HONG KONG — When the United States started insuring customer deposits, the government wanted to instill faith in the country’s financial system, which had been broken by a string of bank runs and failures during the Great Depression.
香港——美国开始为储户的存款提供保障时，政府是希望向该国的金融体系注入信心，大萧条时期一系列银行挤兑和倒闭的事件破坏了人们对金融业的信心。
China wants to do the opposite.
中国想要的则恰恰相反。
With the introduction of deposit insurance on Friday, Beijing is looking to shake the public’s faith, namely the long-held belief that the government will bail out troubled banks. In short, China is trying to introduce risk into the system.
北京周五开始实行存款保险制度，希望以此动摇公众的信心——也就是储户长期以来认为政府会对陷入困境的银行施以援手的念头。简而言之，中国试图将风险引入金融体系。

As China moves to restructure its state-run economy, such banking reform is considered critical. To help bolster consumer demand and wean itself off growth fueled by cheap credit, China needs banks to take a more market-driven approach. That means making smarter loans to companies and individuals — and accepting the consequences when they don’t work out.
随着中国采取行动调整国有经济结构，外界认为此类银行改革十分关键。为了帮助增强消费需求，摆脱由廉价信贷推动的增长模式，中国需要让银行采取更加市场化的路线。这意味着向公司和个人提供更多贷款，并接受不良贷款带来的后果。
“The reality in China was that the deposits of the proletariat have always been de facto backed up by the central government,” said Jim Antos, a banking analyst in Hong Kong at Mizuho Securities Asia. Formal deposit insurance is “the first step in a process where maybe we can have some way to deal with the resolution of financial problems in banks in China, something like a bank failure.”
“中国过去的现实是，无产阶级的储蓄实际上一直受到中央政府的担保，”瑞穗证券亚洲公司(Mizuho Securities Asia)驻香港的银行分析师吉姆·安托斯(Jim Antos)说。推行正式的存款保险制度是“整个过程的第一步，我们在这个过程中，或许可以找到一些应对中国银行业的财务问题的方法，比如银行倒闭问题。”
Since China started opening its economy in the late 1970s, Beijing has played the role of financial arbitrator and ultimate guarantor. It has used banks to promote industries and companies deemed important to the state, propping them up in times of trouble.
自中国在上世纪70年代末开始开放经济以来，北京扮演了金融仲裁员和最终担保人的角色。北京通过银行，推动那些被认为对国家非常重要的产业和企业的发展，在它们遭遇困境的时候为它们提供支持。
When Hainan Development Bank collapsed in 1998, China’s central bank made sure no depositors incurred losses, by transferring their accounts at full value to the much larger Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. During a bank run last year at a rural lender in the eastern province of Jiangsu, the central bank delivered cash by the truckload and local politicians went on television to reassure people their savings were safe.
1998年海南发展银行倒闭时，中国央行确保储户免遭损失，将他们的账户存款按全部价值转存到了规模大得多的中国工商银行。去年，东部省份江苏省农村地区的一家银行发生挤兑时，央行运送了几卡车现金，当地官员在电视上安抚民心，称存款是安全的。
Now, the government is signaling a willingness to pull away, at least selectively. On April 21, for example, China’s huge domestic bond market experienced its first default by a state-owned company, and analysts expect more to follow.
如今，政府放出放任不管的信号，至少是有选择地放任不管。例如，4月21日，中国规模巨大的国内债券市场经历了国企的首次违约，分析人士预期未来会出现更多类似的情况。
The banking sector sits at the center of the overhaul effort. For years, China’s banks have paid ordinary savers generally low rates on their deposits and lent those funds to state-run companies, which have been known for making wasteful investments. Allowing market forces to play a bigger role in this process is intended to push banks to more accurately price risk when lending.
银行业处于改革的中心。多年来，中国的银行为普通储户提供普遍较低的利率，然后将这些资金贷给国有企业，国企则以开展金额巨大却浪费的投资而著称。允许市场力量在这个过程中发挥更大作用，是为了使银行在发放贷款时，在定价中更准确地评估风险。
Deposit insurance is just the first step — and a relatively easy one. The government also plans to remove the caps on interest rates that banks pay on those deposits, which officials have signaled could happen as soon as this year.
存款保险只是第一步——也是相对简单的步骤。政府还计划解除银行的存款利率上限，官员们表示最快可能会在今年解除。
Combined, these two measures will force Chinese banks to reorient their thinking and take into account market dynamics. Without the implicit backing of the government, banks will have to pay more attention to the creditworthiness of borrowers, rather than simply favoring loans to state-owned enterprises.
这两大举措将会迫使中国银行调整思维，考虑市场动态。没有了政府的绝对支持，银行就需要更关注债务人的信誉，而不只是倾向于向国企提供贷款。
They will also have to compete for customer deposits by paying higher interest rates to savers. China’s leaders hope that consumers, with extra money in their accounts, will increase their spending; Beijing sees consumer demand as a main driver of the country’s future economic growth.
它们还需要通过向储户提供更高的利率来争夺储户的存款。中国的领导人希望有额外存款的消费者会扩大支出；北京方面认为消费者的需求是推动中国未来经济增长的主要动力。
The challenges are significant, for banks and the economy. China has been considering more liberal interest rates since the mid-1980s, and the introduction of deposit insurance since at least 1993. Policy makers have hesitated in part because similar financial reforms have set off crises in other markets.
银行和中国经济面临着巨大挑战。中国从上世纪80年代中期开始考虑扩大利率自由度，至少从1993年就开始考虑推出存款保险制度。但决策者之所以一直犹豫不决，部分是因为类似的金融改革曾在其他市场引发过危机。
Officials at China’s central bank have closely studied the situation in the United States in the 1980s, when government deregulation of interest rates contributed to what became known as the savings and loan crisis. Banks and other lending institutions became locked in competitive increases in deposit rates, which drove them to make increasingly risky, high-interest loans. By the mid-1990s, nearly 3,000 United States financial institutions had failed.
