2013.04.18 中国经济放缓的速度有多快？

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中国经济放缓的速度有多快？
北京对此能做些什么？这是与ChinaFile进行的一系列讨论中的最新内容。

作者：ChinaFile
2013年4月18日
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Patrick Chovanec。

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如果中国的GDP增长放缓是出于正确的原因，这并不是一件坏事。但它不是出于正确的原因。

中国当局没有控制信贷以试图遏制过度投资，而是允许信贷重新爆炸，以努力推动新的投资刺激措施。在过去六个月里，他们注入了10万亿人民币（1.6万亿美元）的新信贷--仅今年第一季度就有1万亿美元，比2009年第一季度（刺激性贷款热潮的高峰期）多出1/3。只是这一次，几乎一半的新资金采取了高风险、资产负债表外的 "影子银行 "工具的形式，中国新的证券监管机构肖钢将其比作庞氏骗局。这种新投资资金的冲击只在2012年底产生了一个小的增长，随后又重新下滑，这一事实表明，中国正面临着信贷扩张收益的急剧下降。换句话说，随着越来越多的信贷和财政资源被锁定在坏账上，中国在刺激经济方面获得的GDP收益越来越少。

中国国家统计局（NBS）认为，由于消费现在对GDP增长的贡献超过了一半，中国经济正在成功调整为更多的消费主导型增长。但这一说法忽略了消费和投资对GDP的贡献都在下降，而投资的下降幅度更大，尽管人们疯狂地努力支撑它。中国贸易顺差的增加为GDP贡献了1.1个百分点，但鉴于对香港 "出口 "的解释繁荣，人们对这个数字是否可信产生了严重怀疑。3月，中国最高规划局--国家发展和改革委员会（NDRC）用我一年多来一直用来描述 "硬着陆 "情景的术语阐述了中国经济的状况："经济转好的基础并不牢固，"NDRC写道。"消费无法为经济增长提供非常强大的动力，企业的投资能力和意愿较弱，外部需求在短期内不会有好转。"


许多分析家说中国去年设计了一个 "软着陆"，但他们错了。中国经济本来是要着陆的（通过控制失控的信贷增长），但后来开始看起来要硬着陆了，他们就挥别了（通过再次打开信贷的水龙头）。现在他们又回来了，银行监管机构承诺将打击不计后果的影子融资的爆炸，这已经产生了一些违约。在未来的几个月里，我们将看到中国的领导人是否认真地控制风险，并强迫进行真正的经济调整，或者他们是否无可救药地沉迷于以信贷为动力的投资狂欢。但它们不可能永远飞来飞去。中国最近一次信贷狂欢的微薄回报表明，中国的油箱里的燃料正在耗尽。引擎已经开始喷火了。他们的本能是拉升，而他们真正应该降落的是飞机。

Barry Naughton。

中国报告的GDP增长率的微小波动是否真的很重要？从某种意义上说，市场的反应是轻率的。中国的GDP数字极其不精确，几十分之一的变化都在统计误差范围之内。美国2013年第一季度的GDP数字甚至还没有公布，而且在公布之后，它们会被多次修改（通常修改的幅度要大于这里所报告的中国增长的变化）。认为中国的统计人员准确地发现了整体增长率的微小波动的想法是荒谬的。

但从更广泛的意义上讲，我同意帕特里克的观点，即中国最近的数据是重要的，而且大致是出于他所提出的同样原因。潜伏在当前数据背景中的是所有中国经济学家都知道的更广泛的变化：中国经济正在结束其超高增长阶段；劳动力增长基本上已经结束；中国正面临一个新的时代，经济的基本增长潜力减少。这种变化总体上不是一件坏事。高增长阶段结束的原因是中国已经提前毕业。越来越多的中等收入国家，中国拥有更高的工资和更多样化的国内需求模式。这些变化反映了更高的生活水平和具有更广泛能力的经济。

达米安-马。

我认为，关于增长率比预测值低一点的议论，部分反映出市场可能还没有完全适应中国未来能够维持7%-8%增长的现实。

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增长速度是否应该引起担心？在中国经济中，总是有很多值得关注的事情，比如地方债务和零星的资产泡沫。但是，如果国家统计局的报告是真的，7.7%的增长中有一半以上来自最终消费，那么这实际上是一个积极的发展。其他人可能有更好的数字，或者认为国家统计局的估计不可信。尽管在数字被完全消化之前，我们可能无法确定。

大多数人似乎忽略了李克强总理说的话，即根据预测，他认为要在202年达到 "小康社会"（官方支持的目标），中国只需要平均6.8%的增长。而在李克强刚刚牵头召开的国务院经济工作会议上，几乎没有迹象表明中国政府已经准备好再次采取刺激措施。相反，他强调的是对 "改革红利 "的依赖。这清楚地表明，中国的 "人口红利 "时代即将结束。

这就引出了最后一点。如果中国利用经济放缓作为加速有意义的再平衡的方式（我注意到中国人民银行易纲昨天说，尽管经济在放缓，但央行将很快使人民币的日常波动更加灵活），那么我不会过分担心未来几年的这种增长速度。经济放缓实际上是一个推动更多再平衡的机会。

这篇文章的一个版本出现在ChinaFile，一个大西洋的合作伙伴网站。
ChinaFile是由亚洲协会美中关系中心出版的在线杂志。



How Fast Is China's Slowdown Coming?
And what can Beijing do about it? The latest in an ongoing series of discussions with ChinaFile.

