英国《金融时报》：中国经济的真相

英国《金融时报》：中国经济的真相
FT中文网
中国的统计数据和国内牛奶包装有些共同之处，不要相信你在标签上看到的东西。正如一些国有企业听任供应商三聚氰胺（一种工业塑料）来提高婴幼儿奶粉中的蛋白质含量一样，受国家控制的统计学家有时也会在官方数据上动手脚，以迎合中国共产党的需要。
中国政府的目标一直是平稳增长。因此，官方数据有时低估了真实的增长速度。同样，在以往的经济减速时期，当“电力供应”已经停顿时，中国的经济活动还不可思议地继续前行，丝毫未受影响。因此，当我们得知未来两年内，中国将向年增长率“只有”9%——相对于急功近利的民众所预计的10%至12%，这的确是一种下降——的经济注入4万亿人民币（合5860亿美元）时，我们应以一种怀疑的目光来看待这些数字。
这些迹象表明，中国这个全球唯一还保持着强劲增长的超级经济体，正果断采取行动，以确保这种形势的继续。起初，股票市场和大宗商品市场为此上演了涨升行情。不过，正如随后市场下跌所暗示的那样，此项经济刺激方案可能并不完全像它看上去的那样。实际的经济增长率可能已低于官方的数据。摩根士丹利亚洲(Morgan Stanley Asia)董事长斯蒂芬?罗奇(Stephen Roach)表示，中国政府的行动好象有些“慌张”，表明经济增长率可能已降至8%以下。8%是中国观察家们确定的控制社会动荡所必需的水平——他们的才智令人质疑。
的确，非官方证据表明，上月的产出有惊人的下降，比任何人几周前所能想象到的都要快得多。这儿有一家大型化学制品公司报告称，10月份订单减少了一半。那儿有一家广东工厂的老板，几乎一夜之间就消失得无影无踪。广东省堪称中国出口驱动型经济奇迹的引擎，那里有数千家劳动力密集型的工厂。
出口增长已经放缓，但尚未停滞，暗示着还有可能出现更糟糕的情况。经济学家怀疑，如果没有刺激措施——甚至在更糟糕的情况下，即使采取了刺激措施——经济增长率是否会降至6%，至少在一个或两个季度里。
这种突如其来的放缓并非源自华尔街。它源于中国政府去年给如火如荼的房地产市场降温的决定——这一定程度上是由于担心通胀，而现在这种担心已不复存在。政府勒令银行控制对房地产行业的贷款。地产开发商不得不建造廉价住房，同时提高了居民购买第二套住房的难度。
中国的政策与美欧有明显差异，在美欧地区，独立的央行试图控制资产价格属于越权之举。不过，即使在一个指令性经济体中，戳破泡沫也没有那么容易。中国政府不只是把房地产市场的泡沫撇除，而是把它挤干了。龙洲经讯(Dragonomics)董事总经理葛艺豪(Arthur Kroeber)表示：“他们原本以为自己在微调，但中国的经济还停留在19世纪那种繁荣与萧条交替的循环之中。”
如果减缓增长的尝试都失败了，那么再次将它推高的努力可能也不会多么容易。苏格兰皇家银行(Royal Bank of Scotland)的贝哲民(Ben Simpfendorfer)表示，北京在这上面投入的资金总量让他震惊不已——至少是一年国内生产总值(GDP)的3%，即使有人给它打了折扣，称所宣布的投资有半数是已经承诺过的。但他表示，中国“越来越由市场驱动的经济”下滑的速度，可能比新资金的配置速度更快。
贝哲民列举了房地产市场为例，该市场约占GDP的7%，目前主要由私人部门控制。即使有关部门指示银行放贷，地产开发商也不一定借款，从而使政府一度丧失了对经济杠杆的直接控制。而在10年前，当大多数房屋是公有的时候，关闭投资的阀门、然后再把它打开，要容易得多。
一些西方国家政府刚刚获得了曾经私有的金融体系的控制权，它们很难不与中国保持一致步调：诱使银行将国有资金注入实体经济。同时，中国政府也并非唯一夸大经济刺激方案的规模和潜在影响的国家——日本已经把重复计算变成了一种滑稽的艺术形式。不过，为了安抚消费者的不安情绪，旧瓶装新酒可能也不失为一种正确的对策。
中国经济属于一种中央计划体制，正缓慢而艰难地向市场经济转型。而美国和欧洲已经不得已迈上了一条相反的道路。这两种转变都不可能一蹴而就。
当然，中国的人口统计学因素、持续中的大规模城市化进程，以及生产力提高的空间，几乎保证了它将继续高速增长。但任何幻想中国现在就具备让全球避免经济衰退能力的人，都应该三思。就像它的奶制品一样，中国的增长也不像看上去那么货真价实。
英国《金融时报》戴维?皮林(David Pilling)  译者/何黎
英文原文：
Unadulterated version of China’s growth
By David Pilling
Published: November 12 2008 19:31 | Last updated: November 12 2008 19:31
Chinese statistics and Chinese milk packaging have something in common. Do not believe what you read on the label. Just as state-owned companies allowed suppliers to boost the supposed protein content of infant milk powder with melamine, an industrial plastic, so state-controlled statisticians have sometimes doctored official figures to suit the Communist party’s needs.
