China’s Boom Is Over—Beijing Is Making It Worse


中国经济持续低迷之际，政府过于紧缩的货币和财政政策令这种局面雪上加霜。


中国国务院总理李强李强确实暗示，政府可能正在制定一些额外的激励措施来支持消费者支出。

中国面临的人口结构薄弱和债务沉重等根本性挑战确实严峻。但还有一点显而易见，困扰中国的很大一部分问题演变成了一轮糟糕的周期性滑坡，而中国政府不恰当的政策选择令这种局面雪上加霜。中国国务院总理李强周二在全国人民代表大会上发表了重要讲话，但他履新后首次进行的这一讲话几乎无法让人相信中国政府认识到了这一点，或者愿意改弦更张。 6park.com
China’s fundamental challenges—including weak demographics and heavy debts—are indeed tough. But it is also clear that much of what is plaguing China amounts to a nasty cyclical downturn exacerbated by Beijing’s poor policy choices. Tuesday’s big speech by Premier Li Qiang to the National People’s Congress, his first in his new role, gave scant assurance that the government recognizes that—or is willing to change course. 6park.com
   
中国关键的年度人大会议周二在北京开幕，李强阐述了过去一年的成就和未来一年的任务。这些大目标本身并没有任何出人意料之处： 与去年一样，中国政府的经济增长目标是“5%左右” 、居民消费价格涨幅目标为3%左右和城镇新增就业目标为1,200万以上。 6park.com
China’s key annual parliamentary session opened today in Beijing, and as usual the premier laid out the accomplishments of the past year and tasks for the year ahead. The big targets themselves didn’t contain any surprises: Like last year, Beijing is aiming for “around” 5% growth, 3% inflation and 12 million new urban jobs. 6park.com
   
令人惊讶和担忧的是，考虑到为实现这些目标而计划采取的措施以及目前的经济状况，这些目标似乎与现实相去甚远。 6park.com
What is surprising, and worrying, is how far these targets seem to be diverging from reality, given the measures planned to achieve them and where the economy stands now. 6park.com
   
近期的研究揭示了中国经济可能低于其潜在增速的程度；潜在经济增速是指，假以在恰当的政策环境中，经济在不发生过热的情况下可能实现的增长速度。鉴于地方政府过去十年里的大规模开支，中国政府的确面临一些切实的财政限制。经济的潜在增长率显然在走低：自2010年代中期劳动适龄人口数量见顶以来，经济增长的下行趋势尤为明显。 6park.com
Recent research has shed some light on just how far China may be running below its potential growth—i.e. how fast it could grow, with the right policy settings, without overheating. Beijing does face some real fiscal constraints, given how profligate local governments have been over the past decade. And potential growth is clearly heading lower: the downward drift in growth since the mid-2010s, when the working age population peaked, has been especially obvious. 6park.com
   
但决策者似乎也很有可能过多地吸取了过去刺激政策的教训，现在有可能重蹈2009年后西方决策者的覆辙：维持过于紧缩的货币和财政政策，导致经济增长和就业长期低于潜在水平。 6park.com
But it also seems very likely that policymakers have overlearned the lessons of past stimulus episodes and now risk a mistake similar to that made by post-2009 Western policymakers: keeping monetary and fiscal policy too tight, resulting in a long period of below-potential growth and employment. 6park.com
   
鉴于形势如此糟糕，中国银行间短期利率和政府债券收益率在过去半年里仍显着过高，与2016年初上一次严重低迷时的水平差不多，而当时的经济增长和通胀率都还相当高。 6park.com
Given how bad things have been, Chinese short-term interbank rates and government bond yields have remained notably high over the past half year: about level with where they sat during the last big downturn in early 2016, when both growth and inflation were still considerably higher. 6park.com
    
这对房地产行业来说可能没有太大影响，因为借款人不相信房地产开发商仍有偿付能力，所以他们在市场之外观望。但这对其他借贷来说可能关系重大。法国外贸银行(Natixis)的经济学家估计，自2021年底以来，中国经通胀调整后的实际利率一直远高于有利于充分就业和稳定通胀的“中性利率”，可能需要将实际利率下调近一个百分点才能纠正这一状况。 6park.com
That might not matter much for the housing sector, where borrowers are sitting out the market because they don’t trust that property developers are still solvent. But it could matter a lot for other borrowing. Economists at the French bank Natixis estimate that China’s real, inflation-adjusted interest rates have since late 2021 been well above the “neutral rate” which would encourage full employment and stable inflation—and that it may take a reduction of close to a full percentage point in real rates to rectify that. 6park.com
   
