【英语财经】对中国经济前景的不同解读 Reconciling divergent views on China’s economy

Never have views on China’s growth prospects been so tentative. For Beijing — and a shrinking share of optimists — the country can grow at about 6-7 per cent annually in the coming five years. But for the more hardened pessimists, a collapse to 3-4 per cent or even lower is coming.

For a country subject to so much scrutiny? one would think a consensus would emerge. In this case, however, the divergence comes from both sides seeing China as a highly distorted economy. The optimists see the distortions as a source of increased productivity, if addressed; while the pessimists see them leading to economic demise. How does one reconcile this paradox?

The pessimists see a country where excessive state involvement has led to multiple emerging risks, from surging debt levels to a runaway property market. Even one such predicament can break an economy — dealing with several would seem to be an impossible undertaking.

For the optimists, the potential destabilising factors are exaggerated. After rising sharply since the global financial crisis, China’s debt-to-GDP ratio of about 250 per cent is judged to be excessively high. But this number puts China in the middle of the pack — higher than most developing countries but lower than most developed — about where one would expect.

Most of the increased leverage financed a surge in asset prices, notably an eightfold dollar increase in property prices when housing was privatised more than a decade ago. The debt cum property price surge is a risk that needs managing; but it is also a consequence of “financial deepening” — a good thing as markets sought to establish values for an undervalued asset. However, an increasing share of the more recent rise in debt levels has gone into propping up zombie industries and servicing the debt of state agents, both local governments and companies, which is intensifying risks.

China’s property market is overbuilt and it will take another year or so for the excess stock to be fully absorbed, especially in the secondary cities. Thus a near-term rebound in GDP growth is not in the cards but neither is a hard landing. In the medium term, China still has options that most other faltering economies do not have to re-establish a moderately rapid growth path without relying so much on indiscriminate credit expansion. Those holding this more charitable view see a country that has consistently defied expectations by gradually but steadfastly addressing the many glaring distortions that have hampered its transition to a more efficient growth process.

The challenges, however, are more difficult now than a decade ago, when the need was almost exclusively on the “supply” side of the equation: to increase the productive capacity of the system. These days sustained growth also means solving the problem of inadequate demand, brought on by weakening global markets for China’s exports and tepid investment needs at home. In the past, Beijing was successful in implementing reforms that led to the productivity increases that solved the supply problem, notably the trade liberalisation measures that led to World Trade Organisation membership and the initial round of enterprise and banking reforms launched amid the Asian financial crisis.

In dealing with today’s demand and supply concerns, Beijing can draw on its 2013 Third Plenum reform policy statement, specifically that the market should play a “decisive” role in allocating resources. Priority reforms include a more efficient urbanisation process that would allow workers to move freely to where the more productive jobs are by removing the barriers to settling in the largest cities. This would increase demand for urban services and related investment returns. Big productivity gains would also be realised by narrowing the gap in rates of return between private and state-owned enterprises. More radical approaches are needed than the ownership diversification measures being promoted, including allowing more bankruptcies to free up resources and opening entry to private competition in services such as education, health, finance, telecoms and energy.

In dealing with the demand problem, the low share of consumption in GDP is partly a structural issue. Since household consumption has been growing at globally high 8 per cent annually in real terms for more than a decade, it cannot be solved by simply encouraging households to consume more. Instead, attention needs to focus on restructuring the budget. As a socialist economy, the state controls almost all of China’s most important assets; and the returns, in the form of rents and profits, accrue largely to the state rather than directly to households. Short of privatising ownership of such assets, buoying up overall consumption demand depends on increasing the share of services and transfers provided to households through the fiscal system.

Unlike the EU and US, where one can reasonably question whether social welfare expenditure is excessive, China’s social expenditure as a share of GDP are about half that of other upper middle income and OECD economies. Fiscal reforms that result in a stronger revenue base and higher social and environmental expenditure would offset any decline in investment and solve the demand problem. Add to this effort the productivity related reforms, and China could achieve its five year plan growth target of 6.5 per cent, bridging the gap between what the optimists and pessimists have in mind. Whether such actions will be taken, however, is still a question — even among the optimists.

