中国银行业改革面临倒退危险

While Western governments debate how to reform their banking sectors, Beijing is now facing a different problem: how to keep from gutting the last decade of banking reform it's already been through. There's a very real danger that policy makers will undo their earlier efforts in the name of short-term stimulus.
眼下，在西方国家政府争论应如何改革它们的银行体系之际，中国政府却面临着一个不同的问题：如何避免让它过去10年来已获得的改革成果前功尽弃。现在的确存在着一种危险，即：决策者有可能在短期刺激计划的名义下毁掉他们早些时候做出的努力。

The central problem is the Chinese government's strategy of stimulating the economy through an enormous expansion of bank lending. The government has turned to the banks to finance half of its four trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package. In addition to that, the government has set high targets for commercial lending to support businesses. China's lenders pumped out more than 4.5 trillion yuan in new loans in the first quarter of 2009, 8% more than in all of 2008.
问题的核心是中国政府正在实行的通过大规模扩大银行信贷来刺激经济的策略。政府4万亿元人民币(合5,860亿美元)经济刺激计划的一半资金都有赖银行提供。除此之外，政府还为支持企业的商业借贷制定了高目标。今年一季度，中国银行业新增贷款超过4.5万亿元，较2008年全年的数字还高出8%。

This is eerily reminiscient of an earlier era when the government leaned heavily on banks to finance economic growth, and especially large state-owned enterprises. In the 1980s and '90s, Chinese banks piled up a colossal tangle of politically directed bad debts that either could not be repaid, or were never meant to be repaid in the first place. In 2003 nonperforming loans made up 20.4% of banks' total loan books, a face value equivalent to 16.5% of GDP. This threatened to swamp the entire economy.
这种局面会令人不禁回想起前些年的情形，当时中国政府严重依赖银行资金来支撑经济增长，特别是大型国有企业的发展。上世纪八、九十年代，中国银行业积累了大量行政指令导致的呆坏帐，这些债务要么没法得到偿还，要么当初就根本没打算偿还。2003年，不良贷款占中国银行业贷款总额的20.4%，相当于中国国内生产总值(GDP)的16.5%。如此之高的坏帐让整个中国经济面临着陷入困境的危险。

Beijing managed to clean up that problem with the help of the new China Banking Regulatory Commission, $100 billion in new government capital, and foreign 'strategic partners' to train banks in global best practices. Nonperforming loans were brought down to 2.5% by the end of 2008. This was accompanied by a deeper change in corporate culture, as bank staff started thinking like bankers instead of like agents of government policy. A decade of difficult reform culminated in Hong Kong stock listings for three of the big four -- Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank -- with the fourth, Agricultural Bank of China, on the way. Yet despite this hard-won progress, Beijing is now in danger of backsliding.
中国政府后来设法扭转了这种局面，当时，中国新成立了银行业监督管理委员会(China Banking Regulatory Commission)，政府又拿出1,000亿美元资金注入银行业，此外，还通过外国“战略合作伙伴”向中国银行业传授全球最佳经营管理规范。到 2008年末，不良贷款比率降到了2.5%。与此同时，中国银行业在企业文化方面也发生着更深层的变化。银行业人士开始像银行家而不是像政府官员那样来考虑问题。经过十年的艰苦改革，中国四大国有银行中的三家──中国银行(Bank of China)、中国工商银行(Industrial and Commercial Bank of China)和中国建设银行(China Construction Bank)──先后在香港挂牌上市，中国农业银行(Agricultural Bank of China)的上市工作也在进行中。然而，在取得这番来之不易的进步之后，中国的银行业改革现在面临着倒退的危险。

On the surface, China's banks appear to be remarkably healthy. The CBRC reports that this year, despite the economic slowdown, nonperforming loans have continued falling, not only as a percentage of the rapidly expanding base but in absolute terms. China's banks, the story goes, are a well-tuned engine capable of lifting the Chinese economy up.
从表面上看，中国银行业似乎已经相当健康。据银监会称，尽管经济出现下滑，但今年银行业不良贷款将继续下降，不论是绝对规模，还是占贷款总额的比例。看上去，中国银行业俨然是一台运转良好、有能力继续推动中国经济前行的发动机。

A closer look, however, raises several red flags that regulators haven't been able to address satisfactorily. Take existing loan portfolios even before the rash of new stimulus lending. Given the severe drop-off in Chinese exports, along with the worldwide widening of credit spreads (reflecting increased risk of defaults), it strains credulity to believe that the health of these portfolios could be improving. In reality, the CBRC recently allowed Chinese banks to minimize the recognition of nonperforming loans by rescheduling loans before maturity and 'evergreening' troubled loans by rolling them over into new ones. In contrast, NPLs recognized by foreign banks operating in China -- which generally follow the stricter rules of their home regulators -- have more than doubled since the start of 2008.
不过，进一步研究会发现，中国银行业还存在几个监管机构尚未能妥善解决的问题。就以银行业大规模发放新的刺激性贷款之前已存在的贷款组合来说。鉴于中国出口的大幅下滑，还有全世界范围内信用价差的扩大（这意味着违约风险的上升），人们很难轻易相信这些贷款组合的质量还能不断改善。事实上，银监会最近已允许中国银行业对未到期贷款重新安排偿债条款，将不良贷款展期成为不到期的新贷款，从而降低列为不良贷款的贷款额。相比之下，在华经营的外资银行认定的不良贷款自2008年初以来已经增加了一倍多。这些银行一般都会遵守他们本国监管机构的严格规定。