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斯蒂芬·罗奇:中国经济最后一次软着陆?(China's Last Soft Landing?)

作者:斯蒂芬·罗奇(Stephen S. Roach)2013年1月29日 

中国又一次藐视了它的反对者们。其经济增长在2012年最后一个季度提速至7.9%--比第三季度7.4%的GDP增长速度高出半个百分点。在经历了连续十个季度的减速后,这次提速意义非凡,它标志着中国经济在略短于4年的时间内第二次实现了软着陆
  尽管有很多关于中国将来会转向内需导向的说法,中国现在依然严重依赖出口和外部需求--这是其经济增长的主要动力。中国最近两次经济减速都紧随其最大的两个国外市场--欧洲和美国--的经济衰退之后这可并不是巧合。就像2009年初的软着陆发生在美国引发的可怕危机后那样,最近一次的软着陆则紧跟在欧洲主权债务危机之后

  中国有几个力量来源,使其能够在过去四年里承受艰难的外部冲击。大量储蓄(GDP的53%)所构成的缓冲区以及外汇储备(3.3万亿美元)是其最重要的力量来源。此外,不像西方国家已经用光了大部分的传统逆周期政策,如果形势需要,中国还保持着财政及货币政策调整的巨大空间。同样地,强大的城市化动力继续为中国的高投资经济提供坚固的支持,同时让相对贫穷的农民工能够通过在城市找到收入更高的工作来增加自身的收入。
  然而,这也许是中国最后一次能够在其发展不受影响的情况下避免外部冲击。其总理温家宝早在六年多之前就提出了这种可能性,他在2007年3月指出:看似辉煌的中国经济已经变得“不稳定、不平衡、不协调、并最终不可持续”了。
  自那时起,中国的许多固有优势被不断的外部冲击削弱了。银行业仍在清理2008年全球危机后遗留下来的不良债务。对那些第一次移居到城市的人来说,要找到负担得起的房子已经成为一个日益严重的问题。腐败丑闻和政治动乱风险导致人心骚动--至少在去年共产党领导层权力交接之前的几个月是这样的。
  换句话说,温家宝的“四不”所指的经济弱点已经显著加剧了。中国经济确实变得更不稳定,它的实际GDP增长于2009年大幅放缓,2012年也是如此。其发展不平衡也变得更严重--投资占GDP的比重接近50%,而私人消费占GDP的比重还不到35%
  同样地,中国也变得更加不协调,或者说碎片化,这是因为其收入差距一直在扩大。而发展的可持续性正被环境退化和污染所破坏,这对中国的大气和水供应构成了越来越大的威胁。
  简而言之,中国的增长模式被史无前例地扩张。而且,就像一块布料,它被拉伸的时间越长,要回到原来有弹性的状态的所需的时间就越长——而且越有可能下一次出了什么差错,它再也恢复不到有弹性的状态
  这给新一届中国领导人传递的信息是很明显的:历史上从来没有像现在一样迫切需要进行经济发展的再平衡和改革现在是时候要实施这些措施了,以加速向更为消费者导向的经济过渡的进程
  进程是很漫长的,但它已经不是一个秘密了。它包括发展服务业、资助社会保障、放宽过时的户口政策、改革国有企业并通过提高被人为刻意降低的储蓄利率来结束对家庭的金融压迫
  如果不能迅速地在实施这个计划,在这个饱受危机冲击的世界,中国将会很容易受到下一次不可避免的冲击没有进行重新平衡的调整,这几个潜在临界点中的任何一个都会严重危害该经济体完成另一次软着陆的能力:银行体系信贷质量的恶化;随着工资上涨削弱出口竞争力;重要的环境、治理和社会问题(也就是,污染、腐败和贫富差距的问题);当然,还有外交政策失误,正如与日本之间不断升级的问题所显示出来的一样。
  中国经济在过去四年里已经安然度过了两个重要的全球危机。表面上,中国的经济韧性令人印象深刻——正如中国领导人一直对全世界强调的一样,它是第一个复苏的国家。然而,表面之下,这个不平衡、不稳定、不协调、无法持续发展的经济体可能会失去复原能力。如果不进行再平衡和改革,中国自动软着陆的好日子也许就再也不会有了。
  对中国的经济我已经乐观了15年。现在我仍然持乐观的态度。但时间不等人。温家宝六年前的评论是对过去中国缺陷强有力的诊断,并指出了未来中国的希望和梦想所在。它仍然是中国新一代领导人不能忽视的蓝图。时间已经对中国来说已经很紧迫了,它必须马上采取行动。
斯蒂芬·罗奇,前摩根士丹利亚洲有限公司非执行主席,同时也是《下一个亚洲》一书的作者,现任教于耶鲁大学  
China's Last Soft Landing?
Once again, China has defied the naysayers. Economic growth picked up in the final quarter of 2012 to 7.9% - half a percentage point faster than the 7.4% increase in GDP in the third quarter. This was a meaningful increase after ten consecutive quarters of deceleration, and it marks the Chinese economy's second soft landing in slightly less than four years.
Despite all the talk about the coming shift to internal demand, China remains heavily dependent on exports and external demand as major drivers of economic growth. It is not a coincidence that its last two slowdowns followed closely on the heels of growth slumps in its two largest foreign markets, Europe and the United States. Just as the soft landing in early 2009 occurred in the aftermath of a horrific American-made crisis, this latest one followed the European sovereign-debt crisis.
China has several sources of strength that have enabled it to withstand the tough external shocks of the last four years. Large buffers of saving (53% of GDP) and foreign-exchange reserves ($3.3 trillion) are at the top of the list. Moreover, unlike the West, which has used up most of its traditional countercyclical policy ammunition, China has maintained ample scope for fiscal and monetary-policy adjustments as circumstances dictate. Likewise, a powerful urbanization dynamic continues to deliver solid support for China's high-investment economy, while enabling relatively poor rural workers to raise their incomes by finding higher-paying jobs in the cities.
Nonetheless, this may be the last time that China can escape an external shock with its growth intact. Premier Wen Jiabao addressed this possibility nearly six years ago, arguing in March 2007 that the seemingly spectacular Chinese economy had become "unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and ultimately unsustainable."
