预测：中国经济困境的3种结局

HONG KONG — China’s economy is slowing. How bad can it get?

香港——中国经济增长正在放缓。情况能有多糟?

China is widely expected to report on Wednesday that its economy grew about 6.7 percent in the third quarter from a year ago. That would match the growth pace China set in the first and second quarters of this year. In economics, stability like that is remarkable — and usually not to be believed.

业界普遍预期中国本周三将宣布第三季度经济同比增长约6.7%。这和中国今年第一、第二季度的增速持平。在经济学中，这样稳定的增速很值得注意——人们通常也不会相信。

Economists often look beyond the official numbers to find alternative ways to gauge the Chinese economy. Other figures and facts on the ground suggest that a lending binge that China has unleashed in recent months is helping to sustain growth.

经济学家常常把目光放在官方数字之外，寻找其他方法来衡量中国经济。其他相关数字和事实表明，中国近几个月放出的大量贷款有助于维持增长。

But by historical standards, China’s growth is slowing down. This year’s growth is set to come in at a pace slower than last year’s, which was already the weakest pace in 25 years.

但以历史标准来看，中国的增长正在放缓。今年的增速肯定会比去年慢，去年是25年来最低迷的一年。

“China’s growth has already slowed down dramatically from the heady rates before the financial crisis,” said Diana Choyleva, chief economist at Enodo Economics. “The economy has reached the end of the road when it comes to its export- and investment-led growth model.”

“中国的增长已经从金融危机前的高速度显著放缓，”伊诺多经济公司(Enodo Economics)的首席经济学家戴安娜·乔伊利瓦(Diana Choyleva)说。“从出口和投资拉动型增长模式的角度来看，中国经济已经走到了尽头。”

That is a major concern for central banks, economists, investors and corporate executives around the world, as China has been a major engine of growth for decades. Their main question: What happens next?

这是全球各地中央银行、经济学家、投资者和企业高管关注的大事，因为在过去几十年来，中国一直是经济增长的一个主要引擎。他们的主要疑问是：接下来会发生什么事?

Below are three situations that are often discussed as the most likely outcomes of China’s predicament — and what each would mean for the rest of the world.

以下三种情况，常常被视为中国困境最有可能的后果，以及每一种对世界其他地方产生的影响。

China escaped the worst of the 2008 global financial crisis by starting a campaign of state-directed spending that created mountains of new debt. This helped cushion the blow of the fallout around the world. But critics argue that this only delayed China’s own day of reckoning.

在2008年全球金融危机中，中国通过启动一场由国家主导、带来大量新债务的支出活动而躲过了最严重的影响。这对缓解世界各地遭受的危机冲击起到了帮助作用。但批评者认为，它只会推迟中国自己品尝苦果的时间。

China is still adding credit at a heady pace, and experts are starting to sound alarm bells. Under this situation, China risks its own version of the 2008 crisis that shook Wall Street and plunged the United States into recession and years of painfully slow growth. The rest of the world — which is still dealing with Europe’s woes — could follow.

中国仍然在以惊人的速度增加信用，专家纷纷对此发出警告。在这种情况下，中国有可能重蹈2008年金融危机的覆辙，那次危机沉重地打击了华尔街，令美国陷入衰退，经历了数年极为缓慢的增长。目前仍在应对欧洲麻烦的世界其他地方，可能也会跟着陷入危机。

Last month, the Bank for International Settlements published new data estimating that the gap between China’s outstanding credit and its long-term economic growth rate had widened to a record and was well above the historical level that indicates a financial crisis is likely.

上个月，国际清算银行(Bank for International Settlements)公布了新数据，估算中国未偿还信贷与其长期经济增长率之间的差距已经刷新纪录，远远高于可能引发金融危机的历史水平。

Part of the problem lies in the rapid growth of what is known as shadow financing, like wealth management products, or other forms of nontraditional lending, which have been the focus of a number of prominent frauds. In a report this month, the International Monetary Fund warned that shadow loans average almost 300 percent of the capital buffers at China’s smaller banks.

一部分问题在于“影子融资”的快速增长，比如理财产品或其他形式的非传统贷款，这已经成为了一系列重大欺诈案件的焦点。在本月的一份报告中，国际货币基金组织(IMF)警告说，影子贷款的平均数接近于中国小型银行的资本缓冲的300%。

The sharp rise in debt prompted one I.M.F. official to warn this month of the risk of a financial “calamity” emanating from China.

鉴于这样的债务骤增，IMF一名官员本月发出了中国有可能爆发金融“灾难”的警告。

The good news is that few people actually think such a crisis is the most likely outcome.

好消息是，真的认为这有可能导致金融危机的人并不多。

“The risks of a financial crisis remain very low,” said Andy Rothman, an investment strategist at Matthews Asia, based in San Francisco.

旧金山的铭基亚洲(Matthews Asia)的投资策略师安迪·罗思曼(Andy Rothman)说，“中国发生金融危机的风险仍然很低。”

Mr. Rothman and others point to China’s tight grip on its own financial system. It controls the country’s big banks as well as the big companies that borrow the most. It also limits how much money can leave its borders and keeps a firm grip on the value of its currency.

罗思曼等人指出，中国对金融体系的控制力很强。它控制着本国大型银行以及借款最多的大公司，对流出本国的资金数量进行了限制，还一直掌控着人民币的价值。

So why can’t China just spend its way out of its slowdown?

