【福布斯】-中国经济何以能持续增长

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How China's Economy Keeps Growing


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Betting against China is as unwise as betting against the Fed.
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Author Examines Six Myths About U.S. Economy Kenneth Rapoza Contributor
The Rich Get Richer, And So Do The Chinese Kenneth Rapoza Contributor
Is The Chinese Economic Model The Way Of The Future? Ralph Benko Contributor
For much of the last 20 years, economists have forecast the demise of the Chinese economy. It seems to be lost on them that since the global economic crisis of 2008, the Chinese economy has grown a combined 40%.  Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has grown by a wimpy 0.5%.  China bears have predicted a Chinese equity market crash every year for the past 20 years and every year they have been wrong. China stocks have grown by an average of 7% each year and rose by 9% in 2008.
Frank Newman is probably the only American to ever run a Chinese bank and a large American bank in his career. Newman ran the Shenzhen Development Bank for five years, ending in 2010.  Prior to that, he worked as a CFO at Bank of America and was a former CEO at Bankers Trust. I spoke with him recently about Chinese banking, the real estate bubble and his new book “Six Myths That Hold Back America: What America Can Learn From The Chinese Economy.”
“The Chinese stock market has done poorly this year, but that has been an emerging market phenomenon not a China one,” he says. Newman also worked Deputy Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton.  China equities underperformed the S&P 500 year-to-date, but despite warning of a pending blow out in housing and Chinese banking, the popularly traded iShares FTSE China (FXI) exchange traded fund is down 15% compared to the MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM) ETF which is down 16%. The main Russian (RSX), Brazilian (EWZ) and Indian (EPI) ETFs are all down by more than 21%. China beats them all.
The country continues to flip-off the naysayers.
Are you a man…or a mouse?
Deng Xiaoping, former head of the Communist Party and one of China’s reformist economic leaders, once said that it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches the mouse.  China is catching the mouse. Europe’s cat is stuck in a tree and the fire departments of the European Union can’t figure out how to get her down.  America’s fat cat is mowing down on something entirely different than rodent, though not in much healthier shape for it.
As the core Western economies try figuring out what economic polices to employ, it is worth understanding how China’s economy has done so well over the years.
China has developed an economic strategy utilizing government controlled investment and exports.  However, much of China’s economy is driven by the private sector, not by state owned enterprises. Business in China is largely conducted through corporations and millions of small to mid sized companies that are growth oriented and — depending on the sector — innovators.
The government’s investment strategy was on fixed infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities. In some ways, everyone in China benefited even if their core business was working as a cobbler outside a tier three city in central China.  Beijing fostered development of the private sector and used other means, including government sponsorship of large scale industrial companies to build capacity, employing labor brought into the cities from the countryside. The chain of transactions flourished so that each block of spending by the government led to a chain of consumer spending as well as private sector development of businesses to provide goods and services along the chain. The cobbler gets more shoes to fix, therefore he makes more money.
“Let’s say that people in the U.S. conclude that they need a new bridge somewhere. And China also concludes that it needs a bridge to get a train over a river. In the U.S., the bridge would likely involve a toll system, under which the projected cash flow would cover the construction costs, maintenance and bond interest to build the bridge. In China, the plan would be nearly identical. But in America, there would be a problem with financing. The state where the bridge is to be built has no money. Washington can’t finance it because there will be political opposition due to the deficit. Therefore, the bridge never gets built,” says Newman. “In China, there is no concern over deficit spending, especially it there was high unemployment. Beijing would see to it that the needed labor was hired, workers would get jobs, and the country’s infrastructure would improve, making it more competitive for the future. The government would have a special entity created to own and operate the bridge and would arrange for one of the Big Four banks to fund it outright. The bridge would be built and there would be no increase to the deficit because the government would classify the costs as investment, not expenditure. So China would have better roads and bridges while the U.S. has worsening roads and bridges because of its fears about debt. ”
Newman makes clear in his book that he is not recommending Washington become a one-party town, but that U.S. fears over its deficit are holding the country back during a time of high unemployment. Those concerns do not trouble China, and that’s one of the ways China’s economy keeps on growing.
