者看来具有吸引力。

在贵阳，至少存在5个政府融资工具，都成立于2008年以后。如果计入这些融资工具的债务总额，那么去年贵阳市的债务与GDP之比将提高两倍，达到58%。中国各地的情况与都贵阳类似：分析师们认为，目前政府债务对GDP的比例在40%至80%之间，较金融危机爆发时至少翻了一番。

贵阳规模最大的融资工具是贵阳城市建设投资（集团）有限公司(City Construction and Investment Group，简称“贵阳城投集团公司”)，那条通过偏坡村、目前仅完工一半的公路就是该公司负责修建的。

作为一家对于贵阳发展具有极其重要影响的公司，该机构行事非常谨慎。它所公布的地址并不存在。在他人的帮助之下，记者最终追踪到了一个幽静住宅区内的一栋四层别墅，仅能靠一小块门牌进行确认。这家常被称为“贵阳城投集团”的机构拒绝了记者的置评请求，称其工作非常繁忙。

信息披露要求迫使贵阳城投在发行债券时提供更多信息。该机构解释称，它是贵阳市基础设施建设的融资“主体”。债券相关文件还显示，贵阳城投的资产负债率从2010年的73%降至了今年的51.2%。如果一切顺利，这一降幅本应表明该公司的杠杆水平走低。但事实上，这反映出的是该公司资产（即土地）规模的上升，以及对土地估值水平的上升。该公司的资产规模近乎翻了一番，从2010年的350亿元人民币增至今年的640亿元人民币。

不过近段时间，这些土地资产的收益状况不太令人满意。由于房地产市场逐渐降温，贵阳城投集团未能向房地产开发商售出足够多的土地，进而无法实现自身的财务业绩承诺。中国大公国际资信评估公司(Dagong Global Credit Rating)表示：“事实上该机构的偿债能力正在不断下降。”贵阳城投集团的土地储备规模过大，以至于大公国际估计其需要28年时间才能出清。

去年年底，对于贵阳城投集团债务的担忧已不再只是一种假设。监管当局认为该机构无力全额偿付利息；而贵阳地方政府的一份通知显示，大型银行国家开发银行(CDB)拒绝再贷给贵阳城投任何资金。

穿过偏坡村的公路就是受此影响的项目之一。未能领到薪酬的建筑工人们进行了罢工。身材魁梧的司机文章（Wen Zhang，音译）表示：“我们用卡车把公路封死，拿不到拖欠的工资，我们就绝不走。”

偏坡村的居民不具备同样的影响力。首先，他们失去了自来水供应。其次，政府停止了向保洁工人支付薪水，导致街道上垃圾成堆。贵阳城投集团下定决心要完成公路建设，于是再回去找国开行商议融资。

在足量土地被用作抵押品后，国家开发银行动了怜悯之心，不过只是在某些方面。该行贷出了人民币10亿元——仅为贵阳城投集团请求金额的二分之一。这笔钱足够把公路修到偏坡村，但不足以完成连接该村的支路，以及修复供水管。

董慧(Emma Dong)补充报道

译者/马拉