中国央行的官员对美国上世纪80年代的情况进行了仔细研究。当时，政府对利率放松监管，在一定程度上引发了随后所谓的储贷危机。银行和其他借贷机构都陷入了一种无法摆脱的处境，即需要竞相提高存款利率，这又迫使它们发放风险和利率更高的贷款。到上世纪90年代中期，美国共有近3000家金融机构倒闭。
Chinese regulators are hoping to avoid a repeat of the American experience. To help keep banks in check, China’s deposit insurance plan will require the banks to pay a two-part premium: a fixed minimum rate, plus an adjustable rate based on the riskiness of their lending practices.
中国的监管机构希望避免重蹈美国的覆辙。为了约束银行，中国的存款保险制度要求银行支付的保费会由两部分组成：一部分是固定的最低费率，另一部分则根据其信贷操作的风险程度调节。
“Banks are on notice if they raise rates and then engage in what the regulators regard as riskier lending, they will have to pay higher insurance premiums,” said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has studied China’s financial system for decades. “This it is hoped will deter such risky behavior and thus head off a competitive race to raise rates when the cap on deposit rates is lifted.”
“如果银行提高利率，之后发放在监管机构看来风险较高的贷款，银行就会受到警告，它们就需要缴纳较高的保费，”彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)高级研究员尼古拉斯·拉迪(Nicholas Lardy)表示。“希望能凭借这种手段来避免这种危险行为，从而在存款利率的上限解除时，阻止争相提高利率的行为。”拉迪已经研究中国金融体系达数十年。
For the banks, the insurance premiums represent an additional expense that could crimp their profit margins. China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, said the base premium would be set at only 0.01 percent to 0.02 percent of deposits at the onset, a level he described as “much lower than the initial rates in the majority of countries when they introduced deposit insurance,” according to transcripts of interviews published this week in the Chinese press.
对于银行而言，保费是一个额外费用，可能会压缩它们的利润空间。中国央行行长周小川曾表示，基础保费最初将只被设定在存款金额的0.01%到0.02%。根据中国媒体本周发表的采访记录，他说这个水平“远低于绝大多数国家存保起步时的水平以及现行水平”。
So far, regulators have declined to say at what level they will set the adjustable, risk-based premiums. “It’s like with car insurance,” Mr. Zhou said in the interviews. “Drivers who get in accidents pay higher premiums, those that don’t pay lower ones. This helps create a positive incentive to reduce risk.”
截至目前，监管机构还拒绝透露基于风险的可调保费将设定在何种水平。“类似车险，”周小川在采访中说。“如同司机交保费：事故多的司机保费高，不出事的司机保费低，这样更能实现正向激励，从而降低风险。”
Ordinary Chinese, too, will have to digest the new risk in the banking system. Under the insurance plan, only the first 500,000 renminbi, or roughly $80,000, in any given account will be insured.
普通中国人也必须消化银行体系中的新风险。根据保险计划，一个账户中存款保险的最高偿付限额是50万元人民币。
Officials say this will effectively cover 99.6 percent of all depositors. But analysts point out that the amount of deposits covered will be much lower — some estimate that only around 50 percent of deposits by value will be insured, because some very wealthy individuals park large sums in their accounts.
官员称，这实际上能使99.6%的各类储户得到全额保障，但分析师指出，受到保障的存款金额将会少很多。有人估计，从金额上看，只有大约50%的存款能获得保险，因为一些非常富有的人会在储蓄账户里存很多钱。
Changing public perceptions about the risk of bank deposits could have implications for another huge part of the system: shadow financing, or off-balance-sheet fund-raising.
让公众改变对银行存款风险的认识，金融体系的另一个巨大部分或许也会受到影响，即影子融资，或表外融资。
In recent years, trust companies and other loosely regulated institutions in China have issued billions of dollars in loans, relying on funds raised by selling short-term, high-interest wealth management products. It is a murky market where levels of risk, including of default, are difficult to quantify. But ordinary investors regard the risk of such products as comparable to savings deposits, since they are often marketed by banks.
近年来，中国的信托公司和其他监管较为宽松的机构依靠出售短期、高利率的理财产品来筹集资金，发放了数十亿美元的贷款。这是一个混乱的市场，违约等风险的严重程度都难以量化。但普通投资者认为，这些产品的风险与储蓄类似，因为它们通常由银行销售。
Analysts say that could change with the introduction of deposit insurance, potentially pulling money out of riskier investment products and putting it back into the official banking system. That could be a good thing in the long term, even if it leads to more defaults in the near term.
分析师表示，在引入存款保险后，这种局面就会改变，可能会把资金从风险较高的投资产品中抽出，再把这些钱放回官方银行体系。长期来看，这可能是件好事，即使它近期会导致更多债务违约。
“Households will likely keep some resources in higher-return, higher-risk instruments, but they will properly recognize the risks involved,” said David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former China-based official at the United States Treasury Department and the World Bank.
华盛顿布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)高级研究员、美国财政部(Treasury Department)和世界银行(World Bank)前驻中国官员杜大伟(David Dollar)说，“家庭可能会将资金保留在在一些高收益、高风险的工具当中，但他们或许会意识到其中的风险。”
“The government can then allow some defaults and bankruptcies, which they have done recently,” Mr. Dollar added. “This is a normal part of a market economy and should not be alarming.”
“政府随后可能会允许一些违约及破产事件发生，它们最近就是这么做的，”杜大伟说。“这是市场经济的正常组成部分，不应成为一种令人担心的情况。”