Newman and I spoke specifically about China banks and real estate during his brief stay Stateside. He lives in Hong Kong.
KR: Some in the market are concerned that non-performing loans are increasing in China.
FN: The banks in China are in far better shape than the people outside the country realize. Non-performing loans at Shenzhen Development Bank when I got there were around 20% of our loan portfolio and when I left they were just 0.5%. We didn’t take on a lot of commercial real estate risk, and I am sure that a lot of banks will see their non-performing loans (NPL) rise because of that risk. No one knows for sure the NPLs in China, but from my point of view, whenever problems arise in China, the government has been able to move quickly. That’s not a comment on the country’s politics. It’s just how the economy works. A lot of people don’t realize that fully.
KR: I get the sense that Beijing will fight tooth and nail to prevent a banking crisis.
FN: Listen, the Chinese government does not want a banking crisis and the Chinese government will therefore not have a banking crisis. The government sets the rules. There is no political squabbling about how to manage this.
KR: Is there a problem in the banking sector?
FN: NPLs are coming down as a whole and are low by international standards. Working capital is solid. Regulations are very tough. I’m not making this up from an analysts desk in New York. I dealt with regulators for five years. They have pushed the banks to prepare for non-performing loans because of the possibility of mid-sized and small real estate developers going bankrupt. They’ve required banks to increase their provisions for bad loans.  If your bank’s model for non-performers suggests you could lose a billion, you need to have two billion reserved in a special account to cover it.
KR: Losing a few real estate developing companies will mean more layoffs at a time when the economy is slowing.
FN: Yes, some small and midsized developers could fail. You can’t save them all. China is slowly reforming its economy and when it comes to the private sector, business plans can go wrong. It happens.
KR: What if there is a surprise and larger companies fail because of government investment projects got built and no one used them.
FN: I think most of the projects were not a waste of money. Shenzhen improved their subway system, now millions more people are using it. They’ve done this in other cities, too, and now have a better subway system than we have in the U.S.  Let’s assume the government spends $1 trillion on infrastructure and 30% of it was wasted. What happened? You still saved yourself from a recession,  you kept people employed during an economic slowdown and you made $700 billion in infrastructure improvements — a more efficient electric grid, improvements at ports to allow for greater U.S. shipments abroad when the global economy picks up. There are things the Chinese can learn from the U.S. about Democracy, but there is a lot we should learn from the Chinese instead of attacking them and blaming them all the time.
KR: What about the currency issue? The currency has strengthened over the last several years, yet our trade deficit with China keeps getting larger. Washington still seems to think that if China would only strengthen the renmimbi faster, the deficit will balance out.
FN: They’re wrong. The U.S. has to get China to buy more stuff from us, but there’s a lot of bureaucratic problems involved in that, such as intellectual property rights, for example. It’s improving. Our exports to China are increasing.
KR: China isn’t going to listen to a word Washington says about its currency, right?
FN: They are not going to do anything to ever look like they are succumbing to foreign pressure. Ever. Period. Consider this, why would China want to put the value of the renmimbi in the hands of the market when in their view — and this is not hard to understand — the market has mispriced assets consistently over the last several years. Is the market really that brilliant? Their record on pricing currency and derivatives is abysmal. Look where the mortgage backed derivatives crisis took us in 2008.
KR: How is the China housing bubble different than the U.S. housing bubble.
FN: I’ve foreclosed on houses in China before. But this is rare. There is no subprime. There is no such thing as no money down, or CMOs. Chinese consumers are not over-leveraged.
KR: When I lived in Brazil last year, you’d see blocs of new high-rise luxury apartments going up. Cranes. Skeletal buildings, with for sale signs on them for years and no buyers. Developers went bankrupt, but it didn’t bring down a city, let along a national economy. I imagine it’s the same in China. You’ve heard about the vacant apartment buildings, the “
ghost cities.” Concerning?
FN: For all the press that’s given these vacant apartment buildings littering Chinese cities, I have to say that there is not many of them.  Those properties were mostly bought as investments or for future retirement. Big developers bought the land to those buildings years ago, when land values were cheap so they are dealing with sizable profit margins and can revalue the properties lower if they had to without a loss.