采购经理人指数(PMI)中的高频就业数据是国内经济中仍有多少闲置劳动力的另一条线索。研究咨询公司Gavekal发现，在2023年的大部分时间里，中国PMI的就业分项指数按其在就业市场中的行业分量进行加权合成后的水平远远低于其长期平均水平。几乎所有的拖累都来自服务业。 6park.com
High-frequency employment data from purchasing managers indexes are another clue to just how much slack remains in the domestic economy. Research consulting firm Gavekal finds that a mashup of China’s employment PMI subindexes, weighted by their sectoral heft in the job market, was running far below its long-run average for most of 2023. Nearly all of the drag is from services. 6park.com
   
考虑到从某些方面来看货币政策仍然十分紧缩，而且目前的通胀率约为零，2024年3%的通胀目标和与去年持平的经济增长目标引人关注。财政政策看起来也不会有更大的支持力度。中国正式的国家预算赤字为国内生产总值的3%。加上计划发行的特别国债，这一比例将达到3.8%，与去年持平。 6park.com
Given how restrictive monetary policy still is by some measures, and that inflation is currently running around zero, it is remarkable to see a 3% inflation target for 2024 and a growth target in line with last year. Fiscal policy doesn’t look like it will get all that much more supportive either. The formal state deficit is budgeted at 3% of gross domestic product. Adding in the proceeds from the planned issuance of special treasury bonds would take that to 3.8%—the same as last year. 6park.com
   
中国很多实际财政支出都是由地方政府和国有政策性银行在预算之外完成的，但如果不降低利率，相关融资可能会很困难，尤其是如果中国政府希望避免挤占已经疲软的私人投资。总理李强在讲话中确实暗示在利率问题上有更大的回旋余地，他表示，货币供应量应当同经济增长和价格水平预期目标相匹配。这与去年要求货币供应量的增长与名义增长保持一致的呼吁相比有了微妙的变化。但李强也要求保持汇率稳定，并在政府工作报告中强调去年避免了“大水漫灌式”的刺激措施。 6park.com
Much of China’s real fiscal spending is done off budget by local governments and state-run policy banks, but financing that may be difficult without lower rates—especially if Beijing wants to avoid crowding out already-weak private investment. The premier’s speech did hint at more wiggle room on rates, saying money supply growth should be consistent with growth and inflation targets. That is a subtle change from last year’s call for money supply to rise in line with nominal growth. But Li also called for exchange rate stability and highlighted last year’s avoidance of “flood-type” stimulus in his opening remarks. 6park.com
   
最后，鉴于服务业状况仍然不佳，李强在讲话中对服务业的提及很少，这让人关注。讲话中提及服务业刚好四次，其中一次是讲到先进制造业和现代服务业深度融合时提及。另一方面，介绍今年政府工作任务时首先讲到的是大力推进现代化产业体系建设。 6park.com
Finally, given how much the services sector is still suffering, there was remarkably little trace of it in the speech—it was mentioned exactly four times, once in the context of a “modern” services sector more deeply integrated with manufacturing. On the other hand, “striving to modernize the industrial system” was highlighted as the first major task for 2024. 6park.com
   
李强确实暗示，政府可能正在制定一些额外的激励措施来支持消费者支出，称政府将鼓励和推动消费品以旧换新。例如，在之前的经济低迷时期，中国政府曾对购车提供补贴。 6park.com
Li did indicate that some additional government incentives to support consumer spending may be in the works—saying the government would promote consumer “trade-in” programs. Beijing has subsidized car purchases, for example, in previous downturns. 6park.com
   
但中国政府似乎仍然相信，基本上可以通过制造和出口摆脱困境，尽管国外的保护主义正在抬头，并认为大量迹象显示中国的服务业存在闲置，如果推动得当，服务业可能会强劲反弹。 6park.com
But the government still seems to believe that it can essentially manufacture and export its way out of trouble—even though protectionism is on the rise abroad and there are abundant signs of slack in China’s services sector, which might bounce back strongly with the right push. 6park.com
   
人口老龄化、地方债务负担沉重以及受挫的房地产融资模式是棘手的问题。但中国最大的结构性问题可能是其日益僵化的政策机制。 6park.com
Graying citizens, heavy municipal debts and a mangled property financing model are intractable problems. But China’s biggest structural problem may be its increasingly inflexible policy apparatus.