Low interest rates have a paradoxical effect
低利率的矛盾效应
Guangdong, where it all beganimage: getty images
广东，一切开始的地方图片：GETTY IMAGES
Nov 9th 2023 | HONG KONG 2023 年 11 月 9 日 | 香港
China owes a lot to foreign investment. Long before Foxconn started making iPhones for Apple, manufacturers from Hong Kong tiptoed across the border to Guangdong in search of cheap labour. In 1982 Jetta, a toymaker, opened a spray-painting plant among the nearby lychee orchards of Dongguan, according to “Toy Town”, a book by Sarah Monks. Water for a shower was boiled in a wok; the plant was in a tin shack. At another firm, Ms Monks reports, the workers decided that Mickey Mouse’s nose should be red, not black.
中国在很大程度上要归功于外商投资。早在富士康开始为苹果公司生产 iPhone 之前，香港的制造商就已经蹑手蹑脚地越过边境来到广东，寻找廉价劳动力。据萨拉-蒙克斯（Sarah Monks）所著的《玩具城》一书记载，1982 年，玩具制造商捷达在东莞附近的荔枝园里开设了一家喷漆厂。淋浴的水是用炒锅烧的；工厂就在一个铁皮屋里。蒙克斯女士报告说，在另一家公司，工人们决定米老鼠的鼻子应该是红色的，而不是黑色的。
image: the economist 图片：经济学家
By the end of last year, the accumulated stock of direct investment in China amounted to almost $3.5trn. But in the third quarter of this year, something remarkable happened. The flow of fdi turned negative, for the first time since quarterly data began in 1998 (see chart 1). Foreign investors removed more money from the country than they put in, through a mixture of repatriated profits, repaid intra-firm loans and asset sales.
截至去年年底，对华直接投资累计存量接近 350 亿美元。但在今年第三季度，引人注目的事情发生了。外国直接投资流量转为负值，这是自 1998 年开始提供季度数据以来的第一次（见图 1）。外国投资者通过汇回利润、偿还公司内部贷款和出售资产等方式，从中国撤出的资金超过了投入的资金。
This reversal may reflect foreign disillusionment with China’s economic prospects and policymaking. Although the country will most probably meet its official growth target of 5% this year, it could shrink in dollar terms, according to the imf’s latest forecasts. China’s government has unnerved many investors with its overbearing reaction to the covid-19 pandemic, its regulatory crackdown on technology companies and its investigations of foreign due-diligence firms, including Bain, Capvision and Mintz.
这种逆转可能反映了外国对中国经济前景和决策的失望。根据国际货币基金组织（imf）的最新预测，尽管中国今年很有可能实现 5%的官方增长目标，但以美元计算可能会缩水。中国政府对 "柯维-19 "疫情的过度反应、对科技公司的监管打压以及对贝恩、凯鹏华盈和明思等外国尽职调查公司的调查，令许多投资者感到不安。
Intensifying geopolitical rivalry has not helped either. It is becoming harder for foreign investors to find opportunities that are both commercially exciting and politically palatable in their home and host countries. In a survey of its members published in March, the American Chamber of Commerce in China found that 24% were considering relocating manufacturing out of China or had already begun to do so, up from only 14% the year before.
地缘政治竞争的加剧也于事无补。外国投资者越来越难在母国和东道国找到既有商业价值又有政治利益的机会。中国美国商会在今年 3 月公布的一项会员调查中发现，24% 的会员正在考虑或已经开始将制造业迁出中国，而前一年这一比例仅为 14%。
But the sharp reversal in the third quarter may also reflect a technical calculation. As interest rates remain high in America and fall in China, multinational companies have an incentive to spirit spare cash out of the country and unwind any loans to their subsidiaries that can be replaced with Chinese funding. “Many firms can now borrow more cheaply in China and nearly all can earn a higher return on their financial reserves by moving them offshore,” points out Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics, a research firm.
但第三季度的急剧逆转也可能反映了一种技术计算。随着美国利率居高不下而中国利率下降，跨国公司有动力将闲置现金转移出境，并解除对其子公司的任何贷款，而这些贷款可以用中国资金来替代。"研究公司 Capital Economics 的朱利安-埃文斯-普里查德（Julian Evans-Pritchard）指出："许多公司现在可以在中国以更低的成本借贷，几乎所有公司都可以通过将资金储备转移到海外来获得更高的回报。
The combination of an interest-rate gap and a geopolitical gulf has, then, hurt one kind of globalisation. But it may be helping another kind: the embrace of China’s currency, the yuan (or “redback”, as it is sometimes called outside the country).
