时代周刊：为什么中国将

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时代周刊：为什么中国将发生经济危机美国《时代》周刊资深记者迈克尔•舒曼(Michael Schuman)昨日发表一篇针对中国经济未来发展展望的文章，该文章认为，中国如果不转变其经济发展模式，不久的将来，发生经济危机势在必然。

The view in most of the world is that China is indestructible. Shrugging off the crises multiplying elsewhere, China seems to surge from strength to strength, its spectacular growth marching on no matter what headwinds may come. It appears inevitable that China will overtake a U.S. mired in debt and division to become the world’s indispensable economy. Those businessmen and policymakers looking to the future believe China’s “state capitalism” may be a superior form of economic organization in dealing with the challenges of the modern global economy.

                               
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在世界上大多数人的眼中，中国是坚不可摧的。在其他国家都深陷危机之时，中国似乎丝毫不受干扰，甚至有愈战愈勇之势。看来是任何事物也无法阻挡其迅猛前进的脚步了。中国无疑会取代深陷债务和分裂泥潭的美国，成为世界上不可或缺的经济体。一些商人和决策者深信，中国的“国家资本主义”模式将是未来应对现代全球经济的一大法宝。

                               
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My answer to all of this is: think again.

对此我的答案是：请君三思。

I don’t doubt for a second that China will be a major economic superpower with an increasingly influential role in the global economy. In many respects, it already is a superpower. But that doesn’t mean the economy is free from problems, a good number of them created by the very statist system lauded by pundits in the U.S. and Europe. And in my opinion, if China doesn’t change course, and in a big way, the country will experience an economic crisis.

随着中国对世界经济影响日益增强，我毫不质疑其日后能发展成为一大经济强国。在诸多领域，中国已颇显强国风范。但这并不意味着中国的经济就是完美无缺的，而且这些问题的来源不是别处，正是那个颇受部分欧美经济学家称赞的国家主义体制。我认为，如果中国不改变这条发展路线，等待它的将是一场毁灭性的经济危机。

I’ve been thinking about China’s economic future, and the likelihood it will face some sort of terrible collapse, for some time, but I have until now been reluctant to come out with my views so strongly. The reason is that it is very difficult to tell what’s really going on in the Chinese economy. Data is sparse or unreliable. And China is in certain ways unique in economic terms — has history ever witnessed a giant of such massive proportions ascend so quickly in the global economy? Valid precedents are hard to find. Then there is the issue of timing. It is easy to say China will have a crisis; it is almost impossible to say when that might happen. Next month? Next year? Next decade? The fact is China could continue as it is for some time to come. So, in other words, when you make the type of prediction I just have, you have a good chance of getting it just plain wrong.

对于中国经济之未来及其崩溃的可能性，我已经思考了很久，直到成文之时，我仍在犹豫是否该如此强烈地表达我的想法。原因在于，很难讲中国到底发生了什么。数据少之又少，而且还不甚可靠。加之中国经济又是如此之独特——历史可曾目睹过， 如此巨大的经济体在全球经济范围内如此迅速地崛起吗？很难找到有效的先例。再谈谈时间问题，要证明中国未来会发生一场大的危机，这很简单，但要预测这场危机会在何时降临，几乎不可能。下个月？明年？十年以后？事实上中国将会在今后的一段时间内继续保持稳定。所以，换句话说，当你想要提出一个类似我刚刚阐述的观点时，你要注意你很有可能会把它完全弄错。

But the more time I spend in China, the more convinced I am that its current economic system is unsustainable. Yes, economists who specialize in China can give you all sorts of reasons why the country is supposedly different, and thus the regular rules of economics don’t necessarily apply. But one simple thing I always say about economics is that you can’t escape math. If the numbers don’t add up, it doesn’t matter much how big your economy might be or how fast it is growing or how heavy a role the state might play. And China has lots of numbers that just don’t add up.

