【英语财经】中国经济结构转型尚未开始 China’s great economic shift needs to begin

Chinese policymakers have a stellar reputation for the quality of economic management?but the same was true of the Japanese three decades ago. For the Japanese, the difficulty of shifting from their high-savings, high-investment, “catch-up” economic model proved very large. Indeed, this has still not been completed. While the Chinese economy has far more room to grow than Japan a quarter of a century ago, its disequilibria are even bigger. Moreover, contrary to conventional wisdom, the transition to a new pattern of growth has not really begun.

Already, the difficulty of handling this transition is damaging Chinese policymakers’ reputation. Mistakes in handling the implosion of the “bubble economy” of the 1980s did the damage in Japan. Now it is the Chinese authorities’ mishandling of the currency and the stock market. Similarly, the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 devastated the reputation of western financiers and policymakers. Everybody seems to be a genius when credit is surging.

Understandably and rightly, observers are calling upon the Chinese authorities to be more transparent. Given their political system — “the bureaucrat knows best” — that is going to be hard to do, but this is a second-order matter. The first-order one is that it is unclear how and whether the transition to a more balanced economy is to be made,

Again, some people focus on the transition from manufacturing to services. This does seem to be going quite well: according to Chinese data, industry grew at an annual rate of just 6 per cent in the first three quarters of 2015, while services grew 8.4 per cent. However, a large part of this apparent success is due to growth of income from financial services. Just as was the case in the west, before the crisis, this is as much a symptom of credit growth as of a transition to a more balanced “new normal”.

The fundamental indicators of a change in the shape of the economy would be a fall in savings and investment and a rise in consumption. Such a shift is necessary not only because much of the investment is wasted, but because it is associated with an explosive rise in debt. China has today a far higher share of investment in gross domestic product than other high-growth east Asian economies ever had. Furthermore, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, overall indebtedness is extremely high with a concentration in non-financial corporations. It is higher than in the US, for example. (See charts.)

In response to the 2008 financial crisis, China promoted a huge rise in debt-fuelled investment to offset the weakening in external demand. But underlying growth in the economywas slowing. As a result, the “incremental capital output ratio” — the amount of capital needed to generate additional income — has roughly doubled since the early 2000s. China’s overall capital-output ratio is also very high and rising. At the margin, much of this investment is likely to be lossmaking. If so, the debt associated with it will also be unsound. But, if wasteful investment were slashed, the economy would go into recession.

What is needed is a measured adjustment in the economic structure, with credit-fuelled investment falling and consumption rising as shares of GDP. Is this happening? No, or at least it is happening far too slowly . The investment share has fallen slightly while the explosion in indebtedness continues: the ratio of debt to GDP was 157 per cent at the end of 2007, 250 per cent at the end of 2013 and 290 per cent at the end of the second quarter of 2015.

Again, household disposable incomes were just 61 per cent of GDP in 2013 (the most recent year for which data are available). This is a little above the low of 59 per cent in 2008 and 5 percentage points below where it was in 2000. Chinese households also save about a third of disposable incomes. This explains why consumption is only some 40 per cent of GDP. Again, the shift in incomes towards households, needed to raise the consumption share in GDP decisively, is happening at a glacial pace.

In brief, demand continues to depend on growth of wasteful, debt-fuelled investment. The shifts in the economic structure needed to remove this dependency are just not happening.

Are there alternatives? Yes. The first would be to let investment decline and replace it with a bigger current account surplus. A weakening currency would help this along. Given the fierce desire of the Chinese people to take their money out of the country, shown in the decline of the foreign currency reserves, this could well happen under the freely floating exchange rate the US demands. However, a Chinese surplus of, say, 10 per cent of GDP, would surely be far too large for the world to handle.

The second possibility would be to run a far larger fiscal deficit. This could be used to transfer spending power to Chinese households. That would also shift rising indebtedness towards government from the rest of the economy.

The reality is that the Chinese economy is not becoming consumption-led. Indeed, given the low share of households in GDP, it cannot be consumption-led. It continues to be heavily dependent on debt-financed investment. The authorities face a dilemma: either continue to drive wasteful growth or push through radical reforms that might be destabilising in the short term but fruitful in the long term.

Whatever the rhetoric, the path chosen so far is the former, but that is also likely to be one of disappointing growth, soaring debt and even a financial shock. Chinese policymakers are unlikely to regain their reputations soon.

