中国如何避免经济颓势

目前，对于投资者来说，一个货真价实的万亿级美元的问题就是，“中国经济表现到底有多差？”

作为全球第二大经济体，中国一直是最近美国股市表现低迷的推手，原因是投资者担心所谓的中国经济硬着陆会把其他地区带进衰退深渊。

但中国官方经济数据常常受到质疑。就算我们相信这些数字，也依然面临着如何解读的问题。此外，从来没有哪个经济体像中国这样，对全世界来说都举足轻重，而且中国政府非常愿意动用自己的非凡力量来提高经济增长率。

换句话说，要想了解中国经济对西方有何影响，我们就得正确预测今后几周乃至几个月中国政府的动向。在这方面，德意志银行经济学家张智威和曾黎最近发表了一篇题为《了解中国尾部风险》的报告，其中探讨了中国政府应对经济放缓的政策。

两人专门分析了中国东北的经济数据，他们认为这个地区可能已经出现了深度衰退。德银估算，2015年东北的名义GDP增速只有1%（考虑通胀的话就算已经出现了负增长）。同时，固定资产投资下降了11.6%，而此前10年的平均增幅为25.5%。在东北，占据主导位置的是传统重工业以及大宗商品和能源生产商，这些行业近年来的压力特别大。

虽然经济活动急剧萎缩，但消费支出和居民收入的跌幅远没有那么大。此外，东北还是中国唯一出现信贷加速增长的地区。也就是说，2015年东北各家银行的放贷增速超过了上一年。

The multi-trillion dollar question, literally, for investors these days is, “How poorly is the Chinese economy performing?”

The globe’s second largest economy has been a driving factor in the weak performance of U.S. stock markets lately, as investors fear a so-called hard landing in China could drag the rest of the world into recession.

But the official Chinese economic data is notoriously unreliable. Even if we trust the numbers, we’re faced with the problem of how to interpret them. What’s more, there has never been an economy as important to the globe as China’s that has had a government so willing to use its extraordinary power to prop up economic growth.

In other words, understanding how the Chinese economy will affect the West requires that we correctly predict how the Chinese government will behave in the weeks and months ahead. To that end Deutsche Bank analysts Zhiwei Zhang and Li Zeng recently published a report called “Understanding the Tail Risks in China,” which looked at the regional policy response of the Chinese government to a slowing economy.

Zhang and Zeng isolate data from China’s northeast, a region that’s likely already in a deep recession. That segment of the country’s nominal GDP grew just 1% (factoring in inflation it would have been negative) in 2015, according to Deutsche Bank estimates. At the same time, fixed asset investment fell 11.6%, compared with an average growth of 25.5% in the ten years before. The region is dominated by state-owned enterprises involved in traditional heavy industries, or commodity and energy production, sectors that have come under particular stress in recent years.

Despite this sharp drop off in economic activity, the growth in consumer spending and income did not fall anywhere near as much. Furthermore, northeast China was the only region in the country that saw credit growth, i.e., banks making more loans in 2015 than they did the year before.

张智威和曾黎认为，大幅下降的企业活动与消费行为之间存在着反差，其原因可能是中央政府的直接支持，但“间接支持”也可能发挥了作用。他们在报告中写道：

经济活动乏力和强劲信贷增长之间的巨大反差表明，即便企业的经济活力不佳，东北地区的银行仍然可能通过贷款延期为疲弱的企业部门提供了支撑，这有助于避免失业和破产。在这种情况下，政府的首要任务是维持社会稳定，而不是考虑企业的盈利能力。

不过，这样的政府支持只能救一时之急，并非解决东北地区结构性问题的长期方案。同时，此举大大降低了效率。2015年底，中央政府开始公开谈论化解“僵尸企业”风险的问题。这被视为“供应侧结构性改革”的关键一步。要判断政府对“供应侧结构性改革”的认真程度，看看2016年东北地区是否还会得到同样的信贷支持可能是一个办法。

中国的情况似乎让西方观察人士非常困惑，这就是原因之一。由于中国政府在促进经济增长方面的能力和意愿都远远超过西方国家的政府，预测中国经济前景的难度也就大得多。

不过，除非中国弥补了经济中的基本缺陷，比如对投资、出口和债务的过度依赖，否则，就还得靠政府的刺激措施来避免就业大滑坡和社会不稳定局面。同时，中国政府这样做的时间越长，中国经济的失衡问题就越严重。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

As Zhang and Zeng argue that the discrepancy between the huge drop off in business activity and consumer behavior is likely the result of direct central government support, but also “indirect support,” from the folks in Beijing. They write:

The sharp contrast between weak economic activities and strong credit growth shows that banks in the northeast likely supported, through renewed lending, the weak corporate sector regardless of economic viability, which helped to avoid unemployment and bankruptcy. In this case, it is the government’s priority of maintaining social stability that overrode profitability considerations.

Such government support, however, can only be a short-term remedy rather than long-term solution to the structural challenges facing the northeastern region, and it comes with dear efficiency costs. The central government started to talk openly about addressing the risk of “zombie companies” in late 2015. This is regarded as a key part of the “supply side reforms.” One way to judge how serious the government is about the “supply side reforms” is perhaps to see if such credit support to the northeastern region will be contained in 2016.

This is another reason why western observers seem so confused by what they’re seeing out of China. Because the government there has so much more ability and willingness to stimulate the economy than governments in the West do, it’s that much more difficult to predict China’s future performance.

But until China addresses the fundamental flaws in its economy, i.e. it’s over reliance on investment, exports, and debt, it will have to continue to rely on government stimulus to avoid a collapse in employment and the social unrest that would likely be the result. And the longer it does that, the greater the growing imbalances in its economy will get.