中国困境会引发全球危机吗

So, will China’s problems cause a global crisis? The good news is that the numbers, as I read them, don’t seem big enough. The bad news is that I could be wrong, because global contagion often seems to end up being worse than hard numbers say it should. And the worse news is that if China does deliver a bad shock to the rest of the world, we are remarkably unready to deal with the consequences.

中国的问题会引发全球危机吗？好消息是，在我看来，这些数据似乎不够糟糕。坏消息是，我也许会错，因为危机在全球蔓延的情况，似乎通常会比实在的数据反映的情况更糟糕。更坏的消息是，如果中国确实会给世界其他地方造成巨大冲击，那么我们还没准备好应对相关后果。

For those just starting to pay attention: It has been obvious for a while that China’s economy is in big trouble. How big is hard to say, because nobody believes official Chinese statistics.

有些人刚开始关注这个问题，但很明显，中国经济遇到大麻烦已有一段时间了。很难说这个麻烦有多大，因为没人相信中国官方的统计数据。

The basic problem is that China’s economic model, which involves very high saving and very low consumption, was only sustainable as long as the country could grow extremely fast, justifying high investment. This in turn was possible when China had vast reserves of underemployed rural labor. But that’s no longer true, and China now faces the tricky task of transitioning to much lower growth without stumbling into recession.

主要问题在于中国高储蓄低消费的经济模式，只有在该国经济保持极快增长的情况下才能维持，这支持了高投资的合理性。当中国拥有大量未充分就业的农村劳动力储备时，这是可能实现的。但现在情况不同了，中国目前面临一个棘手的任务：过渡到增长率较低，但不至于陷入衰退的水平。

A reasonable strategy would have been to buy time with credit expansion and infrastructure spending while reforming the economy in ways that put more purchasing power into families’ hands. Unfortunately, China pursued only the first half of that strategy, buying time and then squandering it. The result has been rapidly rising debt, much of it owed to poorly regulated “shadow banks,” and a threat of financial meltdown.

可以通过信贷扩张、增加基础设施开支来争取时间，同时改革经济以便增强家庭购买力，这原本是一个合理的策略。遗憾的是，中国只追求该策略的前半部分，争取到了时间，然后又浪费掉了时间。结果导致债务快速增加，这在很大程度上归咎于欠缺监管的“影子银行”，可能会诱发金融崩盘。

So the Chinese situation looks fairly grim — and new numbers have reinforced fears of a hard landing, leading not just to a plunge in Chinese stocks but to sharp declines in stock prices worldwide.

因此，中国的情况看起来相当严峻，而新发布的数据加剧了人们对硬着陆的担忧，不仅导致中国股市下跌，还导致世界各地的股价大跌。

O.K., so far so bad. And some smart people think that the global implications are really scary; George Soros is comparing it to 2008.

好吧，到目前为止情况就是这么糟糕。一些聪明人认为，这种全球性的影响真的很可怕；乔治·索罗斯(George Soros)将它与2008年金融危机相提并论。

As I suggested above, however, I have a hard time making the numbers for that kind of catastrophe work. Yes, China is a big economy, accounting in particular for about a quarter of world manufacturing, so what happens there has implications for all of us. And China buys more than $2 trillion worth of goods and services from the rest of the world each year. But it’s a big world, with a total gross domestic product excluding China of more than $60 trillion. Even a drastic fall in Chinese imports would be only a modest hit to world spending.

但正如我上面说到的，我很难根据数字得出会出现这种灾难的论断。是的，中国是一个经济大国，大约占全球制造业总产值的四分之一，因此中国发生的事情会影响到我们所有人。中国每年从世界其他地方购买价值两万亿美元的商品和服务。但这个世界很大，除中国之外，其他国家的国内生产总值加起来超过60万亿美元。即便中国进口额大幅下降，也只会对全球消费造成有限的冲击。

What about financial linkages? One reason America’s subprime crisis turned global in 2008 was that foreigners in general, and European banks in particular, turned out to be badly exposed to losses on U.S. securities. But China has capital controls — that is, it isn’t very open to foreign investors — so there’s very little direct spillover from plunging stocks or even domestic debt defaults.

