Strong first-quarter numbers are puzzling the Chinese, who witness a stagnant economy daily. Two factors reconcile the difference.
第一季度的强劲数据让每天都在目睹经济停滞的中国人感到困惑。有两个因素可以调和这种差异。

2024年4月18日格林尼治标准时间+8 05:00

By Shuli Ren 作者：任淑丽

Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. A former investment banker, she was a markets reporter for Barron’s. She is a CFA charterholder.
任淑丽是报道亚洲市场的彭博观点专栏作家。她曾是一名投资银行家，也曾是《巴伦周刊》的市场记者。她是特许金融分析师。

Strong GDP is puzzling the Chinese. Photographer: Raul Ariano/Bloomberg
强劲的 GDP 让中国人感到困惑。摄影师：劳尔-阿里亚诺/布鲁姆伯格

China’s first-quarter 5.3% growth handily beat expectations and Beijing’s own target of “around 5%.” But if you ask households, companies and even the taxman, the reality on the ground feels a lot less rosy.
中国第一季度 5.3% 的经济增长率大大超出了预期和中国政府自己设定的 "5% 左右 "的目标。但是，如果你去问家庭、企业甚至税务人员，实际情况就不那么乐观了。

By the end of 2023, only 9.5% saw good job prospects, according to the central bank’s latest urban depositor survey. Preparing for rainy days, households added 8.6 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) in their savings in the first quarter, prompting some banks to discontinue long-term fixed-income offerings to protect their margins. The CSI 2000 Index, whose small-cap companies are more sensitive to business cycles, is down 20% for the year. Meanwhile, as of February, government fiscal revenue fell 2.3% from a year ago.
根据央行最新的城镇储户调查，到2023年底，只有9.5%的人认为就业前景良好。为了未雨绸缪，中国家庭在第一季度增加了8.6万亿元（1.2万亿美元）的储蓄，这促使一些银行停止提供长期固定收益产品，以保护其利润率。对商业周期更为敏感的中证 2000 指数今年下跌了 20%。与此同时，截至 2 月份，政府财政收入同比下降了 2.3%。

Accusations that China is cooking its economic-expansion statistics have been around for decades. But to understand its economy and political system better, one should try to reconcile and make sense of the difference between the headline number and people’s daily perceptions. As far as I can see, two forces are at play.
数十年来，关于中国经济扩张数据造假的指责不绝于耳。但是，为了更好地了解中国的经济和政治制度，我们应该努力协调和理解标题数字与人们日常看法之间的差异。在我看来，有两股力量在发挥作用。

First, the economy is experiencing its longest deflationary streak since 1999. As such, the 5.3% increase in real gross domestic product doesn’t offer useful insights into stagnant income growth experienced by workers and corporations, whose earnings are in yuan terms. Indeed, in the first quarter, nominal GDP notched only 4.2%. Household disposable income increased by 6.2%, well below pre-pandemic levels.
首先，中国经济正在经历自 1999 年以来最长的通货紧缩。因此，5.3%的实际国内生产总值增长并不能帮助我们了解以人民币计价的工人和企业收入增长停滞的情况。事实上，第一季度名义国内生产总值仅增长了 4.2%。家庭可支配收入增长了 6.2%，远低于大流行前的水平。

The New Normal 新常态

Prolonged deflation means headline growth will be higher
长期通货紧缩意味着总体增长将更高

Source: Bloomberg 来源：彭博社来源：彭博社

Manufacturing was the main growth engine, driven by strong exports and new energy-related investments. The 6.4% increase validated President Xi Jinping’s conviction that high-end industrial upgrades can eventually replace real estate’s prominent role and pull his economy out of its slump.
在强劲的出口和新能源相关投资的推动下，制造业成为主要的增长引擎。6.4% 的增长验证了习近平主席的信念，即高端产业升级终将取代房地产的突出作用，并将中国经济拉出低谷。

However, one hardly expects those in the electric vehicle supply chain to be feeling cheerful. Many wonder if strong exports can last. Trade tensions and protectionism are once again on the rise. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed worries in recent trips to China that the vast output of factories there have become a global problem.
然而，人们很难想象电动汽车供应链的从业者会感到高兴。许多人怀疑强劲的出口能否持久。贸易紧张局势和保护主义再次抬头。德国总理奥拉夫-肖尔茨（Olaf Scholz）和美国财政部长珍妮特-耶伦（Janet Yellen）在最近的中国之行中表示担心，中国工厂的大量生产已经成为一个全球性问题。

Indeed, the industrial capacity utilization rate fell to 73.8% last quarter, the lowest on record other than the early pandemic days when much of the country was in lockdown. In the first three months of the year, a price war erupted and escalated — market leaders BYD Co. and Tesla Inc. sacrificed profit margins for sales volume — in turn worsening producers’ price deflation in China.
事实上，上一季度的工业产能利用率降至 73.8%，创下了除大流行病早期全国大部分地区处于封锁状态之外的最低纪录。今年前三个月，价格战爆发并升级--市场领导者比亚迪公司和特斯拉公司为了销量牺牲了利润率--这反过来又加剧了中国生产商的价格通缩。

A New Trade War? 新的贸易战？

Overcapacity at home prompts Chinese factories to sell overseas, cheaply
国内产能过剩促使中国工厂廉价出售海外产品

Source: Bloomberg 来源：彭博社来源：彭博社

The second factor has to do with how China calculates quarterly GDP. It uses a so-called production account, which prioritizes the value-add of each industry and brushes away end demand.
第二个因素与中国计算季度 GDP 的方式有关。中国使用的是所谓的生产账户，该账户优先考虑各行业的附加值，而忽略了终端需求。

Manufacturers may have been replenishing their inventories — as of February, the latest data available, stockpiles grew 6.8% from a year earlier, an uptick from late 2023. What this also means is that in the future, companies might sell products out of their storage rooms before producing more, which would put pressure on China’s GDP later in the year.
制造商可能一直在补充库存--截至 2 月份（最新数据），库存同比增长 6.8%，比 2023 年底有所上升。这也意味着，未来企业在生产更多产品之前，可能会将库房中的产品销售出去，这将对中国今年下半年的 GDP 造成压力。

Inventory Matters 库存事项

Manufacturers' inventory growth ticked up early in the year
年初制造商库存增长有所加快

Source: Bloomberg 来源：彭博社来源：彭博社

As China undergoes structural transitions, it’s becoming harder to read the economy and figure out when and where it bottoms. That the government is quick to stop providing insightful statistics doesn’t help either. More than before, one needs to sift through minute data series that the general public doesn’t pay much attention to and are thus less likely tempered. Those who can only read the headline numbers don’t know China.
随着中国经济结构的转型，解读中国经济并确定其何时何地触底变得越来越困难。政府迅速停止提供有洞察力的统计数据也无济于事。与以往相比，人们更需要从细微的数据系列中进行筛选，而一般公众并不太关注这些数据，因此也就更不可能对其进行锤炼。那些只会看标题数字的人并不了解中国。