For some, China represents a positive scenario of structural reforms returning the country to its position as the engine of world growth. Not only do we think this is unlikely, we actually believe China poses a systemic risk of historic proportions.

对于一些人而言，中国代表着一个结构性改革让国家重返世界增长引擎地位的积极案例。我们不仅认为这是不太可能的，还认为中国构成一个规模罕见的系统性风险。

It is now clear that China is not smoothly passing its growth baton from exports and investment to the service sector. Official GDP data still show growth, but this has decelerated significantly despite numerous interest rate cuts and massive fiscal support.

现在很明显，中国没有平稳将其增长接力棒从出口和投资转交给服务业。官方国内生产总值(GDP)数据仍显示增长，但增速已大幅放缓，尽管利率多次下调而且推出了大规模财政支持。

Debt is key

债务是关键

The reason for such weakness is debt. It is hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the Chinese debt bubble. According to the Band for International Settlements, debt to GDP has increased by around 100 per cent since 2008, which compares with about 40 per cent in the US leading up to the subprime meltdown, 60 per cent in Japan prior to its collapse in 1997 and is even more than the credit booms of Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy in the run up to the euro crisis. The only similar credit bubble in recent history was that in Thailand before the Asia crisis. And if an economy the size of China’s goes through what Thailand went through in 1997, the world will be a very ugly place indeed.

这种疲弱的原因是债务。要夸大中国债务泡沫的规模是很难的。根据国际清算银行(BIS)的数据，自2008年以来，债务与GDP之比已上升约100%，高于次贷危机之前美国的大约40%，1997年泡沫破裂之前日本的60%，甚至超过欧元危机之前的希腊、葡萄牙、西班牙和意大利的信贷热潮。在近期历史上，唯一与此类似的信贷泡沫发生在亚洲金融危机之前的泰国。如果像中国这种规模的经济体遭遇1997年泰国经历的危机，那么世界确实将变得非常难看。

Chinese debt is concentrated in the corporate sector, but this distinction is blurred given the use of state owned enterprises and local authority lending vehicles by the Chinese government during the investment binge. According to Autonomous Research estimates, corporate sector debt will rise to above eight times income in 2016, double its level in 2008. There are many zombie companies that simply have to borrow just to service their current debts. Gavekal Dragonomics estimates that 28 per cent of Shanghai Composite companies are loss-making when subsidies are stripped out. And debt is still growing rapidly, with credit growth running at twice the rate of nominal GDP expansion.

中国的债务集中在企业领域，但鉴于中国政府在投资热潮期间利用国有企业和地方政府融资工具，这种界限有点模糊。根据Autonomous Research的估计，2016年企业债务将升至利润的8倍以上，是2008年水平的两倍。很多僵尸企业不得不借款偿还当前债务。龙洲经讯(Gavekal Dragonomics)估计，若剔除补贴，28%的上证综指成分股公司将出现亏损。而且债务仍在迅速增长，信贷增速是名义GDP扩张速度的两倍。

One positive aspect is that the vast majority of debt is funded domestically, so China’s external vulnerability is nothing like Thailand’s in 1997. However, this still means Chinese savers are on the hook. As with all debt bubbles, there has been a great deal of financial engineering to hide the debt and who guarantees it. In China, banks have created vast off-balance sheet structures named Wealth Management Products (WMP) that are stuffed full of bank loans, funded by short-maturity deposits. The US and Europe had their own off-balance sheet vehicles in 2008 – SIVs and conduits – which subsequently blew up when the mortgage debt bubble collapsed. Autonomous Research estimates that by the end of this year Chinese WMPs will be more than double the size of the $1.7tn SIV/conduit market in 2008.

一项利好是，大多数债务是在国内融资的，因此中国的外部脆弱性完全不像1997年的泰国。然而，这仍意味着中国储户承担着风险。就像所有债务泡沫那样，中国出现了大量金融工程来隐藏债务和债务担保人。在中国，银行创建了大量被称为理财产品(WMP)的表外结构，里面充斥着银行贷款，由短期存款融资。美国和欧洲在2008年也有他们的表外工具：结构性投资工具(SIV)和管道(conduits)，在抵押贷款泡沫破裂后，这些工具随即解体。Autonomous Research估计，到今年底，中国理财产品的规模将达到2008年1.7万亿美元结构性投资工具/管道市场的两倍多。

Even more worrying has been the rise of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, which has all the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme. In January, authorities closed down P2P lender Ezubao, with 900,000 investors facing losses of $7.6bn between them. Total P2P loans quadrupled in 2015 to around $150bn and the Chinese regulator thinks that about a third of P2P lenders are problematic.