在中国呆的时间越久，我就越确信其目前的经济体制是不可持续的。很多研究中国的经济学家会给出种种理由，论述这个国家是如何之独特，因此很多一般性的经济学规律对它并不适用。但是归根结底，经济学问题永远逃不出数学规律。而数字上的问题无关于这个国家的经济规模多大，发展速度多快以及国家地位如何强大。对于中国，它的数字出了问题。

A big part of the bad math is created by China’s state capitalism. China has adopted a form of the Asian development model, invented by Japan and followed, to varying degrees, by many rapid-growth countries around East Asia. The model, very generally speaking, functions like this: 1) capitalize on low wages to spark growth through exports and industrialize quickly with hefty amounts of investment, 2) guide the whole process with the hand of the state, 3) employ industrial policies and state-directed finance to progress into more and more advanced sectors. This system generates fantastic levels of economic growth for a while, but then eventually, it crashes. Japan had its meltdown beginning in 1990 (and it hasn’t escaped two decades later); South Korea, the country that copied Japan’s model most closely, experienced its crisis in 1997-98.

这些数字上问题多数可归罪于所谓的“国家资本主义”。中国采用的是一种亚洲的传统发展模式，这种模式源自日本，但东亚很多发展迅猛的国家都不同程度上采用了这种模式。通常来讲，它是这样运行的：1）通过低工资加速资本积累，再以高投资推动工业化和高出口，获得经济快速增长，2）国家的手操控整个经济过程，3）产业政策和政府注资双管齐下，加速发展高精尖产业。这种模式会在短时间内获得巨大的经济进步，但终有一天它会崩溃。日本经济在1990年初彻底垮台（至今20年还没恢复）；韩国作为日本模式最忠实的复制者，也在1997-98年间遭受了经济危机。

What happens? The model is based on what Alice Amsden, in her study of the Korean economy, called “getting prices wrong.” To spur on the high levels of investment necessary to generate rapid growth, the model depends on state-directed subsidization to make investing in certain industries or sectors more attractive and less risky than it otherwise would be. Cheap credit is made available for industry, or the state outright orders money to be invested in certain preferred projects. The exchange rate is controlled to encourage exporters. All sorts of subsidies, for energy, exports and so on, are dished out. Banks are not commercially oriented but act to a great degree as tools of government-development policy. All of these methods funnel money, private and public, into industrialization, creating the astronomical growth rates we see again and again in Asia.

这两国发生了什么？这里我们不得不提到艾丽丝·阿姆斯丹（Alice Amsden）对于韩国经济的研究模型，我们称之为“价格错位”。为促进高投资，保证高增长，这种模式依赖于于国家对于特定行业或部门直接投资或提供补助，从而增加其吸引力并减少其投资风险。国家向工业提供低息贷款，或者直接对某项目注资。控制汇率以鼓励出口，能源、出口等国家扶植项目获得种种补助。银行并非商业导向，在更大程度上是作为政府发展部门调控政策的工具。以上这些行为都会聚敛公共和私人的资本，并将其注入到工业化中，创造出一次又一次的亚洲经济奇迹。

The problem here is that prices can’t stay wrong indefinitely. There is a good reason why classical economists are always so focused on allowing markets to find the correct price level. In that way, markets send the proper signals to potential investors on where money should or should not go. If those price indicators are skewed, so is the direction of resources. The Asian model, by playing around with prices, eventually creates tremendous distortions, in which money is wasted and excess capacity is generated. Subsidized companies don’t have to generate returns in the same way as unsubsidized firms, and that leads them to make bad investment decisions to build factories and buildings that are unnecessary and unprofitable. As a result, loans go bad and banking sectors buckle. That’s exactly what happened in both Japan and Korea. Though their crises were tipped off in very different ways — the bursting of an asset bubble in Japan, an external shock in Korea — the reason both countries collapsed was the same: weak banks, indebted companies, silly investments.

