【英语中国】中国取消资本管制将双赢

China is teetering on the brink of a radical policy change that could transform not just China, but also world financial markets.

Current global pressure on emerging markets is felt most acutely in China. In the comparable late 1990s, the Asian crisis largely passed China by. Its hefty devaluation in 1994 had left it highly competitive. The latest upswing of US interest rates will again hit the overvalued emerging markets hardest. This time China is the most exposed.

We calculate that China’s exchange rate is about a third overvalued, measured by relative labour costs. China plunged into producer price deflation two years ago, despite rapid wage inflation. Chinese businesses had to cut prices to hold up sales in world markets. They were already about 10 per cent overvalued. Labour costs have since risen a further 20 per cent versus trading partners. Price deflation means overvaluation is less evident in price terms, but the cost is serious profit-margin shrinkage.

With all the focus on rising US bond yields, little attention is paid to the huge upswing in real Chinese interest rates. Two years ago, the rate on one-year loans from the state-owned banks was 6.6 per cent – lower than the 7 per cent rate of producer-price inflation. Now, industrial borrowers pay 6 per cent, but the plunge into producer-price deflation of about 2 per cent means the real rate is 8 per cent – a huge hurdle for borrowers to surmount.

The combination of profit squeeze and high real interest rates is forcing firms to cut back wage gains. At the same time, the long-discussed swing away from excessive capital spending (48 per cent of 2012 GDP) is now beginning. And the cuts in “market-sector” capital spending, though partly offset by the current modest government stimulus programme, are reinforced by the downward pressure on wages, which takes away the hoped-for offset of a consumption upswing.

China’s leaders have two possible escape routes from this extremely tight corner. The first is “business as usual” (BAU) – a rerun of the giant stimulus adopted in 2008-09. But it was the stimulus that landed China in its current fix, by rapidly raising the real exchange rate and gorging the economy on debts that few regard as repayable. BAU would thus cause China to become even more overvalued and over-indebted. A major crisis would be likely in two or three years. This is hardly attractive to the new leadership, which has a 10-year lease on power.

The alternative policy would be to take advantage of the Chinese private sector’s appetite for overseas assets. Despite controls on external capital movements and their recent relaxation for inflows only, which have been strong as a result, the capital account has been in balance this year. Previously, before inflow controls were relaxed, net outflows totalled $500bn in the 18 months to end-2012. But only well-connected Chinese people can slip through the controls. It is “insiders” that want out.

This gives China a “win-win” policy opportunity. Removing controls on capital movements would improve the supply-side operation of its economy, and is essential to the goal of an internationalised, convertible yuan. It would also achieve badly needed devaluation to soften the impact of the capital spending downswing. Private capital would flood out of the country, bringing down the exchange rate and the mountain of foreign exchange reserves. Premier Li Keqiang has several times repeated that a programme for the removal of capital controls will be established by the end of this year.

This policy involves major risks as well as huge potential benefits, so the removal of controls is likely to be phased, not a “big bang”. The biggest problem is that much of the capital outflow would reduce bank deposits, exposing the dubious quality of much of the banks’ loan books. Improving the allocation of capital, by banks among others, is one of the chief supply-side benefits expected from financial liberalisation. But the scale of the recapitalisations needed could be massive, and the leadership is already floating ideas for shoring up the banks.

For world markets, the impact of this reform could be transformative. China’s annual national savings are about $4.5tn, twice the $2.25tn equivalent US number. A large chunk of this sum seeking real assets in the US and elsewhere, at the expense of China’s official reserve holdings of (typically) US Treasuries, would cause property and stocks to soar in price and Treasury yields to adjust sharply upward.

This Chinese reform would be a radical structural adjustment in the world economy. It is an order of magnitude more important to financial markets than the US Fed’s much discussed “tapering” of its quantitative easing.