KR: What’s your scenario for China banks if there is a crisis there?
FN: Ten years ago, China’s biggest banks were all in trouble so the government created this asset management company that acquired all of these toxic assets, similar to what the U.S. would do years later. The balance sheets on the big four banks improved, and the debt was cleared. The government owned asset management company still holds the bad debt and slowly it is paying interest and principal, but it just keeps rolling that debt over. A loan that was due in 2012 gets pushed back to 2015 and so on. It could go on forever.
KR:  The takeaway in your U.S.-China comparison is that the U.S. government should invest in job creation at a time like this, as China has done to develop a middle class society. Dick Cheney: Deficits don’t matter.
FN: Washington has to stop squabbling over the ideological stuff. I don’t like intrusive government either, but I do think we need some infrastructure projects. The U.S. is too afraid of deficits, but that’s mostly politically motivated. Under Bush, the total amount of Treasury debt held by individuals went from $3 trillion to $7.5 trillion and nobody was worried about it. We demonize it now because it is political. We shouldn’t demonize it. There is an appropriate time to use deficit spending. Ten years from now, the U.S. economy might be hot. You need to have the air conditioner ready. China’s built and continues to build their cooling system, so when the economy is hot, it can cool it off, and when the economy is cold, it can heat it up. Sometimes they get it wrong, but I would argue that so far their track record has been perfect.


以下为中文版：
作者：Kenneth Rapoza 2011-12-08  
当西方核心经济体试图弄清楚该采取哪种经济政策的时候，我们值得探讨一下中国经济何以能够多年来表现得如此出色。唱衰中国就像和美联储对赌一样很不明智。
在过去20年的大多数时间里，经济学家们曾多次预测中国经济将会崩溃。但这类预测似乎已不攻自破。自2008年全球经济危机以来，中国经济累计增长了40%，而同时美国经济仅增长了微不足道的0.5%。在过去20年里，唱衰中国者每年都预测中国股市将会崩盘，但他们每年都错了。中国股市年均上涨7%，在2008年更是上涨了9%。
