【英语财经】评估中国经济形势需做实地考察 To assess China’s game policymakers need to get on to the pitch

Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, picked a good week to visit Hong Kong. Not only is the city preparing for Rugby Sevens weekend — one of the biggest parties in the world sporting calendar. He also came just as a paper from the International Monetary Fund said policymakers needed to factor emerging market developments increasingly into their decisions. China and Hong Kong should expect an upturn in visits.

“You can do the monetary policy job without travelling and getting the first-hand experience, but I do find it useful,” Mr Evans told the Financial Times this week.

The IMF outlined China’s rising influence clearly enough. Its financial integration with the rest of world was expected to accelerate, the paper said, and its financial influence overseas would probably catch up with its economic prowess.

Market participants might say this is priced in. Since last August’s surprise 1.9 per cent currency devaluation, China has frequently set the global market mood.

It has not yet usurped the US, however, because China is mostly considered a risk factor, not a potential source of positive news. US news and data have the power to raise as well as lower sentiment.

Yet unlike passing risks, such as Greece’s many near-collapses, China is becoming a staple input. Asian and European markets take their opening cue not just from closing levels in New York but also from Chinese news flow.

According to the IMF paper, more than a third of the changes in developed market returns can be traced to spill-overs from emerging markets. This holds for both stocks and currencies.

Trade linkages explain between 10 and 20 per cent of this EM spillover. Rising market integration is responsible for a further 30 to 40 per cent. Beyond that the IMF said the variables it had studied could not fully explain the growing links. More study on this effect is certainly needed.

In the case of China direct links are still at an early stage. Foreigners own less than 2 per cent of its bond market, which is the third-largest in the world, and about the same of its stock market. Beijing is about to open the bond markets to foreigners and MSCI, the index provider, has revived talks on adding mainland shares to its benchmarks. The renminbi, while internationalising rapidly, is still used in just 2 per cent of payments globally.

That all points to the fact that January’s worldwide market meltdown, prompted by fears over China, was more about mood than hard metrics. It was fear — and one not, so far, borne out by any marked worsening in Chinese data.

After months of soft readings, manufacturing numbers last week showed a slight pick-up, hitting their highest levels in months. Investors paid the price: the offshore renminbi, an important mechanism for weak-China bets, just finished its best quarter in more than three years.

This week two bank heads spoke up in China’s defence. Credit Suisse’s Tidjane Thiam pointed out that growth of between 6.5 and 7 per cent, as targeted by Beijing, was still far better than anywhere else. HSBC’s Stuart Gulliver called on investors to avoid assuming that the slow reform rate meant looming difficulties.

What he called some observers’ “pessimism” over China suggests that there is one link that needs improving: understanding elsewhere, particularly among western markets, of on-the-ground activity in China. A senior US investment banker, in Hong Kong this week for one of the conferences timed to coincide with the Sevens tournament, attributed this gap to the problems of applying US practices to China.

“The data are difficult to sift through — and we love data in the US — particularly the hedge funds,” he said.

Hong Kong fills with investors, bankers, executives and the odd policymaker for the Sevens. Mr Evans, who does not follow rugby, is leaving before the tournament begins. No one could argue with a straight face that a weekend of partying and sport was the best way to gather information on China. But more visits would be a starting point.

China’s impact on global markets is evolving too fast for mere number-crunching to keep up.

芝加哥联邦储备银行(Chicago Fed)行长查尔斯?埃文斯(Charles Evans)选了很合适的一周来造访香港。现在香港正准备迎接周末的七人榄球赛(Rugby Sevens)——全球体育日程上最大的盛会之一。埃文斯抵达香港之际，还正好赶上国际货币基金组织(IMF)发布报告指出，政策制定者越来越有必要在做决策时将新兴市场的动态考虑进来。料想来中国内地和香港的访客应该会越来越多。

埃文斯本周向英国《金融时报》表示：“你不旅行、不获得一手经验，也能制定出货币政策，但我发现旅行真的很有用。”

IMF足够清晰地概述了中国日益增长的影响力。IMF在报告中指出，预计中国将会加快与全球其他国家的金融一体化，它在海外的金融影响力很可能将赶上其经济实力。

市场参与者可能会说，这已经反映在价格当中。自去年8月人民币意外贬值1.9%以来，中国常常左右全球市场情绪。

然而，它还取代不了美国，因为中国主要被视为一个风险因素、而非利好消息的潜在来源。美国的新闻和数据既能改善市场情绪，也能打击市场情绪。

但与希腊多次接近崩盘等暂时性风险不同的是，中国正成为一个标配的风险输入源。亚洲和欧洲市场开盘时，不仅从纽约的收盘水平、也从中国的新闻流中获得指引。

IMF的报告显示，发达市场回报率的变化中，逾三分之一可追踪至新兴市场的溢出效应。股票和外汇市场的情况均是如此。

这种新兴市场溢出效应有10%至20%可以通过贸易联系得到解释。市场一体化程度加深又解释了30%至40%。IMF表示，就其余部分而言，它研究的变量无法完全解释这种日益增长的联系。对这种效应的影响做更多研究无疑很有必要。

就中国而言，直接联系仍处于早期阶段。外国人占中国债券市场（全球第三大债券市场）的份额不足2%，占其股票市场的份额也差不多。中国政府即将向外国人开放其债券市场，而指数提供商MSCI明晟已重提将A股纳入其基准股指的话题。人民币尽管迅速国际化，但在全球支付中所占比例仍然只有2%。

这全都表明一个事实，即今年1月因围绕中国的担忧而出现的全球性市场下跌更多的是情绪，而非确凿数据所致。它是担忧造成的，而这种担忧迄今没有得到中国数据显著恶化的佐证。

在经过几个月的疲弱表现后，上周的制造业数据略有回升，触及数月最高。投资者付出了代价：离岸人民币汇率刚刚结束3年多以来表现最佳的季度——离岸人民币是看跌中国的重要手段。

本周，两位银行掌门人发声为中国辩护。瑞士信贷(Credit Suisse)首席执行官提贾尼?蒂亚姆(Tidjane Thiam)指出，6.5%至7%的增速（中国政府设定的目标值）仍远高于其他任何国家。汇丰(HSBC)行政总裁欧智华(Stuart Gulliver)呼吁投资者不要认为改革速度缓慢就意味着迫在眉睫的困境。

这表明有一个环节需要改善：其他地区（特别是西方市场）对中国实际情况的理解。一位美国高级投资银行家将这种理解不足，归咎于把美国的惯例套用到中国身上。他本周在香港参加会议，会议时间特意安排在七人榄球赛这个时候。

他表示：“数据很难说得通，而在美国，我们喜欢数据，对冲基金尤其如此。”

眼下香港聚集着许多打算观看七人榄球赛的投资者、银行家、公司高管，还来了一位不打算观赛的政策制定者。埃文斯不关注橄榄球，他将在比赛开始前离港。没有人可以一本正经的辩称，一个周末的聚会和观赛是收集关于中国的信息的最佳方式。但更多人前来造访开了一个头。

中国对全球市场的影响演变得太快，仅仅分析数据是无法跟上形势的。

译者/何黎