Markets have been increasingly concerned about China’s rising debt burden and leverage since the country launched its RMB4.0tn stimulus package in late 2008. China’s National Audit Office will likely announce their auditing of local government debt in the next couple of weeks and we expect China’s rising leverage will become a hot topic again. What’s the exact debt level in China now? Will it face an imminent government debt crisis? Will the rising leverage lead to an unavoidable financial crisis and hard landing for the economy? Is China approaching its own “Minsky Moment” when the economy falls into crisis after an extended period of market speculation and unsustainable credit growth? And, if the Chinese government takes actions to tackle the debt issue, what shall we expect?
自从中国在2008年底推出规模达4万亿元人民币的一揽子经济刺激计划以来，中国不断攀升的债务负担以及杠杆率引得市场的担忧情绪不断加重。中国国家审计署很可能会在未来几周内公布他们对地方政府债务进行审计的结果。我们预计，中国不断攀升的杠杆率将会再度成为一个热门话题。目前中国确切的债务水平是多少呢?中国是否面临一场即将发生的政府债务危机呢?杠杆率的持续攀升是否会导致一场不可避免的金融危机，并且致使中国经济发生硬着陆呢?当市场在经过一段较长时间投机和不可持续的信贷增长之后陷入危机时，中国是否会面临自己的“明斯基时刻”(Minsky Moment，即资产价值崩溃的时刻)?而且，如果中国政府采取相应行动来解决债务问题的话，我们应该有何期待呢?
In this report, we will try to address these issues related to China’s debt. Since people do disagree vastly on China’s debt burden, we took pains to develop a framework for measuring its overall debt levels as well as the debt held by different sectors. We then conducted a cross-country and historical analysis of debt, followed by a discussion on whether China will be inevitably hit by a debt crisis. Finally, we explore the possible roadmap of deleveraging in China by analyzing the new leaders’ strategy in tackling the debt issues.
在这份报告中，我们将设法探讨这些与中国债务相关的问题。由于人们对中国债务负担持有的看法分歧很大，我们狠下了一番功夫，开发出一套框架，用来衡量中国的整体债务水平，以及不同部门背负的债务。然后，我们将中国的债务情况与其他国家进行了一番横向对比分析，以及与中国以往情况相比的纵向历史分析，接着讨论中国是否会不可避免地遭受一场债务危机的打击。最后，我们通过分析中国政府新一届领导层在解决债务问题方面可能会采取的策略，来探索中国去杠杆化进程可能采取的路线图。
How big is China’s debt burden? We need a good measure
中国的债务负担有多大?我们需要一个很好的评估
Measuring debt levels could be quite controversial, evidenced by the vast range of estimates for China’s debt-to-GDP ratio. To avoid many conceptual and methodological traps, we employed a globally accepted framework to estimate the non-financial sectors’ outstanding debt which can be compared with those in other countries. With extensive data processing, we estimated that China’s total non-financial debt was at RMB100tn (or 185% of GDP) as of mid-2013, with ratios of debt to GDP for the central government, local governments, corporates and households at 21%, 32%, 111% and 22%, respectively.
评估债务水平可能会引发相当大的争议，从外界对中国的债务占国内生产总值(GDP)比例的估计值存在相当大的差异，就可以明显看出这个问题。为了避免概念上和方法上的许多陷阱，我们采用一个全球公认的框架，来估计非金融部门的未偿还债务，而这部分债务可以与其他国家进行比较。经过大量的数据处理之后，我们估计，截至2013年年中，中国的非金融债务总额为100万亿元人民币(相当于GDP的185%)，而中央政府、地方政府、企业部门、家庭部门的债务占比分别为21%、32%、111%和22%。
Ring alarm bells: What exactly is wrong?
敲响警钟：究竟出了什么错?
Compared to other economies, China’s 185% debt-to-GDP ratio is neither exceptionally high nor low, but we do see a number of rising issues: (1) The growth of debt has been significantly higher than economic growth in the past two years; (2) China’s public debt is overly dominated by local government debt with significant duration mismatch; (3) China’s 111% corporate debt-to-GDP ratio is higher than many other developed economies, due mainly to the country’s ill-developed equity capital market which failed to raise enough capital to support economic growth.
与其他经济体相比，中国185%的债务占比不是格外高，也不是很低，但我们确实看到一些持续加重的问题：(1)过去两年以来，债务规模的扩大速度一直明显快于经济的增长速度;(2)地方政府债在中国公共债务中的比例严重过大，而且存在严重的期限错配状况，(3)中国111%的企业债务占GDP比例高于许多其他发达经济体，这主要是由于中国的资本市场不发达――无法筹集足够的资金来支持经济增长。
But do not panic: Why no imminent financial/debt crisis?
但别惊慌：为什么中国并不会即将发生金融/债务危机?
We believe the markets and the Chinese government should be alarmed by the rapidly rising leverage, but we do not believe China is on the brink of a debt crisis, especially if the new leaders can take decisive measures to arrest its rising leverage. First, China’s central government has a very low debt-to-GDP ratio at 21%, and it has massive cash savings equivalent to 6% of GDP; (2) Almost all government debt is denominated in RMB and owned by domestic entities, meaning the People’s Bank of China can prevent a public debt crisis with its unlimited capability for liquidity supply; (3) China has huge national savings with US$3.5tn FX reserves, 20% reserve requirement ratio and just 65% loan-to-deposit ratio; (4) Both the central and local governments own quite large good assets; (5) Despite the slowdown, China still has high economic growth and fiscal revenue growth.
我们认为，市场和中国政府应该对杠杆率持续迅速攀升感到担忧，但我们并不认为中国正处于债务危机的边缘，尤其是如果新一届政策领导层能够采取果断措施，遏制住杠杆率持续攀升的势头。(1)中国的中央政府债务占GDP的比例非常低，仅为21%，而中央政府拥有庞大的现金储备，其数额相当于GDP的6%;(2)几乎所有的政府债务都是以人民币计价的，而且都是由国内实体持有，这意味着中国央行可以凭借无限的流动性供应能力来防止公共债务危机;(3)中国拥有庞大的国民储蓄，其外汇储备高达3.5万亿美元，银行存款准备金率高达20%，而贷存比仅为65%;(4)中央和地方政府都拥有相当庞大的优良资产;(5)尽管经济放缓，但中国的经济增速和财政收入增速仍然保持在相对较高的水平。
The roadmap for deleveraging
去杠杆化进程的路线图
To maintain both economic growth and financial stability, China should avoid simplistic deleveraging and debt reduction. Instead, based on its unique debt structure, the country should deleverage its local governments while leveraging up the central government, and should try to replace local governments’ short-term bank and trust loans with longer-duration bonds. On corporate leveraging, the solution is not to simplistically limit credit supply to corporates. Instead, the government should encourage equity financing by reinvigorating its stock markets via serious reforms. Helping more companies to raise equity capital on the stock exchanges will also stimulate equity funding in the private equity market.
要想维持经济增长和金融稳定，中国应该避免简单化的去杠杆化和债务缩减举措。相反，基于其独特的债务结构，中国应该对地方政府进行去杠杆化，同时加大中央政府的融资杠杆率，而且应该设法用期限较长的债券来置换地方政府的短期银行贷款和信托贷款。至于企业的去杠杆化问题，其解决的办法不是简单地限制向企业提供信贷。相反，政府应该通过实施一系列重要的改革措施来重振股市，以此鼓励股权融资。帮助更多的企业在证券交易所上筹集股本资金，还将会鼓励私募股权投资市场上的股权融资活动。
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