中國債務負擔究竟潛伏多大危機
The global economy is full of risks right now.
目前，全球經濟充滿風險。
Growth is sluggish, and central banks seem powerless to fix it.
增長緩慢，中央銀行似乎也無能爲力。
Europe faces persistent challenges and division.
歐洲面臨持續存在的挑戰和分裂。
In America, the election looms.
美國大選在即。
But some say the biggest danger of all may be on the other side of the world, in China.
不過，有些人說，最大的危險可能在世界的另一邊——中國。
China is in the midst of one of the biggest borrowing binges in recent history.
中國正處於近年曆史上最大的借貸狂潮之中。
Its debt load reached $26.6 trillion in 2015 — about five times what it was a decade ago, and more than two and a half times the size of the country’s entire economy.
2015年，它的債務總額達到26.6萬億美元，大約是10年前的五倍，是該國經濟總量的2.5倍多。
That huge increase has prompted some economists and even the prominent investor George Soros to compare China to the United States before the 2008 financial crisis.
這種巨大增長促使一些經濟學家、甚至著名的投資者喬治•索羅斯(George Soros)把中國與2008年金融危機前的美國相比較。
How big a danger does China’s fast-growing debt load present to the country, or the world?
中國快速增長的債務讓該國或世界面臨多大的危險？
The traditional view is that rapidly rising debt eventually leads to an economic crisis.
傳統觀點是快速增長的債務最終會導致經濟危機。
That can happen in several ways.
它可能以幾種方式發生。
In Greece, the culprit was the government, which built up more debt than it could handle.
在希臘，罪魁禍首是政府，它累積了超過自己承受能力的債務。
In the United States, the risks lurked in the finances of banks and households.
在美國，風險潛伏在銀行和家庭財務方面。
In the case of China, the problem is primarily in the corporate sector.
在中國，這個問題主要存在於公司方面。
China’s big companies — especially those owned by the state — have done much of the borrowing.
中國最大的企業——尤其是那些國有企業——是借入的主體。
Higher debt means companies will have to spend more on interest and paying it back, and less on investing and hiring.
更高的債務意味着公司將不得不在支付利息和償還方面投入更多，在投資和僱傭方面投入更少。
That is where a vicious cycle could come in.
這就可能導致惡性循環。
Less spending on investing and hiring hurts the overall economy, hitting corporate bottom lines and making it even harder for companies to pay off debt.
減少投資和僱傭方面的開支，會打擊整體經濟，損害企業的盈利，讓還債變得愈發艱難。
Bad loans rise.
不良貸款會上升。
Banks freeze lending.
銀行放貸會被凍結。
Confidence in the financial system can be shaken, leading to a full-fledged banking crisis.
金融體系的信心會受到動搖，從而引發全面的銀行業危機。
China, which has the world’s second-largest economy after the United States’, plays a crucial role in generating global growth.
中國是僅次於美國的世界第二大經濟體，在促進全球經濟增長方面發揮着重要作用。
Such a situation in China could ripple across the world.
中國如果出現這種局面，其影響可能擴散到世界各地。
On the other hand, a number of economists say China’s mountain of debt is not as scary as it appears.
另一方面，許多經濟學家認爲，中國堆積如山的債務並不像表面看起來那樣可怕。
Qu Hongbin, chief economist for Greater China at HSBC, and his team argue that China’s debt is simply a result of the way its financial system works.
匯豐銀行(HSBC)大中華區首席經濟學家曲宏斌及其團隊表示，中國的債務僅僅是該國金融系統的運營方式所帶來的後果。
For a variety of reasons, China’s corporations and households stash more money away than their peers in other countries.
由於種種原因，中國企業和家庭儲蓄的資金比其他國家的企業和家庭多得多。
That cash piles up in banks and is turned into loans, resulting in China’s high level of debt.
這些資金匯聚在銀行裏，又變身爲貸款，導致中國的債務水平居高不下。
Since the debt is backed by all that savings, it is not as risky, Mr Qu contends.
曲宏斌說，這些債務有儲蓄做支撐，因此風險沒有那麼大。
Concerns about China’s debt levels reaching a critical threshold and posing a systemic risk are overblown, the HSBC team wrote in April.
有關中國的債務水平已達臨界值，可能引發系統性風險的擔憂被誇大了，其團隊在4月份寫道。
Others argue that China’s debt is less of a threat because it is to a great degree backed by the government.
其他一些人聲稱，中國的債務在很大程度上得到了政府的背書，因此不會構成太大威脅。
Much of it comes from state-run banks, which are the primary lenders to China’s large state-run companies.
許多貸款都源自國有銀行，它們是中國大型國企的主要債權人。
That means Beijing can stop banks from pushing borrowers too hard and would be more inclined to shore up the financial system, preventing the crisis that a more free-market economy might suffer.
這意味着北京可以阻止銀行把借款人逼得太狠，而且很有可能爲金融體系提供支撐，以防發生自由程度更高的市場經濟體可能遭遇的危機。
The debt, too, is largely domestic, making China less likely to be pushed into a crisis by problems outside its borders, which have toppled debt-heavy emerging economies in the past.