By ChinaFile
APRIL 18, 2013
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Patrick Chovanec:

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Slower Chinese GDP growth is not a bad thing if it's happening for the right reasons. But it's not happening for the right reasons.

Instead of reining in credit to try to curb over-investment, Chinese authorities have allowed a renewed explosion in credit in an effort to fuel a new investment stimulus. In the past six months, they pumped in 10 trillion RMB ($1.6 trillion) in new credit -- $1 trillion in the first quarter of this year alone, 1/3 more than in the first quarter of 2009, the peak of the stimulus lending boom. Except this time around, almost half of the new funding took the form of risky, off-balance sheet "shadow banking" instruments that China's new securities regulator, Xiao Gang, has likened to Ponzi schemes. The fact that this onslaught of new investment funding produced only a modest bump at the end of 2012, followed by a renewed slide, indicates that China is facing a steep decline in returns to credit expansion. In other words, it's getting less and less GDP bang for its stimulus buck, as more and more credit and fiscal resources get locked into rolling over bad debt.

China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) argues that because consumption now contributes more than half of GDP growth, China's economy is seeing a successful adjustment to more consumption-led growth. What that ignores is that the GDP contribution from consumption and investment have both fallen, with investment falling off more, despite frantic efforts to prop it up. A rise in China's trade surplus contributed 1.1 percentage points to GDP, but given the explained boom in "exports" to Hong Kong, serious doubts have been cast on whether that number can be believed. In March, China's top planning bureau, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), laid out the state of the Chinese economy using the exact terms I've been using for over year to describe a "hard landing" scenario: "The foundation for economic turnaround is not firm," the NDRC wrote. "Consumption is unable to provide a very strong impetus to economic growth, enterprises are less able and willing to invest, and external demand will not change for the better in the near future."


Many analysts say China engineered a "soft landing" last year, but they're wrong. The Chinese economy was coming in for a landing (by reining in runaway credit growth), but then it started to look like it was going to be a hard one, and they waved off (by opening the credit spigots again). Now they're coming around for the another try, with bank regulators promising to crack down on the reckless explosion in shadow financing that has already produced a number of defaults. We'll see, in the months ahead, whether China's leaders are serious about reining in risk and forcing a real economic adjustment, or whether they're hopelessly addicted to a credit-fueled investment binge. But they can't keep flying around forever. The meager returns to China's latest credit splurge suggest that the fuel in China's gas tanks is running out. The engines are already starting to sputter. Their instincts are to pull up, when they really should be landing the plane.

Barry Naughton:

Are tiny fluctuations in China's reported GDP growth rate actually significant? In one sense, the market's reaction is frivolous. China's GDP numbers are extremely imprecise, and variations of a couple tenths of a percentage point are well within the margin of statistical error. US GDP figures for the first quarter of 2013 haven't even been published yet, and after they are published they will be revised several times (and typically revised by amounts larger than the shift in Chinese growth being reported here). The idea that Chinese statisticians are accurately picking up tiny fluctuations in the overall growth rate is preposterous.

But it a broader sense, I agree with Patrick that the recent data from China is significant, and roughly for the same reason he lays out. Lurking in the background of the current numbers are the broader changes of which all Chinese economists are aware: the Chinese economy is ending its super-high growth phase; labor force growth has essentially ended; and China is facing a new era in which the underlying growth potential of the economy is less. This change is overall not a bad thing. The reason the high growth phase is ending is because China has graduated early. Increasingly a middle income country, China has higher wages and a more diverse domestic demand pattern. These changes reflect a higher standard of living and an economy with broader capabilities.

Damien Ma:

I think the chatter about the growth rate coming in a bit lower than forecasts reflects, in part, the fact that the market may not have fully adjusted to the reality of China being able to sustain growth in the 7 percent-8 percent range going forward.

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Should the growth rate cause worry? There are always plenty of things to be concerned about in the Chinese economy, such as local debt and sporadic asset bubbles. But if it's true what the NBS reports, that more than half of the 7.7 percent growth came from final consumption, than that's actually a positive development. Others may have better numbers or find the NBS estimate not credible. Though we might not know for sure until the numbers have been fully digested.

Most people seemed to have missed something that Premier Li Keqiang said, which is that according to projections, he thinks to reach a "moderately well off society" (xiaokang shehui) by 202 -- the officially espoused goal -- China only needs an average of 6.8 percent growth. And in the State Council meeting Li just spearheaded on the economy, there was little indication to suggest that Beijing is ready to pounce with another stimulus. Instead, his emphasis was very much on banking on "reform dividends." It is a clear recognition that the era of "demographic dividends" in China is coming to a close.

And this leads to the final point. If China leverages the slow down as a way to accelerate meaningful rebalancing (I noticed the People's Bank of China's Yi Gang said yesterday that the central bank will make daily fluctuation of RMB even more flexible very soon, even though the economy is slowing), then I wouldn't be overly concerned about this growth rate over the next few years. The slow down is actually an opportunity to push for more rebalancing.

A version of this post appears at ChinaFile, an Atlantic partner site.
ChinaFile is an online magazine published by Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations.