书
名说明了一切：阿文德•萨伯拉曼尼安（Arvind Subramanian）的新书《黯然失色：活在中国优势的阴影下》（Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China's Dominance）是显示外界在谈到中国时正采取更具攻击性言论的良好例证──现在已经不是中国是否将取得世界经济领导地位的问题，而仅仅是什么时候取得的问题。然而，虽然中国成为超级大国的理由很充足，但中国获得真正金融影响力的道路却肯定比仅看国内生产总值（GDP）数据所能相像的更为漫长而坎坷。那种认为中国将主导世界经济的说法有两大观点。其一是，中国在经济规模方面很快将超过美国和欧盟。其二是，在中国成为世界最大经济体之际，人民币也将自然而然地取代美元成为全球储备货币，并在国际市场产生深远影响。
对第一种观点没有多少人提出疑议，因为这只是个数学问题。中国的GDP目前已达7万亿美元，大约是美国或欧盟的一半。如果中国经济能继续增长，即使GDP实际增长率不能像本世纪头10年大部分年份那样达到10%或11%，但只需有6%或7%的增速，五年内中国经济的规模就会轻松越过15万亿美元大关，达到美国目前的经济规模。如果这种增长速度能进一步保持到2020年，那么届时中国的经济规模将会超过美国，与欧洲发达国家的总体经济规模相当。
然而，当我们谈到中国的金融角色这一问题时，看到的前景却比上述画面暗淡许多。事实上，未来10年人民币在全球事务中所扮演角色的重要性可能只会比目前略有增加。人民币肯定不会取代美元成为世界储备货币，它甚至可能无法对日圆或英镑的全球第四大货币地位构成挑战。
为什么呢？出于贸易支付目的持有人民币是一回事，但如果你出于寻找具流动性的“投资避风港”这一目的而考虑持有人民币，你会把中国国内的固定收益市场是否足够大、外国投资能否自由而不受拘束地进入作为先决条件。这种条件正是美元和欧元所具备的，日圆和其他西方主要经济体的货币事实上也具备。
但中国并不具备这种条件。中国的固定收益市场远谈不上可以让外资“自由而不受拘束”的进入，中国的资本项目制度属于世界上最具封闭性的。其封闭程度不仅要大于发达国家市场，也大于中国在亚洲的中、低收入邻国和世界其他地区的新兴经济体。
问题不仅仅是中国拒绝开放资本项目。很大程度上说，中国是不能开放资本项目，至少是不能迅速开放。
20多年来，中国有关货币管理和金融体系发展的理论一直建立在一个封闭的经济体系之上：这一体系使得中国可以将利率稳定维持在低位而无需担忧来自海外的套利活动；可以在需要的时候轻松出台经济刺激措施而无需担心国内银行体系的资产质量问题；能使不良贷款比率和固定成本定价处于历史高位的国内银行业得到政府的支持；并使中国政府得以保持对人民币汇率的牢固掌控。只有在外国投资组合基金不能影响中国的资产价格、中国人除了在国内投资别无其他投资渠道的情况下，这种局面才能够延续。
正因为如此，尽管目前中国以美元计算的GDP可能高达1995年时水平的10倍，外部资本控制却依然与那个时候极其相似。中国小心翼翼地稍稍打开了几扇窗户，但从未真正敞开大门。如果说1997-1998年和2008-2009年的两次金融危机使当局学到了什么的话，那就是在调整国内政策方面要尽可能地放慢步伐。
即使中国大幅放宽外部控制的道路扫清了，依然存在第二个问题，也就是缺乏规模足够大的本土市场。简而言之，就是缺乏投资的地方。投资者需要有本土债市，而中国实际上并没有这样一个市场。而且，不止与发达市场相比是这样。中国的固定收益市场虽然在规模方面不逊于大多数主要新兴市场国家，但在成熟度方面却逊色很多。
与资本管制一样，这也是中国金融模式的一部分。中国缺乏纪律约束的国有企业借款人大量存在，以及中国对数量型宏观信贷措施的依赖，这些独特国情使中国必须让资金流集中在银行体系中。
正因为如此，本世纪前10年的大部分时间，债市增幅没能超过GDP增幅。也正因为如此，中国的公司债市场在过去两年大幅度扩张后，如今当局开始给这一市场“开倒车”，以便减少投资风险，“规范”投资行为，准确地说，政府这样做是为了保持银行体系的资产质量和杠杆率。
一种经常被用来反驳笔者上述观点的说法是，即使存在这些问题，中国仍别无选择，只能开放资本市场并进行必要的改革，以便为人民币实现完全可兑换铺平道路，因为如果不这样做，中国每年只会继续积累数千亿美元很可能对中国并无好处的外国资产，这种趋势对中国领导层来说越来越不是滋味。
但这种说法在经济上说不通。只要中国国内储蓄率高于国内投资率，只要中国存在经常项目盈余，中国就会继续积累外国资产。假如人民币成为全球储备货币，中国或许能够不再积累以美元和欧元计价的债权，而是生成以人民币计价的债权（就像美国现在可以在海外借入美元一样）。但无论债权是以何种货币计价，中国手中那些不大靠得住的西方国家主权债权仍在不断增多却是不争的事实。
简而言之，使人民币成为真正的全球储备货币，这并不能解决中国当前的任何问题，反而可能带来令人非常头痛的新问题。正因为如此，人民币不会很快成为全球储备货币。中国在世界经济舞台上可能是一个巨人，但在金融领域却仍是一个矮子。
（编者注：本文作者Jonathan Anderson为瑞银的全球新兴市场经济学家。）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
JONATHAN ANDERSON
The title says it all: 'Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China's Economic Dominance.' Arvind Subramanian's new book is a good example of a more aggressive line of argument regarding China─that it's not a matter of whether it will take over economic leadership of the world, but merely when. However, while the case for sheer size is strong, China's road to real financial influence promises to be far longer and rockier than the GDP numbers alone would suggest.
