英国《卫报》:为中国经济“鸣冤叫屈”
原标题:《弱不禁风的,并不是中国经济》
马丁·雅克
西方市场之所以对中国经济恐慌,原因只有一个:它们自己的经济十分脆弱
2000年9月14日
西方但凡论及中国经济,看“熊”的,要远远多于看“牛”的。中国出了某个问题时,西方往往将其视为危机将至、中国经济硬着陆、社会失稳,乃至于政府垮台的先兆。诸如此类的狂想。
但毋庸置疑,中国之“牛”,有着令人敬畏的记录:经过35年超乎寻常的经济增长,中国经济近些年仍有7%的年均增长率。没错,增长率是低于从前,但较之任何西方国家,后者依然相形见绌。
对中国经济,西方经济评论的悲鸣此起彼伏,这种现象的背后,有个明显的漏洞——只盯住中国下个季度,甚至只是下个月的经济结果,而没有长远地看。中国人呢,他们理解自己经济的由来、现状和发展目标。他们也不自满——中国领导人坦承:经济上面临一些新的挑战。
要想看懂中国经济,我们不妨回顾一下金融危机爆发以来中国所发挥的全球性作用。2000-00年西方各经济体“瘫软”之时,中国经济迅速“驰援”。虽然北京政府的各种举措主要是为了自救(避免被这场危机拖垮),但也有这样的作用:力挽西方各经济体,使其免于“既倒”的悲惨命运。
面对几近崩溃的各西方市场(危机前占中国出口额的约一半),中国推出了一项巨额(5860亿美元)经济刺激计划,以促进内需,抵消出口需求的减损。这招管用。中国经济继续以大约10%的增长率扩张,是全球经济的一个主要推动力。
而且,度过黑暗之后,中国人让其货币(人民币)稳步升值,2000年至今累计升幅超过25%,远高于多数其它货币同期的升幅。这样一来,中国的出口,其竞争力显著下降,出口额也下跌了,国际收支的经常项目顺差也急剧减少:2000年时占其GDP 的10.1%,到去年仅占2.1%。想象一下吧,要是发生相反的情形(人民币贬值25%),其它经济体会受到什么样的影响。
中国经济对世界经济的健康越来越重要:2000年至今,美国的GDP仅增10%以上,而同期中国的增幅则达到约66%。
即便如此,中国人也不讳言,其经济刺激计划也引发了大量严重的问题:基础设施行业经常出现过度投资,债务过高,房地产市场过剩,以及地方政府各种日益严重的财政问题。
中国人深知,经济刺激拖后了其最紧迫的经济挑战——中国经济的结构转变。因此,北京发现自己两线作战,同时应对截然不同的两大问题:刺激计划引发的各种短期严重问题,以及事关长远的结构转变所必须要做的事情。
中国经济的再平衡,进展神速:2000年,GDP中服务业的占比已达48.2%,稳超“制造-建筑”业的42.6%,且二者的差距在稳步扩大。虽然经济增速跌至7%左右,但就业情况依然相当不错:与制造业相比,服务业更为劳动密集,对人员的吸纳高于制造业。另一方面,处于就业年龄段的人口每年减少3百万。
创新方面,如今有大量证据表明,中国经济的创新力日益增强。以“阿里巴巴”为首的“网购”业,已占全国零售额的10%以上,还在以40%的年增幅增长。中国的快递和网上金融服务都是世界级的;在先进机械设备、电机设备和智能手机等领域,中国企业也在快速追赶世界领先企业。例如,中国市场在智能手机的销售数量上,中国企业“小米”已超越苹果公司。我们也不应无视中国的能源革命:发电总装机容量中,风电、水电和太阳能之和目前已占近1/3——了不起的成就。
沉迷于“中国GDP数据变化”方面重点报道的西方,没有注意到中国经济深层结构的转变。说到底,攸关中国长远未来的,还是中国经济转型的能力——从劳动密集、投资引领、出口导向型经济,转变为基于增值生产和国内消费的经济。
与此同时,也不应忽视各种短期风险。中国时隐时现的债务问题——这个问题部分是企业性的(尤其是在基础设施相关行业,如钢材,其产能过剩30%-40%),部分是房地产性的(建设爆炸式增长的结果,许多建筑依然空置),部分是金融性的(借款者偿债能力日益下降,尤其是在“影子银行”业中)——可能会引发大规模的“去杠杆化”,进而导致经济收缩。
中国领导层面对的一大问题是:需要同时面对几大挑战。如果为了短期的经济刺激和增长率扶持而在经济结构调整和再平衡上后退,那只会养痈遗大患;要是债务问题处理不好,中国经济又可能硬着陆(最近几十年来,凭借掌控经济的娴熟技艺,中国一次又一次地避免了硬着陆)。总之,新一届中国领导层肩上的担子实在是太沉重了。除此之外,还有其雄心勃勃的基础设施计划“一路一带”、美国明目张胆地遏制中国的企图,以及中国更为自信的对外政策(特别是在东亚)。“心有余而力不足”的风险明显起来。
在如此复杂的形势之下,中国领导层犯了个大错(这也难怪)——对上交所的抛售进行干预,试图扭转局面。这种干预是失策的,错误的,目前似乎已基本上从干预中撤出。这一事件最值得关注的,却是西方股市随之暴跌。暴跌透露出三重含义。一,对中国的经济状态,西方相当关注。二,这种连锁反应形象地表明:如今,中国对世界经济多么重要,在许多方面比美国更重要。倒退五年,这样的情形都是不可想象的——中国真的是“如日中天”起来了!三,提醒所有的人:西方经济骨子里是多么脆弱,它一直未从金融危机中恢复过来。金融危机带来的,是一个新的、美国前财长、哈佛大学教授拉里?萨默斯称之为“长期滞胀”的时代。
西方世界继续依赖的,是这样一套“延命”系统:零利率,配之以中国经济的增长。要是中国经济“踉跄”起来那可怎么办?这就是各西方市场突发恐慌的原因。而北京感到的,是忧虑,并非恐慌。与西方相比,中国人面对的各种挑战似乎更可管控。
以下原文:
It′s not the Chinese economy that′s on life support
Martin Jacques
Western markets are only panicking about China because their own economies are so fragile
Monday 14 September 2000
The west′s bears have always well outnumbered the bulls when it comes to the Chinese economy. A new problem is all too often seen as an intimation of impending crisis, a hard landing, consequent social instability, and perhaps the eventual collapse of the government. Dream on.
The bears, it goes without saying, have a dreadful record. After 35 years of extraordinary economic growth, China is still growing at 7% annually. True, that is lower than before, but still at a rate that dwarfs anything in the west.
One of the great weaknesses of so much western economic commentary is that it fails to look much beyond the next quarter′s, or even month′s, results. In contrast the Chinese understand where they have come from, where they are and where they need to go. Nor are they complacent: the Chinese leadership readily admits it faces quite new economic challenges.
It is instructive then to look at China′s global role since the financial crisis. When the western economies were on their knees in 2000-00, the Chinese economy rode to the rescue. Although the actions of the Beijing government were primarily motivated by self-interest – avoiding being dragged down by the crisis – they also had the effect of saving the western economies from a fate far worse.
Confronted by the near-collapse of their western markets,, which accounted for around half of Chinese exports at the time, China embarked on a huge $586bn stimulus programme to boost domestic demand and offset the loss in demand for their exports. It worked. The Chinese growth rate continued to expand at around 10% and thereby provided a major boost to the global economy.
Furthermore, following those dark days, the Chinese have allowed their currency, the renminbi, to steadily appreciate, by more than 25% against the dollar since 2000 and considerably more against most other currencies. As a result Chinese exports have become considerably less competitive and have fallen. Meanwhile its current account surplus has dropped dramatically, from 10.1% of GDP in 2000 to 2.1% last year. Imagine the effect on other economies if the opposite had happened and the renminbi had been devalued by 25%.