问题是价格不能无限期地错误下去。古典经济学家们一直致力于通过市场找到正确的价格水平。只有这样，市场才能向潜在投资者发出正确的信号，指引其资金的流向。一旦价格指标被扭曲，那么正确投资方向将也不复存在。操纵价格的亚洲模式必然会导致资源浪费和产能过剩。有补贴的公司不必像没有补贴的公司那样精打细算，这会导致他们做出错误的投资决定，比如建造不必要或是不实用的工厂和建筑物。最终，贷款变成坏账，银行破产倒闭。这正是在日本和韩国所发生的事情。尽管这两国的危机最终以不同的方式暴露出来——日本的资产泡沫破裂，韩国受到了外部冲击——但两国经济崩溃的原因是相同的：孱弱的银行、负债累累的企业以及不明智的投资。

China is indulging in all of the same excesses as Japan and Korea, and then some. The level of investment in China, at nearly 50% of GDP, is lofty even by Asian standards. The usual argument made in defense of such astronomical investment in fixed assets is that China is a large developing country that needs all of the buildings and roads it is constructing. Qu Hongbin, the very smart chief China economist at HSBC, made that very argument in a recent study:

中国也正沉湎与日本和韩国的这种发展模式中，而起是有过之而无不及。中国投资占国内生产总值(GDP)的比例接近50%，即便是以亚洲标准来衡量，这也太高了。对于这种高额的固定资产投资，其支持者通常解释为，作为一个庞大的发展中国家，中国亟需其所正在建设的楼宇和公路。屈宏斌，这位乖巧的汇丰中国首席经济学家，在其最近的一份研究中做出了这样的推论：

There is a popular view in the market that China has overinvested and therefore can no longer rely on investment to sustain its growth. We disagree. China’s investment-to-GDP ratio is indeed very high (46%) … [But] China is only half way through the process of urbanisation and industrialisation. It still needs to invest more to cope with the rising demand for rail, hospitals and industrial plants. The recent infrastructure boom has boosted the country’s transport capacity, but China’s railway network is still shorter than that of the US in 1880 … In economic terms, we estimate that China’s capital stock per worker is only about 8% of that of the US and 15% of that of Korea. In other words, China’s capital accumulation is still far from reaching the stage of having diminishing returns; we believe the country needs to invest more, rather than less.

最近市场上流行的观点认为中国已经过度投资，因此无法再依赖投资来维持其经济增长。我们对此持否定态度。中国的投资占GDP比重的确很高（46%）…但中国仍处在城市化和工业化的进程当中，依然需要加大对铁路、医院和工业厂房的投资以满足其日益增长的需求。虽然近期基础设施建设提高了其交通运输能力，但中国的铁路网络仍不及美国1880年的水平…从经济角度看，我们估计中国人均资本存量仅为美国的8%和韩国的15%。换句话说，中国的资本积累远未达到收益递减阶段；因此，中国需要更多的投资。

I completely agree. Yet the issue is not whether China needs more investment. The issue is whether China is getting the types of investment it requires. The fact that investment levels can be so high and yet the economy is so deficient in certain key aspects makes me think the answer is no. We can see that in the continued problem of excess capacity in China, in which companies go hog wild building too many factories in certain industries, often with borrowing from state banks. That has happened in steel and solar panels, for example. The country is investing hundreds of billions in high-speed railways even though ticket prices are beyond the reach of most Chinese, while many major Chinese cities don’t have subways.

我完全同意这种说法。但问题不在于中国是否需要更多的投资，而在于中国是否获得了正确的投资。事实是在如此高的投资水平下，中国在一些关键领域的经济发展仍然问题重重，因此我的答案是没有。在中国愈演愈烈的产能过剩之路上，其投资问题可以略见一斑。在某些领域，如钢铁和太阳能电池板，这些企业挥霍着通常是从银行借来的钱，疯狂地建设了过多的工厂。此外，中国斥资建设了大量的高速铁路，而其高票价却让大多数国人无法负担得起。与此相比，中国很多主要城市仍没有地铁。

A good part of this misdirected investment seems to be headed into the property sector. Real estate development has become the key driving force of Chinese economic growth. In theory, China’s very rapid urbanization makes such construction a necessity — but that depends on what is being built. In Wenzhou, a real estate agent recently offered free BMWs to anyone who bought a high-end apartment — a clear sign of overbuilding — while there is an obvious shortage of housing affordable for most Chinese. On either side of my Beijing apartment building are three big malls that hardly ever seem to see real shoppers. Rents for top-quality office space in Beijing are now pricier than in New York City — despite the fact that China’s capital is one big construction zone. Many of the buildings going up are of a quality unsuitable for major corporations.