弗兰克·纽曼（Frank Newman）可能是唯一一个管理过中国银行和大型美国银行的美国人。纽曼管理了深圳发展银行5年，后在2010年离职。此前，他曾担任美国银行的首席财务官和信孚银行（Bankers Trust）的首席执行官。最近，我和他谈到了中国的银行业、房地产泡沫和他的新书《阻碍美国前进的六个迷思：美国可以从中国经济中学到什么》（Six Myths That Hold Back America: What America Can Learn From The Chinese Economy）。
纽曼说：“中国股市今年表现欠佳，但这是新兴市场的通病，并非中国独有。”他还曾在克林顿政府中担任副财长一职。今年以来，中国股市的表现不及标普500指数。尽管有人警告称中国的房市和银行业即将遭受重创，但新华富时中国（FXI）ETF基金仅下跌15%，表现优于MSCI新兴市场（EEM）ETF基金的16%。主要的俄罗斯（RSX）、巴西（EWZ）和印度（EPI）ETF基金均下跌了逾21%。中国的表现比它们都要好。
中国继续令唱衰者的言论落空。
你是人……还是鼠？
前中共最高领导人、中国改革开放总设计师邓小平曾说过，不管白猫黑猫，能抓住老鼠的就是好猫。中国正在抓老鼠，而欧洲这只猫却卡在了树上，欧盟的救火员不知道该怎么把它弄下来。美国这只肥猫的目标是某种完全不是啮齿类动物的东西——这东西的情况比老鼠好不了多少。
当西方核心经济体试图弄清楚该采取哪种经济政策的时候，我们值得探讨一下中国经济何以能够多年来表现得如此出色。
中国的经济策略利用了政府控制下的投资和出口。不过，中国经济在很大程度上是由私营部门推动，而不是国有企业。在中国，商业活动的主角是法人企业、以增长为目标的数百万家中小企业以及创新者（取决于所属行业）
中国政府的投资策略专注于基础设施和制造能力。从某种程度上来说，中国的每个人都受益于此，即使他们只是中国中部地区一座三级城市的补鞋匠。除了努力推动私营部门的发展之外，中国政府还采取了其他措施，包括资助大型工业企业扩大生产能力，为农民工创造就业等。交易链繁荣了，结果政府的每笔支出都推动了消费支出以及私营企业的发展，他们反过来又为交易链上下游提供商品和服务。补鞋匠有了更多的鞋子补，所以挣到了更多的钱。
“比方说，美国人认为他们需要新的桥梁。中国也认为自己需要修桥以便让火车过河。在美国，桥梁可能涉及到通行费系统。在这种系统下，预期的现金流可以涵盖桥梁的建造费用、维护费用和债券利息。在中国，计划几乎完全相同。但在美国，可能会存在资金问题。打算修桥的州没钱。由于财政赤字，美国政府也无法为修桥提供资金，因为这会招致政治上的反对。“所以，桥永远都修不了，”纽曼说，“而在中国，不存在对赤字开支的担忧。如果失业率高企，中国政府更加不会担心赤字问题。中国政府在乎的是，贫困的劳动者得到雇佣，工人得到工作，基础设施得以完善，使中国在未来更具竞争力。中国政府会建立一个特别的实体机构来拥有并经营这座桥梁，并安排四大银行中的一家即刻为修桥提供融资。这座桥梁会被建好，而且不会增加财政赤字，因为政府会将相关费用列为投资，而不是支出。因此，中国会拥有更好的道路和桥梁，而美国的道路和桥梁只会更糟，因为它害怕债务。”
纽曼在其书中清楚地指出，他并不是建议美国变成一党制国家，而是想说，在失业率居高不下的时候，美国对其财政赤字的担忧阻碍了美国的发展。中国没有这样的担忧，这便是中国经济持续增长的原因之一。
当纽曼在美国作短暂停留时（他居住在香港），我和他专门就中国的银行业和房地产进行了一番讨论。
我：市场上有些人担心，中国的不良贷款正在增加。
纽曼：中国银行的健康状况远远好于外国人士的预料。当我初到深圳发展银行的时候，该银行的不良贷款率为20%左右，而当我离开的时候，这个数字仅为0.5%。我们没有承担太多的商业地产风险。我敢肯定，许多银行将会发现，他们的不良贷款增加就是这种风险所致。没人能准确地知道中国的不良贷款到底有多少，但我认为，无论什么时候出现了什么问题，中国政府都能够迅速采取行动。这不是对该国政治的评价。中国经济本来就是这么运作的。许多人都没有充分认识到这一点。
我：我觉得，中国政府将拼命防止银行业危机。
纽曼：请注意，中国政府不想看到银行业危机，因此中国就不会有银行业危机。在中国，规则由政府制定，不存在有关如何处理危机的政治争论。
我：中国的银行业存在问题吗？
纽曼：不良贷款总体上正在减少，按照国际标准来看处于较低水平。营运资本充足。规章制度非常严格。关于这一点，我可不是在纽约的分析师办公桌上胡编乱造。我与中国的监管者打了5年交道。他们要求银行为不良贷款增加做好准备，因为中小房地产开发商可能会破产。他们还要求银行增加坏账准备金。如果银行的不良贷款模型表明可能会损失10亿元，那么就必须在特别账户中存入20亿元，以应对这种风险。
