【轉貼】China's Red Flags

written by PMO Edward Chancellor, 文末也有新唐人電視台的中文評論。

English Introduction:

CONGRESS HAS NO PEER IN LEGISLATING for the last cycle. All the more surprising, then, that our much-adored lawmakers have broken with a tradition that's almost as old as the republic itself and addressed themselves to China. More particularly, they've accused China with some justice of being a currency manipulator by striving to maintain the value of yuan artificially depressed so as to keep its exports booming. As we noted, Beijing, which long has contented itself with scolding us for our fiscal imprudence, is expected to trot out a trade deficit as proof that the charge is patently untrue.

But, as we've felt for some time now, China has more to worry about than the barking displeasure of our legislators. For although it has enjoyed an awesome record of growth stretching back over three decades, it also shows more than a few of the telltale evidences of an economy headed for trouble -- but real trouble.

As luck would have it, we've come across a recent piece by GMO's Edward Chancellor that provides eloquent chapter and verse for that less than cheerful view. Entitled "China's Red Flags," it contends "China today exhibits many of the characteristics of great speculative manias" over the past three centuries and then outlines those characteristics.

Such debacles usually start, Edward has found, with a compelling growth story. Another feature is a blind faith in the competence of the authorities. The ignominious list includes: excessive capital investment; a surge in corruption; easy money; fixed- currency regimes; rampant credit growth; moral hazard; precarious financial structures; and rapidly rising property prices powered by dodgy loans.

Of these, rapid credit growth is the most important leading indicator of financial instability, followed by an asset price bubble. Low interest rates and strong money growth play a significant part, too, in creating memorably bad outcomes. China, unhappily, has its share of these dubious qualities as well as being inflicted by a huge speculative mania.

Edward points out that "forecasts for urbanization and economic growth make for a compelling Wall Street pitch." But he cautions that like the extravagant expectations for Internet growth during the dot-com mania, investors seem to be swallowing whole China's growth forecasts. A good example is the reckoning that the urban population will increase some 350 million by 2025.

Edward suggests those numbers may not accurately reflect the present density of urban areas in China because a) many rural migrants to the cities tend not to be included in the official count as they lack residency status; and b) officials are rewarded on GDP growth per capita in their districts, so they have an obvious interest in understating how many people those districts contain.

He also notes that "Wall Street tends to downplay the darker aspects of the Chinese demographic story." China's population is set to decline in 2015 and the worker participation rate will peak this year. That will cause a sharp shrinkage in the number of people who migrate to the cities and supply China with its seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of cheap labor, key to its spectacular export success.

In recent years, no secret, Beijing has built up a vast treasury of foreign reserves of some $2.4 trillion. But Edward believes it's a mistake to think that China's gargantuan foreign-exchange reserves render its economy invincible. "These reserves," he acknowledges, "can be used to buy foreign assets, pay for imports or defend a currency under attack." But they aren't especially effective in wrestling with the problems that follow, say, the collapse of an asset-price bubble, such as a broken banking system or a legacy of bad investments.

And, on that score, he quotes approvingly the observation in a recent book on China that "the only two countries which have previously accumulated such large foreign-exchange reserves relative to global GDP were the U.S. in 1929 and Japan in 1989."

While surging credit has "revived the animal spirits of Chinese investors" and hugely whetted their appetites for all manner of stocks, including initial public offerings, quick trades and other classic signs of speculative euphoria, the real action has been in "China's overheating property market." And a goodly number of Edward's red flags are "fluttering around" over-stretched real-estate valuations, rampant speculation and frenzied new construction. Housing, he says, "has become a national obsession."

Pinpointing when the real-estate bubble will burst is a bit tricky, Edward concedes, in part because China is "not a pure market economy. State-owned enterprises can be called upon to prop up markets. Losses may be concealed or shuffled around like a shell game...Such measures, however, won't cure China's problems. They only delay the denouement."