那金融关联性呢？美国次贷危机在2008年蔓延至全球的一个原因是，外国人，特别是欧洲的银行，因持有美国证券而受到了严重冲击。但中国实行资本管制，也就是说不怎么对外国投资者开放，所以中国股市下跌甚至国内债务违约，几乎不会对其他国家造成直接影响。

All of this says that while China itself is in big trouble, the consequences for the rest of us should be manageable. But I have to admit that I’m not as relaxed about this as the above analysis says I should be. If you like, I lack the courage of my complacency. Why?

这一切都说明，虽然中国自身面临大麻烦，其他国家受到的影响应该是可控的。但我必须承认，我没有上述分析说的那么放松。可以说，我没有勇气自鸣得意。为什么呢？

Part of the answer is that business cycles across nations often seem to be more synchronized than they “should” be. For example, Europe and the United States export to each other only a small fraction of what they produce, yet they often have recessions and recoveries at the same time. Financial linkages may be part of the story, but one also suspects that there is psychological contagion: Good or bad news in one major economy affects animal spirits in others.

答案部分在于，各国的经济周期通常似乎比“应有水平”更加同步。例如，欧洲和美国相互出口的商品只占其产量的一小部分，但它们通常同时衰退和复苏。金融关联性可能是一部分原因，但有人也推测存在心理感染的问题：与主要经济体有关的好消息或坏消息，会影响其他经济体的“动物精神”(animal spirits)。

So I worry that China may export its woes in ways back-of-the-envelope calculations miss, that the Middle Kingdom’s troubles will one way or another have the effect of depressing investment spending in America and Europe as well as in other emerging markets. And if my worries come true, we are woefully unready to deal with the shock.

因此我担心，中国可能会以粗略的计算无法体现的方式，输出其面临的问题；担心中国的问题会以某种方式抑制美国、欧洲及其他新兴市场的投资支出。如果我的担心成为现实，那么我们并没有准备好应对这种冲击，这很糟糕。

After all, who would respond to a China shock, and how? Monetary policy would probably be of little help. With interest rates still close to zero and inflation still below target, the Fed would have limited ability to fight an economic downdraft in any case, and it has probably reduced its effectiveness further by signaling its eagerness to raise rates at the first excuse. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank is already pushing to the limits of its political mandate in its own so far unsuccessful effort to raise inflation.

归根结底，谁来应对中国的冲击，以及会如何应对呢？货币政策可能没有多大帮助。由于利率仍然处在接近零的水平，通胀仍然低于目标，美联储要抗击经济下滑问题，其能力无论如何都是有限的。而且美联储还表示，一有理由就会提高利率，这种信号可能进一步削弱了其动作的效果。与此同时，欧洲中央银行已经将政治权力用到极限，努力提高通胀水平，但迄今为止尚未成功。

And while fiscal policy — essentially, spending more to offset the effects of China spending less — would surely work, how many people believe that Republicans would be receptive to a new Obama stimulus plan, or that German politicians would look kindly on a proposal for bigger deficits in Europe?

虽然财政政策——实际上是通过增加开支来抵消中国减少的开支——肯定会发挥作用，但有多少人相信，共和党人会接受奥巴马提出的新刺激计划，或者德国政治人物会乐于看到相关提议导致欧洲背负更大赤字？

Now, my best guess is still that things won’t be that bad — nasty in China, but just a bit of turbulence elsewhere. And I really, really hope that guess is right, because we don’t seem to have a plan B anywhere in sight.

目前我仍然猜想，最大的可能性是情况不会那么糟糕——中国的局面会很严重，但其他地方只是出现一些波动。我真的，真的希望，我的猜测是正确的，因为目前任何地方似乎都没有B计划。