中国经济不再听话

The last time – in late 2008 – that economic peril was stalking the US and Europe, China marshalled the might of its state-directed economy and engineered a muscular rebound that led the subsequent global recovery. This time, though, Beijing is feeling a lot less muscular.

经济危机上次（即2008年底）肆虐美国和欧洲时，中国调动出了其政府主导型经济的力量，推动本国经济有力反弹，带领全球经济随后步入复苏。但这一次，北京方面却感到力不从心。

The exertion of its last effort has sapped internal resources so thoroughly that the pertinent question today is not whether China can once again guide the global economy away from the rocks but whether Beijing retains decisive control over its own economic levers.

上一次抗击经济危机的努力令中国元气大伤，以至于今天该问的问题不再是中国能否再次带领全球经济驶离暗礁区，而是北京方面是否还能有效地掌控本国的经济杠杆。

The central frailty is financial. At no time over the past three decades of “reform and opening” has Beijing’s control over the supply and price of credit in its economy been so tenuous. The reasons for its enfeebled position derive from the state-centric nature of its 2009-10 stimulus. They also help explain why a repeat would be hard to pull off.

金融是当中最薄弱的一环。在“改革开放”以来的三十年里，北京方面对中国经济信贷供应和信贷定价的控制从未像今天这样软弱无力。而这种状况恰恰是2009-10年刺激计划的“政府主导”性质造成的。它也是成功的刺激很难重现的原因之一。

Back in early 2009 Beijing encouraged a local government borrowing binge to finance infrastructure spending. Then it tried to keep interest rates as low as possible, partly to reduce the service charges on local government debt, now officially estimated at RMB10,717bn ($1,681bn). But as bank deposit rates languished far below inflation, savers withdrew their money and deposited it with high-yielding shadow financial institutions.

2009年初，北京方面鼓励地方政府大举借债，为基建开支设提供资金。之后，它想方设法把利率 保持在尽可能低的水平，部分原因是为了减轻地方政府的债务利息负担。据官方估计，中国地方政府债务总额已达10.717万亿元人民币（合1.681万亿美 元）。但由于银行存款利率长期处在远低于通胀率的水平上，储户们纷纷提现、把钱存入提供更高收益率的影子金融机构。

The sustained haemorrhage of state bank deposits has swelled the unregulated shadow banking system to such a size that it now supplies more credit to the economy each month than the formal banks do, according to China Confidential, a research service at the Financial Times. This means that Beijing, which has wielded financial control as a key tool of Communist party power, now finds itself largely at the mercy of an unregulated collection of trust companies, private banks, kerb lenders and loan sharks.

国有银行不断流失的存款养肥了不受监管的影子银行体系。根据英国《金融时报》旗下研究服务机构 《中国投资参考》(China Confidential)的数据，如今影子银行体系每月为中国经济提供的贷款金额已超出正规银行。这意味着，已把金融管制当作共产党权力关键工具的北京 方面，今天却发现自己在很大程度上要受无监管的信托公司、钱庄、影子放贷机构和高利贷者的支配。

While the trust companies, the largest and most established segment of the shadow system, are mostly registered businesses with established offices, the multitude of “underground” operators exist in a netherworld of suitcase accounts and unsecured loans. Their colourful advertisements can be found on the back pages of city newspapers, often listing only a single mobile phone number next to alluring names such as “Easy Heaven Investments”, “Profits Quick” and “Treasure Beautiful Gold Credit”.

尽管影子银行体系中最庞大、最完善的部分是信托公司（它们大多是拥有固定办公场所的注册企 业），但这个体系的众多“地下”从业者却存在于一个由空壳账户、无担保贷款组成的灰色世界。城市报纸的末版上可以看到他们打的五颜六色的广告，通常只印有 一个手机号码，外加一个诱人的名称，例如“易天投资”、“盈驰”和“宝丽金”。

Existing beyond the state’s remit, such institutions would be unwilling conscripts to any attempt by Beijing to reflate the economy through muscular intervention. But as long as they exist in their current profusion, the shadow banks also neutralise the regulators’ former capacity to order the big state banks to launch another low-interest credit splurge. This is because the formal financial system no longer orientates itself around the official 6.5 per cent one-year lending rate, choosing instead to chase rates of typically double that level offered by trusts or even the 30-70 per cent annual lending rates characteristic of underground banks.