And he cautions that "just because the timing of any future crisis is imponderable, doesn't mean the risk posed by the real- estate bubble should be ignored." All the more so because the property market looms so large in the Chinese economy and financial system. Real-estate investment accounts for roughly 12% of GDP. Construction is the main source of demand for much of China's heavy industry. Real-estate is gobbling up 20% of new bank loans.

China, Edward muses, "has become a field of dreams, a build-and-they-will-come economy." He predicts that were the economy to slow below Beijing's 8% growth target, "bad things are likely to happen." Much of the new infrastructure will turn out to be otiose; excess capacity would linger in many industries; real estate would take a bath, and the banking system would be swamped by a wave of nonperforming loans.

His morose conclusion: "Investors who are immersed in the China Dream ignore this scenario. When the China juggernaut eventually stalls, they face a rude awakening."

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中文介紹—影音：

國際社會再次警告中國經濟

中國現投機狂熱先兆 中國經濟泡沫是否會破裂

伍凡：各位觀眾好，現在是獨立評論時間。3月23 日，美國著名投資公司GMO發表了一篇名為《中國的紅色警報》的研究報告。文中指出，中國已經呈現出顯著的投機狂熱的特徵。以史為鑑，一旦這些泡沫破裂，中國的經濟將脆弱不堪。今天我們就談一談這些問題。

草庵：《中國的紅色警報》的研究報告指出，幾年前，美國經濟曾經存在一些金融危機的先前徵兆。而今天，這些紅色警報指向了華爾街目前的新寵——中國。文章首先列舉了金融危機的先兆跡象：令人信服的經濟增長、對政府當局能力的盲目信任、投資的普遍增加、腐敗、貨幣供應的快速增長、不合理的低利率、房地產擔保風險貸款等。以此類推，文章拉響了中國經濟危機的十個警報：一致認為GDP會以8%的速度增長、對政策制定者的信任、投資的繁榮、腐敗、寬鬆的流動性、固定匯率和資本流入、貸款迅猛增加、過於信賴“大而不能倒”的銀行、危險的放貸方式、房地產和股市泡沫。

伍凡：《警報》認為，中國的經濟增長嚴重依賴出口增長。目前，中國對西方的出口已經達到峰值，很難繼續激增，而貿易保護主義卻在威脅著中國的出口。很明顯，依靠出口的增長方式不可行，於是，中國開始了以投資拉動內需。但《警報》指出中國過高的投資水準也造成了資本錯配的風險。目前，中國的經濟體系已經從20世紀80年代的民營經濟為主轉為目前的政府主導為主。雖然政府能比私人部門更快的投入資源，但投資的質量卻更低。

草庵：政府將投資更多的給予國企，用來投資基礎設施，但對於中國目前的經濟發展水準來說，現有的基礎設施已經非常發達。中國此舉只能帶來了大範圍的產能過剩。例如，很多小型機場的使用率只有一半，高速鐵路系統很可能無法收回成本。在銀行系統方面，中國去年有10萬億元的貸款，如此巨大的信貸就讓人不得不擔心銀行的“壞賬”會捲土重來。

伍凡：此外，中國過低的固定匯率吸引了大規模的資本流入。但巨額外匯儲備只能用來購買外國資產，支付進口，且無法解決資產泡沫崩潰後隨之而來的問題，如不良投資的後果等。而在歷史上曾經積累了如此巨額儲備的國家只有兩個：1929年的美國和1989年的日本。當時，這兩個國家都發生了史無前例的經濟危機。

草庵：對於中國火熱的房地產業，《警報》指出，其已經顯示出典型的泡沫狀態，這個泡沫遲早破裂。由於中國的經濟體制，讓預測變得很難。但是，中國的體制無法解決問題，只能推遲問題的爆發。最後，文章指出，中國的整個經濟金融系統都基於一個信仰，即未來中國將以過去的速度繼續增長。這個假設讓更多的投資變得合理，從而刺激增長，也帶來了更多的投資。中國已經成為了一個“先建設，一切都會隨之而來”的經濟。而一旦中國的經濟增長速度低於8%，悲劇就會發生：大部分基礎設施將會毫無用處，過剩的產能將存在很多年；房地產泡沫會破裂，銀行系統將面臨大規模壞賬。 “當中國這部巨型機器最終停滯，這些沉浸在夢中的投資者將噩夢醒來。”