我：当经济减速时，一些房地产开发公司的倒闭将意味着更多的人失业。
纽曼：是的。一些中小开发商可能会倒闭。你不能每个都救。中国正在缓慢改革其经济，私营部门的商业计划可能会犯错。这种事情总会发生。
我：如果出现意外，政府投资项目建好了却没人使用，导致大型企业倒闭，这该怎么办呢？
纽曼：我认为大多数政府项目并不是在浪费钱。深圳改善了其地铁系统，现在使用人数多了数百万人。其他城市也是如此。如今，中国的地铁系统比美国的还好。假设中国政府花费1万亿美元用于基础设施建设，其中30%被浪费掉。这会怎么样呢？你仍然可以使自己免于经济衰退。在经济减速期间，这保住了人们的工作，而且有7,000亿美元被用来改善基础设施，比如效率更高的电网，以及改良的港口——以便可以在全球经济复苏时停靠更大的美国船只。中国应该在民主方面向美国学习，但美国人也应该向中国人多多学习，而不是一味地批评他们、指责他们。
我：货币问题呢？人民币在过去几年里不断升值，但美国对华贸易逆差持续扩大。美国政府似乎仍然认为，只要中国加快人民币升值步伐，逆差就会被抹平。
纽曼：他们错了。美国必须让中国从我们这里购买更多的东西，但这方面涉及到许多的官僚主义问题，比如知识产权。但这个问题正在改善。我们的对华出口正在增加。
我：对于美国政府的人民币言论，中国一个字都不会听，对吧？
纽曼：他们不会做任何使他们看起来屈服于外国压力的事情。从来都是如此。想想看，中国为什么要让市场来决定人民币币值呢？在中国看来，市场在过去几年里总是对资产作出错误定价（这不难理解）。市场是否真的那么明智呢？市场对货币和衍生品的定价记录糟糕透顶。看看2008年抵押担保衍生品危机导致了什么结果吧。
我：中国房地产泡沫与美国房地产泡沫有何不同？
纽曼：我曾在中国取消了数套住房的赎回权。但这种情况很少见。中国没有次级抵押贷款，也没有零首付贷款（no money down）或抵押贷款担保证券（CMO）。中国消费者没有过度借贷。
我：去年我住在巴西，发现有大量的高层豪华公寓拔地而起。到处都是起重机。仅建好骨架的建筑物上几年如一日地挂着出售招牌，但无人问津。开发商破产了，但这并没有摧毁一座城市，更别说全国经济了。我想中国的情况也是如此。你肯定听说了有关空置公寓楼的事情，也就是那些“鬼城”。对此你感到担忧吗？
纽曼：尽管媒体报道称，中国的城市里到处都有空置的公寓楼，但我必须得说，数量并不是很多。这些公寓楼主要是被买来作为投资之用，或者是作为以后退休居住之用。大型开发商在几年前购买了这些公寓楼的土地，当时地价很便宜，因此他们的利润率很高，如果有必要，他们完全可以降低房价，而不会蒙受损失。
我：如果发生危机，你认为中国的银行会面临何种境地？
纽曼：10年前，中国最大的几家银行都遇到了麻烦，于是政府成立资产管理公司，接管了所有的不良资产，就像几年后美国政府所做的那样。中国四大银行的资产负债表得到改善，债务被清偿。如今，中国政府的资产管理公司仍然握有这些坏账，并且正在缓慢地支付利息和本金，并不断推迟还贷期，比如2012年到期的贷款会被延期到2015年，以此类推。说不定这种事情会永远持续下去。
我：从你的中美比较中可以看出，美国政府在如今这个时候应该通过投资于就业机会的创造，就像中国为建设其中产阶级社会所做的那样。迪克·切尼（Dick Cheney）曾说，赤字并不要紧。
曼：美国政府必须停止意识形态上的争论。我也不喜欢政府干预，但我确实认为，我们需要一些基础设施项目。美国太害怕财政赤字了，但这主要是出于政治原因。在布什执政时期，个人持有的国债总额从3万亿美元增加到7.5万亿美元，但没人对此感到担忧。我们现在之所以害怕，是因为这关系到政治。我们不应该将赤字妖魔化。现在是时候利用赤字支出了。10年后，美国经济可能会过热。必须随时准备好“空调”。
中国已经建好了他们的冷却系统，并且还在继续完善——当经济过热的时候，可以冷却经济；当经济变冷的时候，可以加热经济。有时他们也会犯错，但我认为，到目前为止中国的表现堪称完美。

双语阅读：How China's Economy Keeps Growing本文网址：http://www.forbeschina.com/investment/review/201112/0013955_5.shtml

lyycc

这个“弗兰克·纽曼”对中国经济的运作模式真的是非常了解，换成国内的那些经济学教对中国经济模式进行论述的话估计也就是他总结的这些吧:o