大量错误投资的另一个去向就是房地产行业。房地产开发已成为中国经济增长的主要驱动力。理论上来说，房地产开发是中国快速的城市化进程的必经之路，但这也要看中国开发的是什么类型的房地产。在温州，一位房地产经纪人近日打出了买豪华公寓送宝马的宣传口号，在普通商品房依然紧缺的情况下，这显然是过度开发。在我北京的公寓的两边，有三个大型商场，而每日进出的顾客却寥寥无几。于此同时，作为中国的首都，同时也是中国的重点建设区域，高端办公楼依然供不应求，租金甚至超过了纽约。而很多在建的办公楼在质量上并不能满足大公司的需要。

Even worse, much of the investment in China is being financed with debt. The level of debt in the Chinese economy has been rising with frightening speed. Rating agency Fitch estimates bank credit in 2011 was equivalent to 185% of the country’s GDP — an increase of 56 percentage points in a mere three years. Though that surge has not yet had a significant negative impact on China’s banks, many analysts fret that banks will eventually experience a rise in nonperforming loans. In an indication of what is to come, the Financial Times reported recently that the government has ordered banks to roll over the $1.7 trillion of loans owed by local governments. If true, this tells us two key things: 1) these governments invested money raised from banks in projects that are not generating the returns necessary to pay them back and 2) the quality of loans on the banks’ books are more questionable than official statistics suggest. On top of that, the fact that local governments amassed so much debt in the first place shows a complete lack of rule of law in China’s financial sector. Technically, local governments aren’t permitted to borrow money at all. Meanwhile, as government entities run up loans they can’t pay, many small companies, especially private ones, are unable to raise sufficient funds and remain starved of capital.

更糟的是，中国的大部分投资都依赖于负债。中国经济的债务水平一直都在以惊人的速度上升。评级机构惠誉估计中国2011年的银行信贷额相当于整个国家GDP的185%，在3年的时间里增加了56%。尽管这种状况尚未对中国造成重大的负面影响，但很多分析者担心银行最终会面临不良贷款增加的问题。《金融时报》报道近日表示,中国政府已下令，要求银行翻转地方政府所欠的1.7万亿美元的贷款，这似乎已经预示着山雨欲来。如果情况属实，我们将能掌握两个关键问题：1）政府部门投入到项目中的钱打了水漂，他们没能挣到足够的钱还债，2）银行账面上的贷款并没有官方数据所说的那么可信。此外，政府能够聚敛如此巨额的银行贷款也说明了中国的金融部门法治的严重缺失。从技术上讲，地方政府应该是禁止从银行贷款的。同时，由于地方政府机构积欠了他们无力偿还的贷款，很多小企业，尤其是私人企业，将无法从银行筹集足够的资金，濒临在破产的边缘。

So we can see the pieces of a crisis falling into place: excessive, misguided investment, including a giant property boom, propelled on by debt and the decisions of government bureaucrats. Sound familiar? A crisis, of course, is not inevitable — if China’s leadership takes action and reorients the direction of the economy. The positive thing is that at least some top policymakers understand the need to change. In policy pronouncement after policy pronouncement, the government pledges to reform. The problem is that China’s government is not taking its own advice. The economy needs to rebalance away from investment and exports to a more consumption-driven growth model with a primary focus on quality of growth, not high rates at any cost. That’s not happening, or not happening quickly enough. Yes, the Chinese consumer is gaining in global importance, but savings in China remains too high and consumption as a percentage of GDP still way too low. Steps that the government could take to spur on the needed rebalancing — reducing lofty taxes on many imported goods, for example — are nowhere to be found. More importantly, the government is doing nothing to set prices right. The currency remains firmly controlled, interest rates unreformed. So investors within China are still acting based on the wrong price signals.