The argument for dominance has two prongs. The first is that China's economy will very soon be larger than either the U.S. or the EU. And second, as this happens the yuan will also naturally replace the dollar as the global reserve currency of choice, with profound consequences for international markets.
On the first issue, there is little debate since it's a matter of simple mathematics. China already has a $7 trillion economy, roughly half the size of the U.S. or the EU. If it can continue to grow, not at 10% or 11% as it did through much of the 2000s, but even at a more prosaic 6% or 7% in real terms, then in five years' time the Chinese economy could easily pass the $15 trillion mark, where the U.S. is today. Fast forward a few more years to the end of the current decade and China should already be larger than the U.S. and equal in size to developed Europe.
However, when we move on to the question of China's financial role the outlook is much murkier. In fact, in 10 years' time the yuan will probably play only a marginally more important role in global affairs than it does today. It will certainly not take over from the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency, and it may not even be challenging the Japanese yen or the pound sterling for the No. 4 slot.
Why? It's one thing to hold the yuan for trade invoicing, but if you're going to hold it as a liquid 'safe haven' portfolio investment choice, you need free and unfettered access to deep domestic fixed-income markets. This is what the dollar offers, the euro offers, and essentially what the yen and other G-10 majors have offered as well.
But not China. Far from being 'free and unfettered,' China maintains one of the most closed capital account regimes in the world. That is not just compared to developed markets but compared to its lower-income neighbors in Asia and other emerging regions as well.
And it's not simply that China refuses to open its capital regime. In a very real sense it can't, at least not fast enough to matter.
For more than two decades, China's philosophy of monetary management and financial system development has been based on a closed-economy system: maintaining low and stable interest rates without having to worry about external arbitrage; breezily adopting economic stimulus when needed without concern about the underlying banking system's asset quality; propping up banks with historically high nonperforming loan ratios and fixed-cost pricing; and keeping iron-clad control over the value of the exchange rate. All of these only work when foreign portfolio funds cannot influence asset prices, and when locals have nowhere else to go.
This helps explain why, when China's dollar GDP may be a stunning 10 times larger today than it was in 1995, external capital controls are still very similar to what they were back then. China has gingerly opened a few windows at the margin, but it has never seriously opened the doors. If anything, the financial crises of 1997-98 and 2008-09 have taught the authorities to be as slow as possible in making adjustments here.
Even if China were to somehow see its way clear to removing external controls in a big way, this still leaves the second issue of 'deep domestic markets.' Put simply, there's nothing to invest in. You need a local bond market, and China really doesn't have one. And once again, this is not just a niggling comparison with developed markets. Relative to its size, China has a much less mature fixed-income market than most of its major emerging-market peers as well.
As with capital controls, this is part of the financial model. China's unique prevalence of undisciplined state-owned borrowers and reliance on quantitative macro-credit measures makes it imperative to keep financial flows concentrated in the banking system.
This explains why the bond market failed to outgrow GDP for much of the 2000s. And why, after the unbridled explosion of corporate paper in the past two years, the authorities are now backpedaling to bring down exposures and 'regularize' the situation, precisely to preserve asset quality and leverage ratios in the banking system.
One common rejoinder is that even in light of the above points, China nevertheless has no option but to open up its capital markets and take needed reforms in order to pave the way for yuan convertibility, since the alternative is to continue to accumulate hundreds of billions of dollars per year in questionable foreign assets─a trend that is increasingly unpalatable to China's leadership.
This argument makes no economic sense. As long as China's domestic saving rate is above its domestic investment rate─as long as it is running external current account surpluses─it will continue to accumulate foreign assets. If the yuan were the world's reserve currency China might be able stop accumulating claims denominated in dollars and euros and generate claims in its own currency instead (just as the U.S. is able to borrow in dollars abroad today). But we're still talking about an ever-increasing pile of claims on questionable sovereign borrowers in the West, regardless of the currency those debts are kept in.