The author is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment and a former World Bank country director for China

各方对中国经济增长前景的看法从未像现在这样没有把握。对于北京方面——以及人数越来越少的乐观者——而言，中国在未来5年里可保持大约6%至7%的增长率。但在更顽固的悲观者看来，中国的增速即将大幅放慢至3%至4%，甚至更低。

对于一个受到如此密切关注的国家，人们会认为各方将形成一个共识看法。然而，中国引起看法分歧的来源在于，双方都把中国看成是一个高度扭曲的经济体。乐观者认为，只要加以应对，那么扭曲可以成为提高生产率的源泉；而悲观者认为，扭曲将引发经济衰亡。我们该如何理顺这个矛盾？

悲观者看到，在中国，过多政府干预导致了多重风险的显现，从债务水平飙升至房地产市场失控。只要有一个这样的困境就可以搞垮一个经济体，应对多重困境似乎将是无法完成的任务。

在乐观主义者看来，潜在的破坏稳定因素被夸大了。自全球金融危机以来，中国的债务与国内生产总值(GDP)之比大幅上升，如今约250%的水平被认为过高。但是，中国的这个比例只是处在中游——高于大多数发展中国家，但低于大多数发达国家——大致处在外界对中国的预期水平。

新增的杠杆大部分推高了资产价格，特别是，如今的房地产价格（以美元计）是十几年前住房开始私有化时的8倍。债务助推的房地产价格飙升，构成了一种需要应对的风险；但这也是“金融深化”带来的一个后果，是一件好事，因为市场在寻求为一项低估的资产确立价值。然而，在最近的债务水平上升中，越来越多的资金被用于扶持僵尸行业并偿还国有机构（包括地方政府和企业）的债务利息，这加重了风险。

中国楼市处于过度建设状态，还需要一年左右才能完全吸收过剩库存，尤其是在二线城市。因此GDP增长率短期反弹不太可能发生，但是经济硬着陆也不太可能。从中期来看，中国仍然拥有其他大多数步履蹒跚的经济体所不具备的一些选择，能够重新进入一条适度快速的增长轨道，而不必太依赖不加区别的信贷扩张。在持有这一更宽宏大量的观点的人看来，中国已不断地超越人们的预期，渐进而又坚定地应对很多突出的扭曲，这些扭曲妨碍了其向更高效率的增长过程转型。

然而，当前的挑战比十年前更为严峻，那时要做的事情几乎都在等式的“供给”侧：提高系统的生产力。如今，持续增长也意味着要解决需求不足的问题——起因是全球市场对中国出口的需求在降低，而中国国内的投资需求也萎靡不振。过去，北京方面成功地实施了提高生产率、从而解决供给问题的改革，尤其是采取了推动中国加入世贸组织(WTO)的贸易自由化措施，并在亚洲金融危机期间启动了第一轮企业和银行业改革。

中国债务水平为何令人担忧？在解决眼下的需求和供应问题方面，北京方面可以利用2013年十八届三中全会的改革政策声明，特别是市场应该在资源配置上发挥“决定性”作用这一点。优先推行的改革包括开启更高效率的城镇化进程，通过消除在大城市定居的障碍，让劳动力自由流向更具成效的就业岗位集中的地区。这将扩大对城市服务业和相关投资回报的需求。通过缩小私营企业和国有企业之间的回报率差距，也可以大幅提高生产率。除了正在试点示范的混合所有制改革，还需要采取更为激进的改革举措，其中包括允许更多破产以释放资源，以及开放教育、医疗、金融、电信和能源等行业的服务准入，让私营企业参与竞争。

在解决需求问题上，消费在GDP中的占比较低在一定程度上属于结构性问题。由于家庭消费（扣除物价因素）以每年8%这一全球较高的速度连续增长了10年以上，单纯鼓励家庭增加消费已经无法解决需求问题。相反，北京方面的注意力应该集中在调整预算结构上。在中国这样的社会主义经济，国家控制着几乎所有最重要的资产；回报（以租金和利润为形式）主要归国家所有，而非直接归属于家庭。除非将这类资产的所有权私有化，否则对整体消费需求的支撑依赖于提高服务业的占比，以及通过财政体系转移给家庭的福利。

在欧盟和美国，人们可以合理质疑社会福利支出是否过度。与之不同的是，中国的社会福利支出在GDP中的占比约为其他中高收入国家和经合组织(OECD)经济体的一半。财政改革如果带来更强劲的财政收入基础，并提高社会和环保支出，就能抵消投资下滑，并解决需求问题。再加上与生产率相关的改革，中国可以实现6.5%的五年增长目标、拉近乐观者和悲观者在观点上的差距。然而，中国政府是否会采取此类举措仍是一个问题——即便在乐观者当中也是如此。

本文作者是卡内基国际和平基金会(Carnegie Endowment)高级研究员、世界银行(World Bank)前中国业务局局长

译者/何黎