The goal has been smooth growth. Thus state figures have sometimes underestimated true expansion. Likewise, in the previous slowdown, when electricity generation stalled, economic activity mysteriously rumbled on unaffected. Thus when we learn that China will, over two years,pump Rmb4,000bn ($586bn, €466bn) into an economy growing at “only” 9 per cent a year – a veritable comedown from the 10-12 per cent an octane-fuelled populace has come to expect – we should sniff the contents suspiciously.
Equity and commodity markets initially cavorted in response to signs that China, the world’s only super-economy still going strong, was acting decisively to ensure things stayed that way. But, as the subsequent market sag hinted, the stimulus package may not be all that it seems. Real growth rates may already be lower than official figures purport. Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, says Beijing is acting as though it is “panicked”, suggesting that economic activity may have dipped below the 8 per cent Chinese observers, in their questionable wisdom, have determined as the level required to keep social unrest in check.
Certainly, anecdotal evidence suggests that output sank alarmingly last month, far more quickly than anyone imagined was possible just weeks ago. Here, a big chemicals company reports that orders fell by half in October. There, a banker that thousands of labour-intensive factories in Guangdong, the engine-room of China’s export-led miracle, have disappeared almost overnight.
Export growth has slowed, but not yet stopped, suggesting there is worse to come. Without stimulus – if things go terribly wrong, perhaps even with it – economists are wondering whether growth could shrink to 6 per cent, at least for a quarter or two.
The sudden slowdown was not made in Wall Street. It originated in decisions adopted last year to take the heat out of a boiling property market – partly because of fears, now evaporated, about inflation. Banks were told to curtail lending to the property sector. Property developers were obliged to build lower-income housing and buying a second home was made more difficult.
China’s policies contrasted with those in the US and Europe, where it was beyond the remit of independent central banks to try to tame asset prices. But bursting bubbles, even in a command economy, is not that easy. Instead of taking the froth off the property market, Beijing has drained it dry. “They thought they were fine tuning,” says Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Dragonomics. “But China remains a boom-and-bust 19th century economy.”
If attempts to ease growth lower have misfired, efforts to ratchet it up again may not go so well either. Ben Simpfendorfer at Royal Bank of Scotland says he is wowed by the sheer amount of money Beijing is chucking at the problem – at least 3 per cent of gross domestic product a year, even if one discounts half the announced investments as money already pledged. But China’s “increasingly market driven economy” may sink more quickly than new funds can be deployed, he says.
Mr Simpfendorfer cites the housing market, worth about 7 per cent of GDP and now largely in private hands. Even if banks are instructed to lend, property developers cannot be obliged to borrow, putting the government at one stage removed from direct control over economic levers. Ten years ago, when most housing was public, turning the investment tap off and then on again was much easier.
Western governments, with newly acquired control over their once private financial systems, can hardly fail to sympathise with China’s efforts to cajole banks into funnelling state money towards the real economy. Nor is Beijing alone in exaggerating the size and potential impact of stimulus efforts. Japan has turned double-counting into a comic art form. Yet, given the need to reassure shaken consumers, selling old money as new may not be bad policy.
China is a centrally planned system in a slow, uneven transition to a market economy. The US and Europe have, perforce, taken a step in the opposite direction. Neither can turn their economies on a dime.
Certainly, China’s demographics, continuing mass urbanisation and the scope for improving productivity almost guarantee that fast growth will resume. But anyone who imagines that China possesses the immediate firepower to haul the world out of recession should run some lab tests. Like its dairy products, the China growth story is not quite as unadulterated as it seems.
david.pilling@ft.com