金属卷板涂布机:中国的债务炸弹

作者：Katie Benner

As the world watches the Greek credit crisis unfold, a Sino-debt disaster is brewing halfway around the world.

就像世人看到希腊信贷危机的显露一样，一个波及世界的中国债务灾难也正在酝酿之中。

Jim Chanos, the hedge fund manager who is famously shorting China, told Fortune late last year that the country was "embarking on something unprecedented." He was referring to the massive construction boom that has been underway for years, and that was supercharged by a 2008 stimulus package that pumped four trillion yuan ($586 billion) into the economy. In his opinion, the speculative bubble in real estate would end in a big pop, empty buildings, and pain for the country's broader economy.

For those who side with team Chanos, data is seeping out of China that suggests that he may right.

对于站在Chanos团队这一边的人来说，正在批露出的有关中国的数据显示，他或许是对的。

Most recently, China's top auditor said that loose lending standards and a sharp rise in local government borrowing (for building projects, of course) may have created a mountain of debt that cannot be repaid, reports the New York Times. All it will take is a fall in housing, or some sort of economic slowdown, to reveal an untold number of bad loans.

 就在最近，中国的高级审计官员说宽松的贷款标准和快速增长的地方政府债务（当然是针对建筑项目）可能已经创造出堆积如山的不能偿还的债务，据《纽约时报》报道，所以这些带来的将会是房地产价格的下跌，或者某种经济形式的衰退，用以揭示这些大量未知的不良贷款。

In a speech that coincided with the release of the government report, the head of China's national audit office Liu Jiayi said Monday: "The management of some local government financing platforms is irregular, and their profitability and ability to pay their debts is quite weak." Audit officials and Chinese central bankers say that local government debt accounts for between 27% and 30% of China's GDP, and totals $1.7 trillion to $2.2 trillion. Those numbers come in higher than estimated. The Times notes that borrowed money has been used to finance not only real estate construction, but also low-return infrastructure projects like bridges, tunnels, subways, and roads.

在与发布政府报告几乎同时的一个讲话中，中国国家审计署审计长刘家义在星期一说：“一些地方政府对融资平台的管理是不规范的，它们的盈利能力和偿债能力是相当脆弱的。”审计署官员和中国人民银行人士说，地方政府的债务占到中国GDP的27%—30%之间，也就是总共17000亿到22000亿美元之间，即将到来的数字可能比估计的更高。《时代》特别提到，这些借来的钱不仅仅用来做为房地产建设的资金，而且也用于像桥梁、隧道、地铁和公路等低回报的基础建设项目。

The estimated 6,500 to 10,000 local government investment companies created to borrow money have made a construction boom that has kept China's export-reliant economy from feeling the extreme pain of the global economic slowdown.

估计有6500到10000个地方政府借钱投资创建的公司，它们制造出了一个建设繁荣，这使得中国的出口依赖型经济免受了由于全球经济衰退带来的极度痛苦。

Despite talk of a burgeoning middle class that can support the Chinese economy with consumption, the country still relies on exports to keep the economy growing fast enough to create jobs for its large population. It takes a per-capita GDP of $5,000 to create meaningful discretionary spending power in China, writes economist A. Gary Shilling. But Shilling says only about 8% of the population has that kind of economic clout. And with inflation threatening to run out of control, citizens will need higher wages, too.

 尽管说一个新兴的中产阶级能够利用消费来支持中国的经济，但中国仍一直依赖出口来保持足够快的经济增长，从而为它巨大的人口创造出工作岗位。在中国人均GDP需要达到5000美元才能够创造有意义的自由开支能力，经济学家A. Gary Shilling写道，但Shilling同时说，只有大约8%的人口具有那种经济影响力，并且伴随着趋于失控的通货膨胀威胁，人们也将需要更高的工资收入。

What's happening in China should sound familiar because it is reminiscent of what happened here in the US. Confronted by an economy that couldn't deliver real wealth to the people, our bureaucrats loosened borrowing standards in the 1990s. The result: an uptick in local government spending, a real estate bubble that made investors feel artificially wealthy, a construction boom that created jobs, and debt that can't be repaid.

这让人想到中国正在发生的与美国这里曾经发生的是如此类似，同样面临的是不能给人们提供真实的财富。我们的政府官僚们在上个世纪90年代放宽了借款标准，结果是：地方政府支出超出预算，房地产泡沫让投资人感到自己是人造富翁，建筑业热创造了工作岗位，同时债务也无法偿还。

China even exacerbated the credit problem with securitization, just like we did, spreading potentially toxic loans around to investors. So-called informal securitization became popular (but was then frozen in 2010) in China, according to a special report published last year by Fitch Ratings. This simply means that the Chinese re-packaged bank loans (rather than mortgage-backed bonds) into investment products. The trend "[distorted] Chinese banks' credit data at an institutional and system level, resulting in pervasive understatement of credit growth and credit exposure," according to a statement from Fitch.

资产证券化方面的信贷问题中国甚至更加严重，正像我们做过的那样，潜在的有毒贷款遍布到所以投资人。所谓的“非正式资产证券化”在中国变得非常流行（但在2010年被冻结），去年由惠誉国际评级(Fitch Ratings)出版的一份特别报告说。这仅仅意味着中国人把银行贷款（而不是抵押支付债券）重新包装成了投资产品，这种趋势“歪曲了作为机构和体系层面的中国的银行信贷数据，导致对信贷增长和信贷风险的普遍低估”，来自惠誉国际的一项声明称。

Just like in the US, securitization and off-balance sheet accounting was encouraged by banks that wanted to adjust their loan balances and investors who wanted higher yields, said Charlene Chu, the head of Fitch's Chinese bank ratings. And since China's credit-backed investment products have been treated like ultra-safe bank deposits, investors believe that they carry an implicit guarantee, according to Chu. Fitch's Chu remains worried about China, and has recently said that the country has been dependent on loose credit to grow.

 就像在美国一样，资产证券化和资产负债表外会计核算都很受银行欢迎，因为银行希望借此调整它们的贷款余额，而投资人也想获得更高的收益，主管惠誉国际中国银行评级的Charlene Chu说，并且由于在中国，信贷支付的投资产品一直被当作像是最安全的银行存款一样看待，投资人相信他们拥有一个潜在的保证。惠誉国际的褚女士保持着对中国的担心，并且最近说过，中国过去一直依赖放松信贷来实现增长。 

At the end of the day, Chanos will probably be proven right on China; but he erred when he said that the country was embarking on something unprecedented. The country is making the same lend-and-pretend-that-the-loans-are-good gamble that the world's largest economies have all made. And as you can see from what has happened in the US and all over Europe, it's a losing bet. The question is not whether China will hit the debt wall, but when.

最终有一天，将或许证明Chanos对中国的看法是对的，但有一点他是错的，就是他说这个国家正在从事着前所未有的事情。中国正在进行着同样的“借钱并且假装贷款良好”（lend-and-pretend-that-the-loans-are-good）的赌博，就像世界最大的经济体已经全部做过的那样。这如同你所看到的在美国和整个欧洲已经发生的一样，它是个失败的赌博。问题不是中国是否将会撞上这堵债务墙，而是什么时候。