因此，利率差距和地缘政治鸿沟的结合伤害了一种全球化。但它也可能有助于另一种全球化：对中国货币人民币（或 "红背"，在国外有时被称为 "人民币"）的拥护。
In a report last month, China’s central bank pointed out that the cost of borrowing in yuan had fallen relative to other big economies. As a result, foreign firms had issued 106bn yuan ($15bn) worth of yuan-denominated “Panda bonds” in China during the first eight months of the year, an increase of 58% compared with the same period in 2022. Indeed, in September the yuan surpassed the euro to become the second-most-popular currency for trade financing, with 6% of lending, according to swift, a payments-messaging firm.
中国央行在上个月的一份报告中指出，与其他大型经济体相比，人民币借贷成本有所下降。因此，今年前八个月，外国公司在中国发行了价值 1,060 亿元（150 亿美元）的人民币 "熊猫债券"，与 2022 年同期相比增长了 58%。事实上，根据支付信息公司 swift 的数据，9 月份人民币超过欧元，成为第二大最受欢迎的贸易融资货币，占贷款的 6%。
image: the economist 图片：经济学家
A meticulous new report on China’s overseas lending by AidData at William and Mary, an American university, also shows how government-owned lenders have made a “strategic pivot” away from the dollar in their lending to low- and middle-income countries (see chart 2). The share of new commitments in yuan soared from 6% in 2013 to 50% in 2021.
美国大学威廉与玛丽学院（William and Mary）的 AidData 最新发布的一份关于中国海外贷款的细致报告也显示了政府所有的贷款机构在向中低收入国家提供贷款时如何从美元 "战略转移"（见图 2）。以人民币计价的新承诺份额从 2013 年的 6% 猛增至 2021 年的 50%。
Many of these loans were made by China’s central bank to countries that are in debt distress. The recipients were then able to use the yuan to repay Chinese creditors and the imf, preserving their scarce dollar reserves for other needs. The authors of the AidData report wonder if China’s rulers saw a chance to “kill several birds with one stone”—preventing defaults and encouraging the international use of the yuan at the same time.
其中许多贷款是由中国央行向陷入债务困境的国家提供的。受援国随后可以用人民币偿还中国债权人和国际货币基金组织的贷款，保留稀缺的美元储备用于其他需要。AidData 报告的作者想知道，中国的统治者是否看到了 "一石数鸟 "的机会--既能防止违约，又能鼓励人民币在国际上的使用。
After all, countries that borrow in the yuan are more likely to use the currency for international payments, according to work by Saleem Bahaj of University College, London and Ricardo Reis of the London School of Economics. Forty economies have now signed a swap agreement with China’s central bank, which obliges it to temporarily exchange yuan for an equivalent amount of the other party’s currency. Signing such an agreement increases the yuan’s share in a country’s international payments by 1.3 percentage points, they find.
伦敦大学学院的萨利姆-巴哈吉（Saleem Bahaj）和伦敦经济学院的里卡多-雷斯（Ricardo Reis）的研究表明，用人民币借贷的国家毕竟更有可能使用人民币进行国际支付。目前已有 40 个经济体与中国央行签署了互换协议，中国央行有义务临时用人民币兑换对方等额货币。他们发现，签署这种协议可使人民币在一国国际支付中的份额增加 1.3 个百分点。
The sanctions imposed on Russia by America and Europe have also helped the yuan. Indeed, more than half of mainland China’s transactions with the rest of the world are now settled in its own currency, points out Mr Evans-Pritchard. In the pioneering province of Guangdong the share is even higher, at over 54% in the first three quarters of this year. Guangdong’s workers never got Mickey to embrace a red nose. But the province has at least persuaded some foreigners to embrace the redback. ■
美国和欧洲对俄罗斯实施的制裁也有助于人民币的升值。埃文斯-普里查德先生指出，事实上，目前中国大陆与世界其他地区的交易有一半以上是以本国货币结算的。在先行省份广东，这一比例甚至更高，今年前三季度超过了 54%。广东的工人从未让米奇接受红鼻子。但该省至少说服了一些外国人接受红鼻子。■