伍凡：針對該文章，華爾街日報發表了摩根大通董事總經理華裔李晶的反駁文章《中國固定資產投資飆升未必是壞事》。文中認為，中國人均GDP極少，所以對基礎設施仍有巨大需求；固定投資的資產質量良好，資金使用效率也不錯，且也沒有跡象表明中國企業的投資回報率在下降。最後，文章認為，那些聲稱過量投資很快將危及中國穩定的批評人士卻有失公允。

草庵：非常奇妙，在美國的華裔認為中國形式很好，但在中國，卻又很多學者和專家對李晶的觀點進行大量的反駁。而且很多學者和專家提出了許多非常實際的問題。其實中國的經濟是否出現了問題，有一些非常直接的現象就可以說明。首先就是人民幣對外升值，對內貶值的現象。人民幣的巨幅貶值，已經到了60年來最嚴重的地步。2009年M2增幅超過29.7%，為歷史新高，流動性瘋狂氾濫，對應實際GDP6.7%的增長和現在CPI 達到2.7%的增幅和一年房價25%的增長，人民幣實際縮水27%。而且，現在還在貶值。所有人民幣持幣人的財產都毫無例外地受到嚴重損失，而中國國內百姓是第一受害人。

伍凡：人民幣的巨幅貶值，損害最大的是普通老百姓，他們把自己一輩子的辛勞存在銀行，目的是為了使自己的生老病死有個基本保障，因為政府對他們缺少保障，所以，這是一個無奈的選擇。中國的國情是，這些普通老百姓不太懂投資，也不敢投資，因為中國的資本市場處處都是陷阱，也不適合普通老百姓來投資。這樣直接導致的是，老百姓的財富硬碰硬的大幅縮水，這對老百姓來說是天大的冤枉。

草庵：人民幣巨幅貶值導致流動性氾濫，資產價格暴漲，民不聊生。這些過大的流動性流到房價上，房價處處暴漲；流到大蒜上，大蒜可以漲幾十倍；流到生薑、韭菜、辣椒等老百姓一日三必須吃的素菜上，這些蔬菜頃刻暴漲，而中國的CPI卻不漲。現在是水電油氣、柴米油鹽醬醋茶全部大漲，通貨膨脹已經非常嚴重，而人民幣還在貶值，究竟要貶到什麼地步無人知道。

伍凡：央行行長準備把人民幣貶值貶到什麼地步，應該給出一個交代了。人民幣如果象現在這樣無休止的貶值，中國的貨幣體系將要經受嚴峻的考驗，不排除會發生津巴布韋一樣的狀態，全體國民不再相信人民幣，而是購買美元以防止人民幣貶值，結果是引來人民幣更大幅度的貶值和人民幣體系的崩潰。

草庵：人民幣的現狀其實就是中國經濟危機的顯現，無論是海外預測如何，中國實際政策和狀況如何，最終都會通過人民幣的實際狀況顯現出來。真個中國經濟現象也都會毫無隱瞞地從人民幣運行過程中顯現出來。無論是你誇耀中國經濟好，還是你指責中國經濟不好，從百姓手中的人民幣都可以看到誰是正確，誰是錯誤的。人民幣在中國和國際社會的表現基本上都可以正確地表現出中國經濟的真實面貌。人民幣對外急劇升值和對內急劇貶值這已經足以說明中國經濟已經處於一種嚴重割裂的狀態，已經處於非常危機的狀態之中。

伍凡：很多人說中國經濟政策是一種全人類有史以來最大的笑話，是反人類的行為。這種說法雖然有點誇張，但如果我們能正常地觀察中國的事情時，中共的很多行為確實是令人難以理解的。從中國目前的經濟狀況及人民幣的行為上，我們很難理解為什麼會一個事物會被如此割裂成兩個極端。今天的時間到了，謝謝各位觀眾，再見。

草庵：再見。