经济学人下载:中国当小心中等收入困境

But some economists believe this is all too much. Among the bears is Michael Pettis of Peking University, who believes that investments are becoming increasingly inefficient and that China is heading towards a “brick wall” of government debt. Growth, he says, will remain high in the early half of the decade but could drop off sharply thereafter as loans turn sour. Even in the best case, he says, growth will fall below 5%. Victor Shih of Northwestern University also points to a looming debt problem, exacerbated by the recklessness of local governments during China’s stimulus-spending spree. Not being allowed to borrow directly, many of them set up companies to borrow on their behalf, using land as collateral. “There is a hidden danger of an asset bubble and [we] are facing a certain financial risk,” wrote Yu Peiwei of the party’s Policy Research Office in January. If the bubble bursts, land prices could plummet, leaving the banks dangerously exposed.

但是一些经济学家认为这一切做得太过了。悲观者中北京大学的迈克尔﹒派提斯认为投资正在变得越来越没有效率，中国即将走到政府债务的“南墙”。他说未来十年之内，前五年经济将保持高速增长，但是贷款坏账之后，经济增长将快速下降。他说甚至在最好的情况下，增长率也将下降到5%以下。西北大学的史宗瀚也指出，在中国为刺激经济而大幅支出的狂欢中，地方政府不计后果的支出将加重隐约可见的债务问题。由于不可以直接从银行贷款，地方政府成立融资平台代表自己以土地作抵押从银行获得贷款。1月中共政策研究室的于培伟撰文说“潜藏的资产泡沫危机是存在的，而（我们）正面临某些金融风险”。假如泡沫破裂，地价可能暴跌，银行将暴露于危险中。

Bingeing on investment

投资大肆挥霍

Nouriel Roubini of New York University, a chronic bear, is in this camp. In a recent article he argued that the brick wall will most likely be hit between 2013 and 2015. He noted that China was spared a recession in the wake of the financial crisis because investment in fixed assets, such as transport infrastructure and factories, increased from an already very high 42% of GDP in 2008 to nearly 50% in 2010. No country, he says, could be productive enough to invest 50% of GDP in new fixed assets without eventually facing “immense overcapacity and a staggering non-performing loan problem”.

纽约大学的奴尼尔﹒鲁比尼长期看空中国经济，持有相同的观点。在最近的一篇文章中他认为政府债务最可能在2013和2015年间达到极限。他指出金融危机发生后中国能够避免衰退，因为交通基础设施和工厂建设等固定资产投资占国内生产总值的比例从2008年已经达到高位的42%增加到2010年的近50%。他说没有哪个国家足够的富饶能够把国内生产总值的50%用于新的固定资产投资，而最终不会面临“巨大的产能过剩和大规模的不良贷款问题”。

It is not just foreigners who worry. Ge Zhaoqiang, a senior researcher at China Merchants Bank, gave warning in May that China’s economy had become “seriously distorted” by prolonged dependence on high levels of investment. There was now a risk, he said, of an economic downturn “uNPRecedented in the past 30 years” with possibly damaging consequences for China’s social and political stability.

担心这个问题的不仅是外国人。招商银行的高级研究员葛兆强5月份警告说，由于长期依赖大规模投资，中国经济已经“严重扭曲”。他说现在面临“过去三十年前所未有的”经济拐点风险，可能严重危害中国的社会和政治稳定。

If China is not to stagnate, it will have to make a bigger effort to persuade rural dwellers to keep coming to the cities as its population ages ever more rapidly. In 1980 one-fifth of China’s people lived in urban areas. Today the figure is 49.7%. Very soon the country will become predominantly urban, with over 51.5% forecast to be living in urban areas by the end of the five-year plan. This implies a slower pace of urbanisation than in the past decade. For once, however, the government is not setting its goals too low. In future urbanisation will indeed become harder.

随着比人口老龄化的进程加快，假如中国不想经济停滞不前，它将必须更努力的说服农村居民不断走入城市。在1980年，1/5的中国人在城市生活。今天这个数字达到49.7%。很快国家的城市人口将占多数，预计到新五年计划末，将有51.5%的中国人生活在城市。这意味着比起过去十年，城市化步伐将会放缓。然而，这次，中国政府设定的目标并不低。今后城市化确实会变得更加困难。