The growing importance of the Chinese economy for the health of the global economy is illustrated by the fact that America′s GDP has grown by just over 10% since 2000, while over the same period China′s has increased by about 66%.
That said, the Chinese readily accept that the stimulus programme has led to a multitude of acute problems: chronic over-investment in industries responsible for infrastructure, excessive debt, a property market overhang and growing financial problems in local government.
They are also deeply aware that the stimulus has served to delay the most urgent economic challenge of all: a structural shift in the Chinese economy. As a result, Beijing has found itself fighting on two very different fronts at the same time: the severe short-term problems posed by the stimulus programme and the long-term imperative of a structural shift.
The rebalancing of the Chinese economy is making surprisingly rapid progress. In 2000, the share of services in China′s GDP was 48.2%, comfortably ahead of the 42.6% accounted for by manufacturing and construction, with the gap steadily widening. Despite the fall in the growth rate to around 7%, employment has remained buoyant: the reason is that the service sector absorbs relatively more people than manufacturing, since it is more labour-intensive, together with the fact that the working-age population is declining annually by 3 million.
There is also now much evidence that the Chinese economy is becoming increasingly innovative. Online shopping, led by Alibaba, already accounts for more than 10% of retail sales and is growing at 40% per annum. China′s express delivery and internet financial services are world-class and in sectors such as advanced machinery equipment, electrical machinery and smartphones Chinese firms are rapidly catching up with the global leaders: Xiaomi, for instance, is now selling more smartphones in China than Apple. Nor should we ignore China′s energy revolution: wind, water and solar power now account for nearly a third of its total electricity generation capacity, a remarkable achievement.
The western preoccupation with headline GDP figures overlooks this deeper structural shift. Ultimately it is the ability of the Chinese economy to make the transition from a labour-intensive, investment-led, export-oriented economy to one based on value-added production and domestic consumption that will be crucial to its long-term future.
This, however, should not deflect attention from the short-term risks. China′s chronic debt problem – partly corporate (especially in infrastructural-related industries, such as steel, that have 30-40% excess capacity); partly property (the result of an explosion in construction, with many buildings remaining empty); partly financial (the growing inability of borrowers to pay back their debts, especially in the shadow banking sector) – could lead to a massive deleveraging and consequent economic contraction.
One of the great problems facing the Chinese leadership is that it is facing several serious challenges all at the same time. If it backtracks on restructuring and rebalancing to provide short-term economic stimulus and shore up the growth rate, this will only store up much more serious problems for the future. If it mishandles the debt problem China could conceivably have the hard landing that it has so skilfully avoided over the last few decades. In short, the new Chinese leadership is confronted with serious overload. Add to this China′s enormously ambitious infrastructure project, One Belt One Road, America′s blatant attempt to contain China and China′s more assertive foreign policy, especially in east Asia, and the danger of over-reach becomes apparent.
China′s leadership, unsurprisingly given the circumstances, has made one serious error: its ill-conceived and mistaken intervention to try to reverse the sell-off on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, from which it now appears to have largely backtracked. In the event, however, it was the resulting plunge in western markets that was far more revealing and significant. Its message was threefold. First, the west is concerned about the state of China′s economy. Second, it was a dramatic illustration of just how important China now is to the global economy, in many ways greater than the US. Even five years ago such an event would have been unimaginable: China has arrived big time. And third, it reminded everyone of the underlying fragility of the western economy, the fact that it has never recovered from the financial crisis, that the latter ushered in a new era of what Larry Summers has called secular stagnation.
The western world continues to depend on a life-support system, namely zero interest rates, combined with Chinese growth. What if the latter falters? That is why western markets have suddenly started panicking. In Beijing there is concern, not panic. Their challenges seem manageable in comparison.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2000/sep/14/chinese-economy-western-markets-china
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