In short, making the yuan into a true global reserve currency doesn't solve any of China's current problems, and could create very painful new ones along the way. Which is why it's not going to happen any time soon. China may be an economic giant on the world stage, but in this sense it will remain a financial midget.
(Mr. Anderson is global emerging-market economist at UBS. )
The title says it all: 'Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China's Economic Dominance.' Arvind Subramanian's new book is a good example of a more aggressive line of argument regarding China─that it's not a matter of whether it will take over economic leadership of the world, but merely when. However, while the case for sheer size is strong, China's road to real financial influence promises to be far longer and rockier than the GDP numbers alone would suggest.
The argument for dominance has two prongs. The first is that China's economy will very soon be larger than either the U.S. or the EU. And second, as this happens the yuan will also naturally replace the dollar as the global reserve currency of choice, with profound consequences for international markets.
On the first issue, there is little debate since it's a matter of simple mathematics. China already has a $7 trillion economy, roughly half the size of the U.S. or the EU. If it can continue to grow, not at 10% or 11% as it did through much of the 2000s, but even at a more prosaic 6% or 7% in real terms, then in five years' time the Chinese economy could easily pass the $15 trillion mark, where the U.S. is today. Fast forward a few more years to the end of the current decade and China should already be larger than the U.S. and equal in size to developed Europe.
However, when we move on to the question of China's financial role the outlook is much murkier. In fact, in 10 years' time the yuan will probably play only a marginally more important role in global affairs than it does today. It will certainly not take over from the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency, and it may not even be challenging the Japanese yen or the pound sterling for the No. 4 slot.
Why? It's one thing to hold the yuan for trade invoicing, but if you're going to hold it as a liquid 'safe haven' portfolio investment choice, you need free and unfettered access to deep domestic fixed-income markets. This is what the dollar offers, the euro offers, and essentially what the yen and other G-10 majors have offered as well.
But not China. Far from being 'free and unfettered,' China maintains one of the most closed capital account regimes in the world. That is not just compared to developed markets but compared to its lower-income neighbors in Asia and other emerging regions as well.
And it's not simply that China refuses to open its capital regime. In a very real sense it can't, at least not fast enough to matter.
For more than two decades, China's philosophy of monetary management and financial system development has been based on a closed-economy system: maintaining low and stable interest rates without having to worry about external arbitrage; breezily adopting economic stimulus when needed without concern about the underlying banking system's asset quality; propping up banks with historically high nonperforming loan ratios and fixed-cost pricing; and keeping iron-clad control over the value of the exchange rate. All of these only work when foreign portfolio funds cannot influence asset prices, and when locals have nowhere else to go.
This helps explain why, when China's dollar GDP may be a stunning 10 times larger today than it was in 1995, external capital controls are still very similar to what they were back then. China has gingerly opened a few windows at the margin, but it has never seriously opened the doors. If anything, the financial crises of 1997-98 and 2008-09 have taught the authorities to be as slow as possible in making adjustments here.
Even if China were to somehow see its way clear to removing external controls in a big way, this still leaves the second issue of 'deep domestic markets.' Put simply, there's nothing to invest in. You need a local bond market, and China really doesn't have one. And once again, this is not just a niggling comparison with developed markets. Relative to its size, China has a much less mature fixed-income market than most of its major emerging-market peers as well.
As with capital controls, this is part of the financial model. China's unique prevalence of undisciplined state-owned borrowers and reliance on quantitative macro-credit measures makes it imperative to keep financial flows concentrated in the banking system.
This explains why the bond market failed to outgrow GDP for much of the 2000s. And why, after the unbridled explosion of corporate paper in the past two years, the authorities are now backpedaling to bring down exposures and 'regularize' the situation, precisely to preserve asset quality and leverage ratios in the banking system.
One common rejoinder is that even in light of the above points, China nevertheless has no option but to open up its capital markets and take needed reforms in order to pave the way for yuan convertibility, since the alternative is to continue to accumulate hundreds of billions of dollars per year in questionable foreign assets─a trend that is increasingly unpalatable to China's leadership.
This argument makes no economic sense. As long as China's domestic saving rate is above its domestic investment rate─as long as it is running external current account surpluses─it will continue to accumulate foreign assets. If the yuan were the world's reserve currency China might be able stop accumulating claims denominated in dollars and euros and generate claims in its own currency instead (just as the U.S. is able to borrow in dollars abroad today). But we're still talking about an ever-increasing pile of claims on questionable sovereign borrowers in the West, regardless of the currency those debts are kept in.
In short, making the yuan into a true global reserve currency doesn't solve any of China's current problems, and could create very painful new ones along the way. Which is why it's not going to happen any time soon. China may be an economic giant on the world stage, but in this sense it will remain a financial midget.
(Mr. Anderson is global emerging-market economist at UBS. )
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