而且這些債務基本是內債，使得中國不太可能因爲受境外問題的鉗制而陷入危機。此前，類似的問題曾把某些債務負擔沉重的新興經濟體拖垮。
Other economies, furthermore, have debt similar to or even bigger than China’s.
此外，其他一些經濟體的債務水平與中國類似，甚至還要更高。
Debt in the United States, for instance, is roughly equivalent when compared with the size of America’s economy.
例如，美國的債務佔其經濟總量的比重，與中國大體相當。
Japan’s is much larger, at nearly four times the size of its national output.
日本的數字則高得多，債務總額幾乎是經濟總量的四倍。
Still, there is ample evidence to suggest that a large expansion of debt almost always has disastrous consequences.
不過，有充分的證據表明，債務規模急劇擴張幾乎總是會帶來災難性的後果。
Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist at the research firm Capital Economics, has studied more than 25 years of collapses in developing economies.
經濟研究公司凱投宏觀(Capital Economics)的首席新興市場經濟學家尼爾•希林(Neil Shearing)對發展中國家的經濟崩潰有着超過25年的研究。
He concludes that the pace of debt accumulation is more important than the overall level of debt in determining whether a country will face a financial crisis.
他得出的結論是，與總體債務規模相比，債務增速是決定一個國家會不會發生金融危機的更重要因素。
China’s pace of debt accumulation is well above the threshold he identified as indicating the potential for crisis.
而中國的債務增速，比他眼中預示着可能發生危機的閾值高出不少。
Some economists say that even if China dodges a full-scale crisis, it may not be able to escape the damage caused by its rising debt.
一些經濟學家稱，中國即便逃過一場全面危機，也有可能無法逃脫不斷攀升的債務造成的危害。
They fear that China could fall into a yearslong slump like Japan, which has regularly suffered little or even no growth ever since its own banking crisis more than two decades ago.
他們擔心中國或許會像日本那樣陷入爲期多年的衰退。自從日本在20多年前爆發銀行業危機以來，其經濟增長常常微乎其微，甚至出現過零增長。
In China’s case, the problems created by such an outcome would be much more painful, since it would enter that slow-growth period with its people at a much lower standard of living.
就中國而言，類似的結果可能引發慘烈得多的問題，因爲它會在人民生活水平相對低很多的時候進入經濟增長放緩的階段。
There are already signs that China’s debt is beginning to hamper progress in its economy.
有跡象表明，中國的債務已經開始妨礙其經濟進步了。
China’s banks have increased their lending to try to stimulate the economy, but the actual rate of growth has not picked up.
中國銀行加大了放貸力度，竭力刺激經濟，但實際增長率並未加速。
That is partly because China’s economy requires more and more debt to produce the same economic results.
這在某種程度上是因爲中國經濟得用越來越多的債務爲其帶來同等的經濟成效。
Brandon Emmerich, general manager for North America at Wind Information, a data provider, says $4 of new credit is necessary to generate just $1 of additional gross domestic product — the worst ratio since the depths of the last financial crisis.
數據供應商萬得資訊(Wind Information)北美部總經理布蘭登•埃默裏赫(Brandon Emmerich)說，信貸每新增4美元，只能讓國內生產總值新增1美元，這是上一次金融危機爆發以來最糟糕的比率。
One reason, Mr Emmerich recently wrote in a newsletter, is that most new debt in China goes to pay off old obligations rather than invest in new value-creating projects.
埃默裏赫在一篇簡報裏寫道，一個原因是，中國的大部分新增債務，都被用於償還舊債，而非投資於可以創造價值的新項目。
After analyzing corporate bonds issued in China, he calculated that 42 percent of the money raised since 2015 was earmarked to pay off existing loans or expiring bonds, compared with only 8 percent in 2014.
分析過在中國發行的企業債券之後，他得出結論，自2015年以來募集到的資金，有42%被用來償還現有債務或贖回到期債券。相比之下，2014年的數字是8%。
In an August report, the International Monetary Fund warned of heightened downside risks and the need for decisive action to reduce the economy’s reliance on credit, including reforming and even shutting down overly indebted companies.
國際貨幣基金組織(International Monetary Fund)在8月的一份報告中就下行風險提升做出警告，稱有必要採取果斷的行動，降低經濟對信貸的依賴，包括改組甚至關停負債過高的公司。
Vulnerabilities are still rising on a dangerous trajectory, it said.
脆弱度仍在沿着危險的軌道上升，報告稱。
China has long defied predictions that it is heading for a crash, and perhaps it will prove the doomsayers wrong yet again.
關於中國經濟即將崩潰的預測過去一直存在，但都落了空。中國也許會再度證明這些悲觀主義者是錯的。
But Beijing’s policy makers must limit the increase in debt without inflicting a severe blow to growth.
但北京的政策制定者必須限制債務規模的擴張，同時還要避免對經濟增長造成嚴重打擊。
That delicate balancing act is hard to manage, but Beijing may be left with no other choice.
這種微妙的平衡很難把握，但北京或許已經沒有其他選擇。