这类机构不受政府监管，因此，对于中国政府通过有力干预、放松银根以推动经济增长的努力，它们 是不会乐于配合的。此外，只要影子银行仍旧大量存在，监管部门也会丧失之前拥有的能力，无法命令大型国有银行掀起另一轮低息放贷热潮。这是因为，正规金融 体系不再满足于6.5%的官方一年期贷款利率，而是选择放贷给信托公司以获得通常两倍于此的贷款年利率，甚至放贷给地下钱庄以获得通常高达30%至70% 的贷款年利率。

Indeed, it is a telling insight into the atrophied condition of the state-regulated financial system that the most profitable activity by state-owned banks in the first half of this year was not lending to businesses but funding trusts and underground banks, bank financial reports show. Still, it is understandable that banks would wish to maximise profits, especially at a time when deposits are draining away. In the first 15 days of September, for instance, the “big four” state banks suffered a net loss in deposits of RMB420bn – more than four times their lending in the same period – as savers fled to high-yielding shadow banks.

银行财务报告显示，今年上半年，国有银行最赚钱的经营活动不是向企业放贷，而是为信托公司和地 下钱庄提供融资。事实上，这生动地向我们展示了受监管金融体系的萎缩状况。不过，银行希望实现利润最大化也是可以理解的，尤其是在当前存款不断流失的情况 下。例如，在9月份的前15天，四大国有银行存款总额出现了4200亿元人民币的净流失，超过同期贷款总额的四倍，原因在于储户转而选择了提供更高收益率 的影子银行。

Finance is not the only area in which Beijing’s ability to launch a counter-cyclical economic stimulus has ebbed. The ability of local governments, if asked again by Beijing, to boost investments is questionable. Their 2009-10 borrowing binge used land as its main form of collateral. But now land sales are declining sharply year-on-year in most cities, as property developers are hit by cash flow problems caused by a mixture of dwindling real estate sales and the hefty burden of servicing debts with shadow banks.

北京方面发起逆周期刺激的能力已经减弱，这并不仅仅体现在金融领域。如果北京方面再次要求地方 政府扩大投资的话，地方政府是否有能力执行也得打个问号。在2009-10年的地方政府借债热潮中，土地是主要的抵押品形式。但现在，房地产开发商由于房 屋销售萎缩、并且背负着向影子银行体系偿债的沉重负担，因而出现了现金流问题，导致多数城市的土地销售额同比急剧下降。

The level of distress felt by local governments – and more particularly their roughly 10,000 investment companies nationwide – is clear from the fact they have begun to sell off prized corporate assets at an unprecedented rate. Local units of the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission sold off RMB3.31bn in corporate assets between January and July this year, up from RMB2.35bn in all of 2010.

地方政府、尤其是全国各地方政府旗下约一万家投资公司承受的压力水平显而易见：它们已经开始以前所未有的速度抛售优质企业资产。地方国资委在今年1月到7月期间，出售了33.1亿元人民币的企业资产，而2010年全年出售的企业资产为23.5亿元人民币。

All this means that if Beijing wishes to launch another stimulus package, it may find itself unable to engineer a repeat of the swift and resolute response it mustered in 2009. Of course, it still has some weapons in its armoury. It could issue government bonds or launch a bail-out of banks and local government investment companies, possibly using some of its $3,200bn in foreign exchange reserves. But such methods would be unlikely to generate the type of immediate growth seen in 2009. They would also fail to address the reality that while a high-yielding shadow finance system exists, money will gravitate from state-run coffers into private hands – leaving fewer funds for a state-centric stimulus.

这一切意味着，假如北京方面希望出台新的刺激计划，它或许会发现，自己无力再像2009年那样 调动出迅速而坚决的反应。当然，北京方面的手中还拥有一些武器。它可以发行政府债券，或者发起对银行和地方政府投资公司的纾困，可能会为此动用3.2万亿 美元外汇储备中的一部分。不过这些方法应该不会对经济增长产生像2009年那样的立竿见影的效果，也不能解决另一个现实问题：只要提供高收益的影子金融体 系继续存在，资金就会从国有银行流到影子银行，政府主导的刺激计划可调动的资金就会进一步减少。

These are diminished days for China’s once-vaunted planners. Free market advocates are stepping up their censure. Zhang Weiying, a professor at Peking University, has called the National Development and Reform Commission – an agency dedicated to economic control – “a bunch of smart people doing something really stupid”. For Chinese, striking the balance between state intervention and a destiny decided by free market forces can be distinctly difficult.

近来，中国一度自命不凡的经济规划者们的声望一直在下降。自由市场的支持者们正在提高批评的声 音。北京大学教授张维迎评价国家发改委时说，“一大批聪明的人干了一件傻事”。国家发改委是专门负责经济控制的部门。对中国人而言，在政府干预和由自由市 场力量决定的趋势之间找到平衡，会非常困难。

The writer is principal of ftchinaconfidential.com

本文作者是英国《金融时报》旗下《中国投资参考》主编