以上种种迹象表明，一次危机已渐成雏形：过多的错误投资，包括由贷款和政府官员推动的庞大的房地产热潮。听起来熟悉吗？危机，当然是不可避免的——如果中国领导人不采取行动，重新定位经济方向的话。好消息是，至少已经有一些高层决策者意识到中国需要做出改变。在一个又一个政策指示中，政府承诺改革。问题是，中国政府甚至不能采纳自己的意见。中国经济需要重新调整，削减投资和出口份额，向消费主导的增长模式转变，更加注重质的提高而不是不惜任何代价的追求量的增长。这样才能阻止危机或至少延缓危机到来的时间。是的，中国消费者在全球比重不断上升，但中国的储蓄仍然过高，消费占国内生产总值比例仍然过低。为了调整经济模式，政府本应采取一系列措施——例如，降低进口商品的高额进口税，事实上他们并没有这么做。更严重的是，政府在制定正确价格方面无所作为。货币仍被牢牢控制着，利率改革也毫无进展。因此，中国境内的投资者依然在错误的价格信号指引下从事金融活动。undefined

Why won’t China’s policymakers pursue more fundamental reform? They are afraid that growth might slip. Sure, the latest five-year plan targets 7% annual GDP growth, but it seems to me that every time growth drops under double digits, the leadership goes into panic mode and revs up the economy again. GDP surged 8.9% in the fourth quarter of 2011, but that’s not fast enough for China’s leaders. They’ve already started loosening credit again — slathering yet more debt onto the economy.

为什么中国的政策制定者们不愿进行深层次的改革？他么害怕增长速度回降下来。的确，最新的五年计划对于年GDP增长的目标是7%。但在我看来，每次GDP涨幅跌至两位数以下时，中国的领导层就会坐立不安，然后再次催动经济加快转速。2011年第四季度，GDP涨幅飙至8.9%，但对于中国的领导人来说，这还远远不够。他们已经着手再次放宽信用额度，给本已负债累累的经济雪上加霜。undefined

When I bring up these issues with China watchers, I’m usually scolded — Beijing’s policy mandarins have it all figured out, I’m informed. It is true that China’s policymakers have done a superior job managing the rapidly changing economy in recent years. But as any stock investor knows all too well, past performance does not ensure future performance. Back in the 1970s and ’80s, analysts in the West considered Japan’s bureaucrats near supermen as well. Now the stodgy Japanese bureaucracy is considered one of the main impediments to an economic revival. Chinese bureaucrats today suffer from the same problem that led Japanese bureaucrats astray — they believe the economy can be managed by fiat. The tools of classical economics — getting prices right — are secondary. Why guide an economy with abstract measures like interest rates when you can just tell the banks what to do?

当我向中国观察家们阐述这一系列观点时，我通常会被批评——我被告知，北京的执政者们早已解决了这些问题。的确，在近年来如此瞬息万变的经济浪潮之中，中国的决策者们表现得相当出色。但是，任何股票投资者都非常清楚，过去的业绩并不能保证未来的业绩。早在20世纪70年代和80年代，西方分析家也认为日本的官员们近乎于超人。但现在因循守旧的日本官僚主义已被视为其经济复苏的主要障碍之一。今天，中国的官僚主义正面临着了导致日本官僚误入歧途的同样的问题——他们相信经济可以由人来操纵。而古典经济学的工具——矫正价格——则是次要的。当你能够告诉直接银行该怎么去做时，还何必要用那些抽象得措施比如说利率来引导经济呢？undefined

That attitude is what killed Japan’s economic miracle, and now I see China slipping toward the same fate. Japan could not escape the forces of basic mathematics. China can’t either, no matter how brilliant its policymakers might be. When would a meltdown happen? It is interesting to play with a bit of history. Both Japan and Korea suffered their crises roughly 35 years after the Asian development model was switched on — the early 1950s to ’89 in Japan, and 1962 to ’97 in Korea. That puts a China crisis at around 2014-15 or so. I’m not predicting a firm date here. What I am saying is that China is running out of time to fix the problems of its economy.

也正是这种态度毁掉了日本的经济奇迹，现在我看到中国正走向同样的命运。日本无法逃脱基本数学的规律。因此无论其决策者是何等之伟大，中国也不可能违背数学规律。如果非要给这场危机预测一个时间的话？我们不妨借鉴一下历史。日本和韩国都是在启动亚洲发展模式的35个年头后遭遇的危机——日本从20世界50年代开始到1989年，韩国是从1962年开始到1997年。这样算来，中国的危机大约在2014-2015年左右。我无意于预测某个准确的日期。我想说的是，危机迫在眉睫，解决经济弊病，中国须快马加鞭了。