甚至更令人担心的是个人对个人贷款(P2P)，这种操作具有庞氏骗局(Ponzi scheme)的全部特征。今年1月，中国当局关闭了P2P贷款机构e租宝，其90万名投资者面临总计76亿美元的损失。2015年，中国的P2P贷款规模增长3倍，至1500亿美元左右，中国监管机构认为，约三分之一的P2P贷款机构是有问题的。

Estimating the amount of debt that needs to be written off by China is not an exact science. It boils down to how much excess capacity has been built with little chance of making an economic return. Julien Garran at MacroStrategy estimates there has been around $8tn of excess fixed capital formation in China since 2008, which, assuming that 60 per cent turn into non-performing loans and a 40 per cent recovery rate, suggests losses of $3tn. This is about 30 per cent of Chinese GDP. Autonomous Research gets to a similarly large number by looking at losses realised by other countries following their own credit bubbles. This far outstrips the loss-absorbing capacity of the financial system, and would therefore require significant state support to resolve.

估算中国需要减记的债务规模不是一门精确科学。这要归结于打造了多少基本上无望带来经济回报的过剩产能。MacroStrategy的朱利恩•加兰(Julien Garran)估计，自2008年以来，中国形成了约8万亿美元的过剩固定投资，假设有60%变成不良贷款，而坏账回收比例为40%，那么这意味着3万亿美元的亏损。这相当于中国GDP的30%左右。在对其他国家在信贷泡沫破裂后承认的亏损进行评估后，Autonomous Research得出了相似的巨大数字。这远远超出了金融体系吸收亏损的能力，因此需要重大的政府支持来解决。

Potential for crisis

爆发危机的可能性

The key to a crisis is domestic confidence. Chinese policymakers are trying very hard to avoid the worst. Instead, they are attempting to take the Japanese route of delaying the final judgement day. However, this is a double-edged sword. Volatility remains subdued for now, but the future crisis is getting larger.

危机的关键是国内信心。中国政策制定者正非常努力地避免最坏情况发生。他们正试图采用日本的路线：推迟最后清算日的到来。然而，这是一把双刃剑。目前波动性仍然不大，但未来危机的规模正变大。

This year has already witnessed a number of Chinese policies that help paper over the cracks. The housing market has been in focus, with purchase restrictions being lifted leading to a rapid increase in house prices across a handful of major cities. However, there is still a huge nationwide housing inventory backlog that needs to be worked through. It now seems as though restrictions are being tightened once again to try to avoid this localised housing bubble.

今年，中国已出台很多政策帮助掩盖困境。房地产市场近来受到关注，解除购房限制促使中国几个大城市的房价迅速上涨。然而，中国仍需要消化全国性的大量住宅库存问题。如今，为了避免局部出现房地产泡沫，购房限制似乎正再次收紧。

There have also been headlines of fiscal loosening, with Beijing lifting the official central budget deficit to 3 per cent of GDP for 2016. However, the true government deficit is already around 10 per cent, if we include local authority budgets, funded via a surging government bond market. It will be difficult to accelerate this already breakneck speed.

此外，财政宽松也成了新闻头条，中国政府将今年官方中央财政赤字占GDP的比例上调至3%。然而，如果我们纳入通过日益高涨的政府债券市场融资的地方政府预算的话，政府赤字的真实规模已在10%左右。很难加快这一已经惊人的速度。

Not recognising non-performing loans is also part of a broader policy of ‘extend and pretend’. However, not crystallising losses does not make their impact go away. Even if the Chinese debt mountain does not collapse overnight, it will continue to weigh on domestic economic activity and inflation.

不承认不良贷款也是更为广泛的“延期并假装”(extend and pretend)政策的一部分。然而，不明确亏损并不会消除它们的影响。即便中国的巨额债务不会在一夜之间坍塌，它仍会继续拖累国内经济活动和通胀。

This Japanese extend and pretend policy does not solve the structural problems in China, it simply delays and worsens the final resolution.

这种日本式的“延期并假装”政策不会解决中国的结构性问题，它只会推迟最终的清算，并使其变得更糟。