Enough with the pretend and extend. Beijing’s failure to cleanse its toxic debt pile is hampering the banking system and the nation’s economic recovery.
假装和延伸就够了。北京未能清理其有毒债务堆积正在阻碍银行体系和国家经济复苏。

A weakening economy.Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
经济疲软。摄影：Qilai Shen/彭博社

By Shuli Ren 作者：任淑丽 2023年8月23日 at GMT+8 04:00

China’s financial system seems on the brink of collapse. Country Garden Holdings Co., once its biggest real estate developer with over 3,000 projects nationwide, is slipping into a default. One of the nation’s largest private wealth managers has been missing payments to investors. Meanwhile, distressed signals from regional governments, which rely heavily on land sales for fiscal income, keep on bubbling up.
中国的金融体系似乎正处于崩溃的边缘。碧桂园控股有限公司曾经是其最大的房地产开发商，在全国拥有3000多个项目，但现在却陷入了违约。美国最大的私人财富管理公司之一一直未能向投资者付款。与此同时，财政收入严重依赖卖地的地方政府发出的苦恼信号不断涌现。

By Western standards, these events would almost inevitably lead to a financial meltdown. The 2008 subprime mortgage crisis alone brought down Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., one of the most revered lenders on Wall Street. This year, the Federal Reserve’s rapid rate hikes prompted a slew of regional bank failures. Even now, investors are worried about bank loans made to commercial real estate projects, hit hard by white-collar workers’ reluctance to return to the office.
按照西方标准，这些事件几乎不可避免地会导致金融崩溃。仅 2008 年的次贷危机就导致了华尔街最受尊敬的银行之一雷曼兄弟控股公司 (Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.) 的倒闭。今年，美联储的快速加息导致大量地区性银行倒闭。即使是现在，投资者仍担心银行向商业房地产项目提供的贷款，因为白领工人不愿重返办公室，这给商业房地产项目带来了沉重打击。

So imagine the double whammy of property wobbles and fiscal woes. China’s banking system owns 94 trillion yuan ($12.9 trillion) of local government debt, or 29% of total assets, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates. On top of that, there is about a 58 trillion yuan exposure to the real estate sector. How can China’s Lehman moment not be here already?
因此，想象一下房地产动荡和财政困境的双重打击。据高盛集团估计，中国银行体系拥有 94 万亿元人民币（12.9 万亿美元）的地方政府债务，占总资产的 29%。除此之外，房地产行业的风险敞口约为58万亿元。中国的雷曼时刻怎么可能还没有到来呢？

Mega Landlord 超级房东
China's banking system has about 58 trillion yuan exposure to the property sector
中国银行体系对房地产行业的敞口约为58万亿元

This is because China has a very different political economy. Whereas big US banks are rushing to offload their office building loan books — arguably a beggar-thy-neighbor approach — their Chinese counterparts can just sit tight, pretend and extend. The central government will reportedly allow a dozen debt-ridden provinces to issue special bonds worth as much as 1.5 trillion yuan for refinancing. The People’s Bank of China has been cutting interest rates to make monthly mortgage bills more palatable. Even China Evergrande Group managed to extend its onshore yuan bond repayments despite having defaulted on its international debt. While none of these measures are sufficient fixes, the liquidity pressure faced by the banks’ customers can at least be somewhat eased.
这是因为中国的政治经济非常不同。尽管美国大型银行正急于抛售写字楼贷款——这可以说是一种以邻为壑的做法，但中国同行可以袖手旁观，假装并延长贷款期限。据报道，中央政府将允许十几个负债累累的省份发行规模高达1.5万亿元的专项债券用于再融资。中国人民银行一直在降低利率，以使每月的抵押贷款账单更容易让人接受。就连中国恒大集团也在国际债务违约的情况下仍设法延长其在岸人民币债券的偿还期限。虽然这些措施都不足以解决问题，但至少可以在一定程度上缓解银行客户面临的流动性压力。

But China’s tendency to kick the can down the road only hampers its banking system and its economic recovery. In fact, one may even argue that China needs a Lehman-like scare to cleanse the toxic debt that has been building up for way too long.
但中国“把罐子扔到一边”的倾向只会阻碍其银行体系和经济复苏。事实上，有人甚至可能会说，中国需要一场类似雷曼兄弟的恐慌来清理长期积累的有毒债务。

