中国经济真正的定时炸弹埋在债市

    随着更多中国经济形势不好的消息不断传来，大多数人的视线一直都放在A股的剧烈震荡，以及可能波及美国和欧洲的各种溢出效应上。

    经济增长放缓导致了股市暴跌的出现，在一波波下跌中，中国新兴的投资阶层屡屡蒙受巨额损失，而这会给国内经济问题带来一系列化合反应。但务必要记住的是，虽然股市波动可能占据新闻头条，但真正决定一个经济体命运的，是债务市场。

    在美国，金融体系曾几乎崩溃，只因那些最具系统重要性的金融机构曾押注房地产价格会永远上涨，或者即使价格最终下跌，金融工程也能拯救他们。在中国，虽然房地产市场的运行与美国显著不同，但它同样是导致巨量债务激增、正在威胁整体经济的幕后推手。

    在美国，担保债务凭证（CDO）曾经助长了对住宅抵押贷款、以及一些发行给房屋业主的债务的投资需求，在泡沫破灭后，许多这类债务最终都无法偿还。在中国，由于业主没有私人土地所有权，所以中国不存在普通民众将无力偿还的债务作为抵押品的问题。反而是地方政府，由于征税困难，已经越来越依赖地方政府融资平台（LGFVs）为基础设施项目融资。情况正如中国社会科学院研究员廖凡曾经所写到的：

    尽管地方政府融资平台披着企业法人的外衣，但它们一直以来却更像是变相的地方政府分支机构。其最主要、甚至可以说唯一可依赖的资产就是土地。它们常常由地方政府授权充当土地银行，利用土地作为主要抵押品向国家开发银行获取长期贷款，后者起初是一家政策性银行，但这些年来业务已经远远超出了原有范围。有了国家开发银行的初始融资，地方政府融资平台就能启动业务，寻求国有商业银行的短期贷款，或者在银行间债券市场发债，用这些方式进一步借贷。既然出售或者开发土地所得是偿还这类债务的主要收入源，支持LGFV的地方政府就完全有理由和动力征用更多的土地，让房产价格维持高位，这样才能持续循环下去。

    一直以来，地方政府在中央政府保驾护航下都能借到款。事实上，2008年中国政府备受赞誉的4万亿经济刺激方案大部分由地方政府债务提供资金。从刺激金额占各国GDP的比重看，和中国相比，美国为应对危机祭出的刺激简直小巫见大巫。这一救市方案给中国2008年以来的经济增长带来了助力，但刺激的红利正在耗尽。随着中国经济增长放缓，中央政府对地方政府的融资还债能力忧心忡忡。

    如果紧急救助无力偿债的地方政府，问题可能会继续拖延下去。但这会有违中央高层的努力，国家主席习近平正致力于抑制地方官员权力，同时将增长模式由投资驱动转为消费驱动。上周，中央将2015年地方政府债务限额锁定在16万亿元人民币，较去年设定的限额上调6亿元。在此之前，中国财政部已批准地方政府债务置换计划，通过允许地方政府发行新债券，置换此前由房地产提供融资的存量地方债务。

    美国银行分析师崔伟指出，这种策略可能导致“有理由预计，很快会……发生一些违约”，因为这一债务限额会导致某些地方政府无法将目前无力偿还的债务展期。中央政府显然不愿再给予地方政府更多贷款，让2008年刺激方案的批评者抓到把柄。批评人士认为，当年的刺激可能短期内推动了中国经济发展，可长远来看，它对经济有不利影响，因为地方政府没有投资那些真正创造经济价值的项目。

    要搞清楚中国经济下滑“震级”到底有多严重，我们唯有等时间来揭示。但如果说这个全球第二大经济体正在靠近金融危机的深渊，那么债市将是第一个爆发的定时炸弹。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    校对：詹妮

    As more bad economic news continues to filter out of China, most eyes have been fixated on the volatile fluctuations of the nation’s equity markets and the potential spillover effects reverberating throughout the United States and Europe.

    China’s crashing stock market comes as the result of its slowing economy, and it will compound thenation’s problems as its incipient investing class has been losing a lot of money with each successive market tumble. But it’s important to remember that while stock market shifts may grab headlines, it is the debt markets that truly determine the fate of an economy.

    In the United States, the financial system nearly collapsed after the nation’s most systemically important financial institutions bet on the idea that real estate prices would continue to rise forever, or that financial engineering would save them when prices finally did fall. In China, the real estate market works much differently, but it remains the driving force behind a massive debt explosion that now threatens its entire economy.

    In the U.S., it was collateralized debt obligations that helped create the demand to invest in residential mortgages, with debt being issued to homeowners, many of whom would end up not being able to repay after the bubble burst. In China, there is no private land ownership like there is in the United States, and so there isn’t a problem of average citizens taking out mortgages they can’t pay back. Instead, local governments, motivated by their inability to levy taxes, have increasingly relied on “local government financing vehicles” (LGFVs) to finance infrastructure projects. As Liao Fan, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has written:

    Though dressed up as business corporations, LGFVs have been more of a disguised arm of local governments. Their most—or even only—reliable asset is land. Often empowered by local governments as land banks, they use land as the main collateral to secure long-term loans from China Development Bank (CDB), originally a policy bank but has gone far beyond that over the years. With this initial funding, LGFVs are able to start operation and borrow further by seeking short-term loans from the state-owned commercial banks or selling bonds on the inter-bank bond market. Since the proceeds from selling or developing land are the main source to repay such debts, local governments behind LGFVs have all the reason and incentive to expropriate more land and keep the property price at a high level, so as to continue the cycle.

    Local governments have borrowed this money with the blessing of China’s central government. In fact, China’s much-lauded $570 billion stimulus package in 2008, which dwarfed the American response to its crisis relative to each country’s respective GDP was funded mostly by local government debt. That program helped power China’s economic growth since 2008, but the dividends are now drying up. As Chinese growth slows, the central government is worried about the local governments’ abilities to finance the debt.

    China could continue to kick the can down the road by bailing out its insolvent local governments. But this would run counter to President Xi Jinping’s efforts to curb the power of local officials and shift China’s growth model from investment led to consumption led. Last week, Beijing placed a $16 trillion yuan capon Chinese government debt, up $600 million yuan from a cap it set last year. And this is after the government has been swapping debt with local governments, buying up real estate-financed local debt in place of government debt officially backed by the Chinese government.

    As Bank of America’s David Cui points out, this strategy could lead to “some defaults … reasonably soon,” since this cap will effectively prevent some local governments from rolling over debt it can’t currently repay. And the central government’s apparent unwillingness to extend more credit to local municipalities is lending credence to critics of the 2008 stimulus package, who argued that while it may have given a short-term boost to the economy, the long-term effects to the Chinese economy would be deleterious because these local governments weren’t investing in projects that made economic sense.

    Only time will reveal the full magnitude of China’s economic slowdown. But if we are nearing a financial crisis in the world’s second largest economy, the debt markets will be the first to crash.