地球客逍笑說

中國的成功支柱出現裂紋
來源：加拿大《環球郵報》
星島環球網 www.singtaonet.com

　　中國猛漲的貿易順差和巨大的外匯儲備通常被視為它經濟活力的跡象。海外消費者購買越來越多的中國商品或北京在這個過程中聚集如山堆積的錢不會是一件壞事，不是嗎？

事實上它可能是壞事，本週我們看到越來越多的證據證明中國的成功象徵正在變成未來麻煩的跡象。在中國宣佈8月貿易順差249.7億美元的同一天，它還透露通脹已經刷新11年的紀錄，為6.5%。

這並非偶然。這兩者緊密相關。海外大量銷售中國產品，大量的現金流入中國，進入貨幣體系。貨幣供應日增導致價格更高。更高的價格導致……誰知道呢。

北京很明白這些危險。通脹是觸發動亂的問題之一。為了控制通脹，北京今年已經四次加息，但不得要領。中國人民銀行2007年的目標是把通脹保持在3%。事實上，它在6月就達4.4%，在7月達5.6%，8月達6.5%。

中國的領袖把通脹視為某種技術問題，可以通過擺弄利率以及公佈法令馴化的問題。北京已經下令學校和大學不要提高伙食價格，以免令學生不安。中國國家發改委也已經指示地方政府穩定月餅價格。

中國的經濟問題不是這麼容易解決的。該國引人注目的經濟進步是基於一個在長期看來不可持續的模式。《凶兆（The Writing on the Wall）》的作者赫頓（Will Hutton）把這種模式稱為列寧式社團主義。

它壓倒性地依賴兩樣事情：投資和出口。中國的國有或跟國家相關的銀行以低利率貸款給國有或受國家影響的公司貸款。那些公司把產品出售到海外，而北京故意人為地低估中國貨幣以壓低產品價格。

世界銀行估計，在1990年到1998年間，投資每年為中國的增長率貢獻6.4%，而農民工貢獻了2.1%。津貼的能源和免費的土地也有助於中國龍的騰飛，經濟向資本密集型製造業傾斜。

中國不能永遠依賴廉價的貸款、土地和勞動力。現代經濟需要通過技術創新和有效管理而成長的公司，而不是不停地注入資本。它需要獨立的銀行，以商業的利率貸款。它需要民眾少存錢多消費，讓經濟擺脫對投資和出口的不健康依賴。

赫頓認為，方法是明顯的。中國必須讓人民幣在貨幣市場浮動，並升值到一個更現實的水準。它必須讓中國人投資更多的錢到海外，緩解過剩的存款率，放緩貨幣供應的增長，降低通脹壓力。它必須改善社會福利體系，這樣中國人才不至於被迫存那麼多的錢來保障自己。

北京的領袖知道中國不能永遠這樣做。他們已經暗示理解問題，引入計劃讓中國人在香港股市購買股票，讓更多的銀行和外國合作，實行現實主義的貸款利率。

但北京讓自己陷入圈套。讓人民幣更自由地浮動將提高出口品的價格，在短期內放緩經濟，並導致失業，甚至動蕩。讓中國人在海外投資更多將減少存款，而這些存款又是中國的銀行所依賴的，存款減少可能給它們造成致命傷。

動手或不動手都很糟糕，中國領導人要作出一些困難的選擇，而且他們要動作迅速。門縫底下正滲出通貨膨脹的煙霧。（作者 MARCUS GEE）

譯文為摘譯，英文原文：http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070912.wibasia12/BNStory/Science/


Pillars of China's success showing cracks
MARCUS GEE
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
September 12, 2007 at 6:06 AM EDT

China's surging trade surplus and enormous foreign exchange reserves are usually seen as a sign of its economic virility. It can't be a bad thing that overseas consumers are buying more and more Chinese goods or that Beijing is compiling a mountain of cash in the process, can it?

Indeed it can, and this week we saw more evidence of how the symbols of China's success are becoming signals of trouble ahead. On the same day that China announced a whopping August trade surplus of $24.97-billion (U.S.), up a full third from the same month a year earlier, it also revealed that inflation had grown to an 11-year high of 6.5 per cent.

No coincidence there. The two are closely related. The flood of cash coming into the country from the sale of Chinese products in the malls of the outside world makes its way into the monetary system. Growing money supply leads to higher prices. Higher prices lead to ... who knows what?

Beijing is well aware of the dangers. Inflation was one of the issues that touched off the Tiananmen Square movement in 1989. The price of food and other necessities has aroused the Chinese masses many times over the generations. To control inflation, Beijing has raised interest rates four times already this year, to no avail. The goal of the People's Bank of China was to keep inflation to 3 per cent for 2007. Instead, it hit 4.4 per cent in June, 5.6 per cent in July and now 6.5 per cent in August.

China's leaders treat inflation as a sort of technical issue, something that can be tamed by fiddling with interest rates and issuing decrees. Beijing has ordered schools and colleges, feared as breeding grounds of protest, not to raise cafeteria prices lest the students grow restless. China's National Development and Reform Commission, its top economic policy body, has also instructed local governments to stabilize the price of moon cakes, a traditional delicacy for the coming annual Moon festival.

China's economic problems won't be fixed so easily. The country's remarkable economic progress - growth rates of about 10 per cent for 25 years - is based on a model that is unsustainable in the long term. Will Hutton, author of The Writing on the Wall, a recent book about China's problems, calls this model Leninist corporatism.

It relies overwhelmingly on two things: investment and exports. China's state-owned or state-affiliated banks lend money at low rates to state-owned or state-influenced companies. Those companies sell their goods overseas, at prices kept down by a Chinese currency that Beijing keeps deliberately and artificially undervalued.

The World Bank estimates that, between 1990 and 1998, investment contributed 6.4 per cent a year to China's growth rate, and the migration of rural labour to factory cities another 2.1 per cent. Subsidized energy and free land has also helped to goose the Chinese dragon and skew the economy toward capital-intensive manufacturing.

China can't rely on cheap loans, land and labour forever. A modern economy needs companies that grow through technical innovation and efficient management, not a constant intravenous drip of capital. It needs independent banks that can lend at commercial rates. It needs a populace that saves less and consumes more, moving the economy away from its unhealthy reliance on investment and exports.

The way to do that, Mr. Hutton argues, is obvious. China must allow its currency, the yuan, to float on the currency markets and rise to a more realistic value. It must allow Chinese to invest more of their money abroad, easing the excessive savings rate, bringing down the growth in money supply and reducing inflationary pressure. It must improve its social welfare system so that Chinese aren't forced to put so much money under the mattress for their security.

Beijing's smarter leaders know China can't carry on like this indefinitely. They have shown hints of understanding the problem, introducing a scheme to allow Chinese to buy shares on the Hong Kong stock market, and letting more banks take foreign partners and lend at realistic rates.

But Beijing has put itself in a trap. Letting the yuan float more freely would raise the cost of exports, slow the economy in the short term, and lead to joblessness, even unrest. Letting Chinese invest more money abroad would reduce the savings pool that Chinese banks rely on and possibly undermine them fatally.

Damned if they do and doomed if they don't, China's leaders have some hard choices to make and they must make them soon. Rising inflation is just the smoke seeping out from under the door.