Charles Dumas is chairman and chief economist at Lombard Street Research

中国正徘徊在一场根本性政策变革的边缘，这一政策变革不仅会改变中国，还会改变全球金融市场。

目前，在中国能最深刻地感受到新兴市场面临的全球压力。上世纪90年代末新兴市场面临类似的压力，但当时的亚洲金融危机对中国却没有产生很大影响。这是因为1994年人民币大幅贬值大大增强了中国的竞争力。美国利率的最新上扬将再次对汇率估值过高的新兴市场造成最大冲击。而这一次，中国将首当其冲。

根据我们的计算，以相对劳动力成本衡量，人民币汇率大约高估了三分之一。两年前，尽管中国工资水平在快速上升，生产者价格却开始下跌。中国企业为了保证在世界市场的销量，不得不降低销售价格。这些企业已经被高估了大约10%。自那之后，相对于中国的贸易伙伴，劳动力成本进一步上升了20%。生产者价格下跌意味着，从产品价格来看，汇率的高估表现得不那么明显，但为此付出的代价则是利润率严重缩水。

所有人都把注意力放在不断上升的美国债券收益率上，而中国实际利率的大幅上升却几乎没人注意到。两年前，国有银行一年期贷款利率为6.6%——低于生产者价格指数7%的涨幅。如今，工业借款企业支付的贷款利率为6%，然而生产者价格指数2%的跌幅意味着实际利率是8%——对于借款者来说这是一个难以克服的巨大障碍。

企业利润受到压缩的同时实际利率又居高不下，这迫使企业不得不削减工资涨幅。与此同时，酝酿已久的摆脱过度资本支出（2012年为GDP的48%）的政策正开始实施。尽管政府现在实施的适度刺激计划可以部分弥补“市场部门”资本支出减少的影响，但工资的下行压力却使之加剧，因为这种下行压力令消费上扬的希望成为泡影。

要摆脱这种极为棘手的困境，中国领导人有两条路可走。第一条路是，“重操旧业”——再次推出2008-09年那样的巨大经济刺激方案。然而正是这一刺激方案令中国陷入当下的困境，它导致实际汇率迅速攀升，整个经济被巨大的债务吞没——现在几乎没人认为这么大规模的债务能够正常偿付。因此，走老路可能令人民币汇率进一步高估，债务进一步加重，两到三年内就有可能引发重大危机。对中国新一届领导人来说，这种方案不太可能有吸引力，毕竟他们还要掌权10年。

另一条路是好好利用中国私营部门收购海外资产的胃口。中国对外部资本流动实行严格控制，最近只对资本流入有所放松，这导致资本流入势头强劲。尽管如此，今年中国资本账户却保持了平衡。相比之下，放松资本流入限制之前，在截至2012年底的18个月内，中国资本净流出总额达5000亿美元。然而，只有人脉强大的中国人才能够逃过监管。想要输出资本的正是这些“局内人”。

这种局面为中国提供了一种“双赢”的政策契机。如果中国取消对资本流动的控制，一方面可以改善经济供应面的运转，另一方面这对于实现人民币可兑换和国际化这一目标也十分必要。这么做还会带来中国极度需要的人民币贬值，可以缓和资本支出缩减带来的影响。私营资本将因此大量流出中国，从而降低人民币汇率，并减少中国巨大的外汇储备。中国总理李克强已多次重申，到今年底之前将制定一项取消资本管制的计划。

这一政策既有巨大的潜在收益，也带来重大风险。因此，取消管制的过程很可能是循序渐进的，而不是“大爆炸”式的。最大的问题在于，大量资本流出会降低银行存款，暴露大量存在的银行贷款质量可疑的问题。金融自由化预计能够带来的主要供应面好处之一是，通过银行改善其他产业中的资本配置，但这可能需要极大规模的银行资本重组。目前中国领导人已开始就如何支持银行试探各方意见。

这一改革可能会造成改变全球市场的影响。中国年度国民储蓄大约为4.5万亿美元，是美国2.25万亿美元规模的两倍。如果其中很大一部分在美国和其他地方收购实际资产，将会减少中国官方（主要）以美国国债为形式持有的外汇储备，造成投资当地楼市和股市飞涨，美国国债收益率也会剧烈向上调整。

对世界经济来说，这样的中国改革将是一次根本性的结构调整。在量级上，它对金融市场造成的影响，甚至会超过广为讨论的美联储(Fed)“缩减”量化宽松的影响。

本文作者是朗伯德街研究公司(Lombard Street Research)董事长兼首席经济学家

译者/何黎