来自中国的消息不好，但也没有那么糟

作为中国乃至全世界最大的住宅开发商，万科度过了精彩的一年。上季度收入增长31%，达到273亿元人民币（43亿美元），利润上升22%。创始人兼董事长王石对《财富》杂志表示：“万科做的很好。一点儿也没有受到经济困难的影响。”

等等，他说什么？

听上去，王石似乎对风险毫不在意，但他的乐观态度也不是没有根据。眼下，中国经济呈两极态势。部分重工业及其所在省份的经济正在下行，它们在债务重压下苦苦挣扎，它们生产的钢材、煤炭、水泥和出口商品也遇上了需求萎缩。另一方面，消费品零售、消费服务以及对重工业依赖较小的沿海省份，其经济仍在以接近两位数的速度增长。

如果你和中国消费者、或者像王石那样通过服务消费者来赚钱的企业高管谈一谈，你就会发现，那些关于中国经济大滑坡的报道甚至像是不存在一样。

中国经济陷入困境毫不意外。多年来，专家们一直在预言中国经济将向消费转移，从而实现再平衡，并且一直对此表示欢迎。舆论上也一直在为经济增长较慢的“新常态”做铺垫。

然而，A股市场走势和人民币不断贬值依然表明，投资者担心低迷的中国经济会引发全球性衰退。评判者还指出，在股市和汇率两方面，情况正变得更糟。股市“熔断”机制的唯一作用就是让主要指数波动得更加剧烈；人民币贬值看起来也像毫无组织的恐慌行为。

无论出于什么样的动机，保留就业机会也好，防止不稳定的社会局势也好，政府对工业的扶持掣肘了中国前进的脚步。北京大学教授迈克尔·佩蒂斯曾说：“最终，必须要选择是让债务增长，还是让失业率上升，或者让财富更多地从国家层面转移到个人手中。”如果选择第三项，也就是不再侧重于国企，情况就会全面好转；否则，债务和增长停滞就可能让中国失去形势较好的那一极。

实际上，来自中国的消息不好，但也许没有那么糟糕。可以说，投资者对中国经济减速的反应一直都比经济放缓本身更为极端。多个市场都刷新了历史最低记录，其中包括：

43%：2015年6月见顶以来上证指数的下跌幅度。

每桶20美元：摩根士丹利分析师1月份预测的油价，依据包括中国市场需求减弱以及人民币贬值等因素。这样的低点意味着从2014年6月起油价下跌了81%。

550点：法国兴业银行全球策略分析师艾伯特·爱德华兹1月13日预测的标普500指数低点。当时该指数在1900点上下。

还有更夸张的，苏格兰皇家银行研究分析师安德鲁·罗伯茨甚至表示，“除了高质量债券，把其他的都抛掉吧……经济增长这根接力棒已经无人可传。”（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

The biggest residential real estate developer in China, and for that matter the world, is having a banner year. Revenue rose 31% in the latest quarter, to 27.3 billion yuan ($4.3 billion), and profit by 22%. “Vanke is doing well,” founder and chairman Wang Shi tells Fortune. “It’s not affected at all by the difficult economy.”

Wait, what?

Wang may sound blasé, but his optimism isn’t unwarranted. China’s economy is a two-headed dragon right now. Some heavy industries and their home provinces are in recession, struggling under the weight of debt and facing less demand for their stuff—steel, coal, concrete, exports. But retail sales, consumer services, and the coastal-province economies that rely less on big industry are still growing at close to double-digit rates.

Talk to a Chinese consumer—or to executives like Wang who make money serving that consumer—and it’s as though those headlines about the nation’s collapse don’t even exist.

There’s nothing unexpected about this economic rough patch. Experts have been predicting and welcoming China’s “rebalancing” toward consumers for years. And government propaganda has been preparing citizens for a “new normal” of accompanying lower economic growth.

But China’s stock markets and a declining Chinese currency are still inciting fear among investors that the country’s sluggishness could trigger a global recession. And on both of those fronts, critics say, China is making matters worse. Its stock market “circuit breakers” only increased the volatility of its major indexes; its currency devaluations looked like uncoordinated panic moves.

Whatever its motives—saving jobs, preventing social unrest—the government’s propping up of the industrial sector prevents the country from moving on. “Beijing must ultimately choose between higher debt, higher unemployment, or higher transfers of wealth from the state sector to the household sector,” Peking University professor Michael Pettis has said. The world will be better off if China chooses option three, ending its favoritism toward state-owned business; otherwise, debt and stagnation could cut off the dragon’s healthier head.

The Chinese news is bad—but maybe not this bad.Investors’ reactions to China’s slowdown have arguably been more extreme than the slowdown itself. Some highlights from among the markets’ new lows:

43%: Decline of the Shanghai Composite Index since its June 2015 peak.

$20 a barrel: The price predicted for oil in January by Morgan Stanley MS 3.35% analysts, citing the combination of weakening Chinese demand and the devaluation of the yuan, among other factors. A $20 low would represent an 81% drop since June 2014.

550: Low for the S&P 500 predicted by Société Générale global strategist Albert Edwards on Jan. 13. At the time, the S&P 500 traded at about 1,900.

“Sell everything except high-quality bonds … There is no one to take up the baton of growth.”—Andrew Roberts, research analyst, RBS