Consider local government financing vehicles, or off-balance-sheet entities that municipalities rely on to fund and support local economies. In recent days, demand for short-term LGFV bonds, especially from lower-rated borrowers, surged in the wake of the government’s rescue effort. Last week, Tianjin, one of China’s most indebted cities, saw a 1.5 billion yuan LGFV note subscribed by 70 times. Secondary transaction volume has risen as well.
考虑地方政府融资工具，或市政当局赖以资助和支持当地经济的表外实体。最近几天，随着政府的救援行动，对短期地方政府融资平台债券的需求激增，尤其是来自评级较低的借款人。上周，中国负债最重的城市之一天津，15亿元人民币的地方政府融资平台票据认购量增加了70倍。二级交易量也有所上升。

This won’t be the first time China has tried to contain LGFV’s credit risk. It has conducted much larger bailouts in the past. In a 2014 audit, two-thirds of LGFV debt was explicitly recognized as government liabilities. In the following four years, more than 12 trillion yuan of such borrowings were swapped into official local-government bonds.
这并不是中国第一次试图遏制地方政府融资平台的信用风险。它过去曾进行过更大规模的救助。在 2014 年的审计中，三分之二的地方政府融资平台债务被明确确认为政府负债。在接下来的四年里，超过12万亿元人民币的此类借款被转换为官方地方政府债券。

Alas, that gigantic effort led to nothing. LGFV debt has rebounded since and last year rose to 57 trillion yuan, or 48% of China’s gross domestic product, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund. Bankers and asset managers just can’t let a “Beijing put” go to waste, however stern the central government’s warnings are on LGFV risk.
唉，巨大的努力毫无结果。据国际货币基金组织估计，地方政府融资平台债务此后有所反弹，去年升至 57 万亿元人民币，占中国国内生产总值 (GDP) 的 48%。无论中央政府对地方政府融资平台风险的警告有多严厉，银行家和资产管理公司都不能让“北京看跌期权”白白浪费。

After an abrupt economic reopening late last year, Beijing has been wanting foreign fund managers to re-engage and buy Chinese assets again. But the eerily calm banking system is a huge hurdle for investors, who — perhaps because they have very little visibility of what’s happening inside China — just can’t stop fretting over possible financial contagions and blowups.
去年年底经济突然重新开放后，北京方面一直希望外国基金经理重新参与并再次购买中国资产。但异常平静的银行体系对投资者来说是一个巨大的障碍，他们——也许是因为他们对中国国内正在发生的事情知之甚少——无法停止对可能发生的金融危机蔓延和爆发的担忧。

They worry about Zhongzhi Enterprise Group Co., a private wealth manager overseeing about 1 trillion yuan that is now behind on payments for its wealth management and trust products. Is Zhongzhi an exception or the shadow banking industry norm? Do private wealth managers ring-fence their customers’ money? Have listed companies invested spare money into the so-called “cash pools,” where one investor’s money is used to pay back another’s? In less polite language, these pools can be called Ponzi schemes.
他们担心中植企业集团有限公司是一家管理着约1万亿元人民币的私人财富管理公司，目前其财富管理和信托产品拖欠付款。众智是例外还是影子银行业常态？私人财富管理机构是否会保护客户的资金？上市公司是否将闲钱投入所谓的“现金池”，即一个投资者的钱用来偿还另一个投资者的钱？用不太礼貌的语言来说，这些矿池可以称为庞氏骗局。

Or how about banks? Because of mortgage rate cuts, lenders’ net interest margin has fallen below 1.8%, a threshold that is regarded in the industry as necessary to maintain reasonable profitability. Will lenders have enough capital buffers? Can they raise equity in the future? Down more than 7% this year, Hong Kong-listed Chinese banks are now valued at only 0.3 times book.
或者银行怎么样？由于抵押贷款利率下调，贷款机构的净息差已降至1.8%以下，这一水平被业内视为维持合理盈利能力所必需的门槛。贷方是否有足够的资本缓冲？他们未来可以筹集股本吗？今年以来，在香港上市的中资银行股价下跌超过7%，目前市净率仅为0.3倍。

National Service 国家服务
Banks' net interest margin has fallen below a threshold that the industry 行业 deems as profitable

To its credit, the Chinese government has been a very effective circuit breaker, managing a huge debt pile without a financial collapse. However, until the country has gone through a Lehman-style cleanse and got rid of some of its most unhealthy borrowings, all foreigners can feel is fear and loathing — fear that China is “a ticking time bomb,” while loath to be caught in the middle of an explosion.
值得赞扬的是，中国政府一直是一个非常有效的熔断机制，管理着巨额债务，但没有导致金融崩溃。然而，在这个国家完成雷曼式的清理并摆脱一些最不健康的借贷之前，所有外国人都会感到恐惧和厌恶——担心中国是“一颗定时炸弹”，同时又不愿陷入困境。爆炸中间。