那么，中国为什么不能一直用增加支出的方式来应对经济放缓呢?

Optimists point to China’s history of responding to economic challenges: the 2008 lending surge, an earlier bailout of the banking system and a painful restructuring of state-owned enterprises. This time, China could make progress with a plan to restructure debt while increasing spending on areas that could benefit its growing consumer class, like medical care and social services. That would be good news for a world economy looking for sparks.

乐观主义者提到了中国以往应对经济挑战的历史：2008年的贷款激增，对银行系统的早期救助，以及国有企业的痛苦重组。这一次，中国可以通过重组债务，并增加对一些领域的支出来取得成效，这些领域包括医疗保健和社会服务，可以给中国日益扩大的消费阶层带来好处。对于正在寻求起色的全球经济来说，这是一个好消息。

The problem is that China’s debt burden is so much larger than ever before — both in absolute terms and compared with the economy.

问题是，中国的债务负担比以往任何时候都沉重得多——无论是在绝对数量上，还是相对于经济总量而言。

At the same time, recent efforts to support growth by increasing state spending have met with another challenge: The government is getting less bang for its buck.

与此同时，通过增加政府支出来保增长的努力近期也面临着另一个挑战：政府支出的效果越来越小。

What’s more, private companies, put off by the lackluster economic outlook, have been pulling back on investment. State spending has helped keep growth rates on target so far this year, and a rebound in real estate investment has also helped, albeit at the risk of inflating a housing bubble.

此外，由于经济前景不乐观，私人公司已经开始撤资。今年到目前为止，在政府支出和房地产投资回暖的帮助下，中国保持了经济增长目标，虽然楼市泡沫膨胀的风险有所加剧。

“The resurgence of state investment has helped sustain growth in the short run, as has the modest rebound in property investment this year,” said Nicholas R. Lardy, an expert on China’s economy who is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

“国家投资的回暖有助于在短期内维持经济增长，房地产投资今年的小幅反弹也起到了这个作用。”华盛顿彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)的高级研究员、中国经济专家尼古拉斯·R·拉迪(Nicholas R. Lardy)说的高级研究员说。

But he added, “The productivity of state investment is low, so it is a very inefficient way to sustain growth.”

但他也说，“国家投资的生产率很低，所以用这个方式来维持增长效率非常低下。”

With China’s high debt, inability to spend and a lack of political will to make tough choices to fix its economy, economists are increasingly comparing it to another Asian powerhouse: Japan.

中国债务高企、支出无力，缺乏为解决经济问题做出艰难选择的政治意愿，导致经济学家日益将它与另一个亚洲大国日本进行类比。

Like China now, Japan in the 1990s faced enormous bank debt, the bursting of a stock market bubble and overcapacity in a number of industries. Reluctant to make the sort of tough choices that result in shutting factories and killing companies, Japanese leaders tolerated years of economic stagnation instead. The result was called the Lost Decade, though many of Japan’s problems linger today.

就像中国现在一样，日本在1990年代也面临着巨大的银行债务、股市泡沫破裂，以及很多行业产能过剩。日本领导人不愿意做出会导致工厂停业、公司倒闭的艰难选择，而是容忍了多年的经济停滞。结果导致了“失落的十年”，尽管日本的很多问题如今仍然存在。

China is not Japan, of course, and its vast and upwardly mobile population stands in contrast to Japan’s wealthier but aging society. Still, a growing number of economists see the possibility of something similar.

当然，中国不是日本，它庞大的向上流动的人口，也和日本更富裕但老龄化日渐严重的社会形成了鲜明的对比。但依然有越来越多的经济学家看到了类似的可能性。

“Just having a lot of debt, and bad debt, does not cause you to have a crisis,” said Arthur R. Kroeber, the managing director of Gavekal Dragonomics, an economic research firm in Beijing.

“大量债务并且是不良债务，并不会给你造成危机，”北京的经济研究公司佳富龙洲(Gavekal Dragonomics)的常务董事葛艺豪(Arthur R. Kroeber)说。

“But the price that you pay — if you don’t do the financial restructuring and real economy restructuring that is necessary to restore things to health — is that you get a very long period of very low growth and anemic activity,” he added.

“但要恢复经济的健康，必须进行金融重组和实体经济重组，如果不这么做，你要付出的代价就是在非常漫长的时期里增长速度非常低，缺乏活力，”他接着说。

That could also sideline one of the world’s most reliable engines of growth. It could also cause problems in China, where leaders have long pledged to provide jobs and opportunity to the millions who still leave their rural villages looking for a better life.

这可能还会降低全球最可靠的增长引擎之一的重要性，并在中国国内引发问题。在中国，领导人长期承诺为仍在为寻找更好的生活而离开农村的数亿人提供工作岗位和机会。

Still, that could be better than the alternative.

但这仍然好过另一种情况。

“This expansion of debt is way beyond anything we saw in Japan, both in terms of magnitude and time frame,” said Charlene Chu, a partner at Autonomous Research and a former China banking analyst at Fitch Ratings.

“这种债务扩张远远超出了我们在日本看到的情况，不管是在规模上还是时间范围上，”曾在惠誉评级(Fitch Ratings)担任中国银行业分析师的Autonomous Research合伙人朱夏莲(Charlene Chu)说。

“I think a Japan outcome in many ways would be a best-case scenario for China.”

“我觉得从很多方面来说，日本的情况是中国最好的结局。”