中国政策制定者的经济管理水平享有盛誉。然而，30年前的日本人也同样如此。事实证明，摆脱高储蓄、高投资、“后发追赶式”经济模式，对日本人来说是非常困难的。事实上，这一过程至今仍未完成。虽然比起四分之一世纪前的日本，中国经济发展的空间要大得多，但是中国经济的不均衡性也更大。此外，与通常认为的相反，向新增长模式的转型还未真正开始。

应对这一转型的困难，已经在毁坏中国政策制定者的声誉了。当年在日本，当局的声誉毁于它在应对上世纪80年代“泡沫经济”破裂过程中所犯的错误。如今在中国，当局的声誉毁于它对外汇市场和股市的不当应对。与此类似的，是2007年和2008年金融危机毁了西方金融人士和政策制定者的声誉。在信贷激增的时代，每个人看起来似乎都是天才。

观察人士正在呼吁中国当局提高透明度——这一点可以理解，也合情合理。考虑到他们的政治体制是“领导说了算”，这一点将很难实现，不过这其实是摆在第二位的事。摆在第一位的事情是，目前仍不清楚是否要实现向更平衡经济的转型，以及这一转型如何实现。

部分人又一次把注意力集中在了从制造业向服务业的转型上。这方面的进展看起来确实相当不错：根据中国官方数据，2015年头三个季度工业年化增长率只有6%，而服务业则增长了8.4%。然而，这种表面上的成功在很大程度上来自金融服务业收入的增长。正如西方在金融危机前的情况一样，这既可以说体现了经济在向更平衡的“新常态”转型，也可以说反映了信贷的增长。



经济模式转变的根本性指标，应该是储蓄与投资的下滑以及消费的增长。这种转型之所以必要，不仅仅是因为许多投资是浪费，还因为投资和债务的爆发式增长有关。如今，中国投资占国内生产总值(GDP)的比重远高于东亚其他高增长经济体的历史最高水平。此外，根据麦肯锡全球研究所(McKinsey Global Institute)的数据，中国的整体负债率极高，而且集中于非金融类公司。中国的整体负债率超过了多个发达国家，比如美国。（参见图表）

为应对2008年的金融危机，中国推动以债务为资金来源的投资大举增加，以弥补外部需求的疲软。然而，中国经济最根本的增速却在放缓。结果是，自2000年代初以来，中国的“增量资本产出率”（让产出增加一个单位所需的投资）已大致翻了一番。中国的整体资本产出比也很高，而且还在不断攀升。以边际效益计算，这些投资很大部分可能都是亏损的。如果是这样的话，与这些投资相联系的债务也将是不安全的。然而，如果把浪费性的投资砍掉，中国经济会陷入衰退。



中国需要的，是对经济结构的审慎调整，让信贷助推的投资占GDP的比重下降，消费占GDP的比重上升。这种情况正在发生么？答案是否定的，或者至少可以说发生得太慢了。投资所占比重略微有所下降，而负债率仍在爆发式增长：2007年底债务与GDP之比为157%，2013年底该比例为250%，而2015年第二季度末该比例则为290%。

此外，2013年（有数据可查的最近年份）中国家庭可支配收入与GDP之比只有61%。这比2008年59%的低点稍高一点，却比2000年的水平低了5个百分点。中国居民还把大约三分之一的可支配收入存了起来。这一点能够解释为何消费只占GDP的约40%。而且，收入向居民手中转移的过程也发生得极为缓慢，而这一过程又是决定性提高消费占GDP比重所必须的。

简单地说，需求继续依赖于浪费性的、债务驱动的投资的增长，而消除这种依赖所需要的经济结构转型并没有发生。

还有其他的办法么？答案是肯定的。首先一个办法是让投资减少，用提高经常项目顺差来弥补投资的减少。本币走弱会有助于实现这个目标。考虑到中国人将资金带出中国的强烈愿望（反映在中国外汇储备的下滑中），一旦实施美国呼吁中国实施的浮动汇率制，就很可能出现人民币走弱。不过，如果中国的顺差占GDP比重达到比方说10%，将肯定是全球远远无法承受的。



第二种可能性是维持比现在大得多的财政赤字。这样做或许可以将消费能力转移到中国居民手中，或许还可以把不断攀升的负债从中国经济其他部门转移到政府头上。

现实情况是，中国经济并没有在向消费拉动型经济模式转变。事实上，考虑到居民收入与GDP的比例之低，中国经济不可能是消费拉动型，而是依然严重依赖于以债务为资金来源的投资。中国当局面临一个两难境地：要么继续推动浪费型增长，要么推动根本性改革——这种改革在短期内可能造成不稳定，长期内却会结出丰硕成果。

不论中国嘴上怎么说，到目前为止它选择的道路还是前一条。然而，这条道路也可能带来令人失望的经济增速、飙升的债务、甚至一场金融动荡。短期内，中国的政策制定者是不太可能重建声誉了。

译者/简易