为什么说中国股市要比希腊债务重要10倍

    这里有一道数学题：3500亿美元和3万亿美元哪个更大？前者是希腊的债务总额，后者则是一个月来中国股市蒸发的财富。二者的差距表明，人们过多地关注了一个错误的对象。

    本周二（7月7日）沪深股市继续大幅下探，英勇的救市行为未能奏效。IPO已暂停，做空也已被禁，700多只股票停牌，约占全部A股的四分之一。同时，一只政府支持的基金买进了数十亿美元的股票，真是不错。

    除了1929年，类似情景这些年都不曾出现过。在截至今年6月12日的一年时间里，在蜂拥而入的股市新投资者推动下，沪市大涨150%。今年初以来，这些新投资者开立了1800万个证券账户，超过了此前四年的总和。债务猛增，投资信贷规模差不多是一年前的五倍。现在，在所难免的泡沫开始破裂。

    我们应该担心吗？可能不用。中国股市基本上独立于其他市场。但就像1929年的情形告诉我们的那样，股市的剧烈波动可能带来严重的经济和政治后果。

    同时，美国政界对中国的指责正变得越发激烈。本周一（7月6日），希拉里·克林顿也加入了这一行列，称中国“正试图对美国所有不会动的东西进行网络攻击，窃取国防承包商的商业机密和设计图纸以及大量政府信息，以求占得上风谋得先机。”

    对中国政府而言，风险日增的内部经济加上日益激烈的外部指责，内外夹击造成的局面充满变数。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    校对：詹妮

    Here’s a math quiz. Which number is larger: $350 billion? Or $3 trillion? The first is Greece’s total debt. The second is wealth that has evaporated from the Chinese stock market in the last month. The difference suggests we are paying too much attention to the wrong thing.

    The Shanghai and Shenzen exchanges continued their rout Tuesday, despite heroic efforts to stop them. IPOs have been shut down, short-selling has been banned, more than 700 shares – about a quarter of the market – have been suspended from trading, and, oh yes, a government-backed fund is buying billions of dollars worth of stock.

    The parallel here is not recent experience, but 1929. In the year before June 12, prices on the Shanghai exchange rose 150%, driven by a surge of new traders – 18 million brokerage accounts were created since the first of the year, more than in the previous four years combined – and a bulge of debt – margin credit roughly quintupled over the preceding year. Now the inevitable bubble is popping.

    Should we care? Maybe not: the Chinese market is largely independent from the rest of the world. But as 1929 reminds, wild swings in markets can have severe economic and political consequences.

    In the meantime, attacks on China are becoming increasingly heated in the U.S. political debate. Hillary Clinton joined yesterday, saying China is “trying to hack into everything that doesn’t move in America – stealing commercial secrets, blueprints from defense contractors, stealing huge amounts of government information, all looking for advantage.”

    For the Chinese government, rising economic insecurity on the inside combined with heated attacks from the outside make for a volatile mix.