Since then, many of China's inherent strengths have been sapped by all-too-frequent external shocks. The banking sector is still digging out from the bad loans extended in the aftermath of the global meltdown in 2008. Finding affordable housing has become an increasingly serious problem for those relocating to cities for the first time. And corruption scandals and the related risks of political turmoil were unsettling, to say the least, in the months prior to last year's Communist Party leadership transition.
In other words, the vulnerability implied by Wen's "Four Uns" has increased significantly. China's economy has certainly become more unstable, with major slowdowns in real GDP growth in 2009 and again in 2012. Its imbalances have gotten worse as well, with the investment share of GDP approaching 50% and private consumption falling below 35% of GDP.
Similarly, China has become more uncoordinated, or fragmented, as its income disparities have continued to widen. And sustainability is being jeopardized by environmental degradation and pollution, which pose a growing threat to the country's atmosphere and water supply.
In short, China's growth model has been stretched as never before. And, like a piece of fabric, the longer it remains stretched, the longer it will take to return to its former resilient state - and the greater the possibility that it will not spring back the next time something goes wrong.
The message to China's new leadership is unmistakable: There has never been a more urgent time to get on with the heavy lifting of rebalancing and reform. Now is the time to implement the measures that will accelerate the transition to a more consumer-led economy.
The agenda is long, but it is hardly a secret. It includes developing the services sector, funding the social safety net, liberalizing an antiquated residential-permit system (hukou), reforming state-owned enterprises, and ending financial repression on households by lifting artificially low interest rates on savings.
Failure to act quickly on this program would leave China far too vulnerable to the inevitable next shock in a crisis-battered world. In the absence of rebalancing, any one of several potential tipping points could seriously compromise the economy's ability to pull off another soft landing: deteriorating credit quality in the banking system; weakening export competitiveness as wages rise; key environmental, governance, and social problems (namely, pollution, corruption, and inequality); and, of course, foreign-policy missteps, as suggested by escalating problems with Japan.
The Chinese economy has come through two major global crises in the past four years. On the surface, its resilience has been impressive - the first to recover, as Chinese leaders always want to remind the rest of the world. But, beneath the surface, an unbalanced, unstable, uncoordinated, and unsustainable economy risks losing its capacity for resilience. Without rebalancing and reforms, the days of the automatic Chinese soft landing may be over.
I have been an optimist about China for 15 years. I still am. But the clock is ticking. Wen Jiabao's critique six years ago was a powerful diagnosis of the Old China's flaws that pointed to the Next China's hopes and dreams. It remains a blueprint that China's new leadership cannot ignore. Time is no longer on China's side. It must act now.
Stephen S. Roach, a faculty member at Yale University and former Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, is the author of The Next Asia.


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