【英语中国】外汇储备救不了中国坏账

After trying to work out how big China’s bad debt problem might be, many people still turn round and point to the country’s mammoth foreign exchange reserves as its great get-out clause, writes Paul J. Davies.

The idea is seductive. On a deliberately gross calculation using the 20 per cent non-performing loan rate found at China’s big banks in the late 1990s, total bad debts would amount to Rmb21tn.

A more sensible stab might put the level at roughly half that, or Rmb10tn. These are painfully large numbers – but hang on, China’s central bank has foreign exchange assets of $3.4tn, or Rmb20tn. Perfect – what’s the problem?

It is true that China dipped into its foreign exchange reserves in the late 1990s to help recapitalise its banks before shifting their bad debts into specially created bad banks.

However, the government cannot now go to the same well to any large extent for a number of reasons.

The first is that any large-scale spending of the reserves would amount to a massive money-creation exercise by the central bank.

The vast majority of the foreign exchange reserve assets at the People’s Bank are matched by renminbi liabilities in?China’s banks and other financial institutions. If it tries to spend dollars without repaying these liabilities, it prints money.

If China wants to print money to soak up its bad debts – and take the risks that come with this policy – its foreign reserves are really irrelevant to that decision.

The other problem with “spending” these reserves lies in the misconception that they are an asset of the country – something like its retained profits from its trade with the outside world.

China has run a current account surplus of increasing size since the late 1990s. A good chunk of this is money paid for goods and services sold – but another good chunk is foreign direct investment.

That is?not money handed over by outsiders, never to be seen again. The point is that the stock of net foreign direct investment represents a liability of the country to outsiders.

The final element is the effect of China’s strict capital controls and how they might create another external liability for China – the retained profits of foreign companies operating within its borders.

Western companies report dividends from operations around the world but – as Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for emerging markets at BBVA, points out – the fact that they are reported doesn’t mean headquarters actually get the cash, especially from China.

I have not found any good estimates of the scale of these retained profits.

But to grasp the issue, let’s think about Apple Inc. It has some $50bn in cash trapped outside the US because it is unwilling to pay the taxes on repatriating profits. However, some of this may be trapped inside countries like China. The question is how much?

China is the only country, apart from the US, that accounted for more than 10 per cent of Apple’s net sales last year – it made $22.8bn worth of sales there, up from $2.8bn two years before. Its gross margins across the group were 44 per cent, but its filings tell us nothing about what profits it made in China.

It has reinvested some of the money it makes, accumulating what it calls long-lived assets in China, which trebled last year to $7.3bn – more than the long-lived assets it has in the US.

Apple may escape capital controls by making more of its profits in Hong Kong than in the mainland – we’d be very interested to see how those are split and what the cash flows from China look like.

在研究一番中国的坏账问题有多严重之后，许多人仍会转过身来，指出该国庞大的外汇储备就是可靠的出路。

这种想法颇具诱惑力。如果特意以20世纪90年代末中国大银行20%的不良贷款率来粗略计算，目前的坏账总规模将达到21万亿元人民币。

如果使用更合理的计算方法，得出的数字可能约为上述的一半，即10万亿元人民币。这些数字非常之高——但等等，中国央行拥有3.4万亿美元（合20万亿元人民币）的外汇资产。棒极了——那还有什么问题呢？

确实，中国曾在20世纪90年代末动用外汇储备，对银行实施资本重组，而后将银行坏账转移到专门建立的“坏账银行”中。

然而，出于多种原因，政府现在不可能仿效过去，大规模动用外汇储备。

首先，大规模花费外汇储备相当于中国央行大量印钞票。

中国人民银行(PBoC)持有的大多数外汇储备资产对应着中国各银行和其他金融机构的人民币债务。如果央行试图在不偿清这些债务的条件下花掉美元，就意味着印钞票。

而如果中国希望通过印钞票来吸收坏账，并承担随之而来的风险，那么事实上此决定与外汇储备无关。

“花掉”外汇储备的另一个问题，在于这些储备被误认为是中国的资产，就像是通过与外界贸易而获得的留存利润。

自20世纪90年代以来，中国的经常账户盈余逐渐增加。其中，不少是出售商品和服务的所得，但也有一大部分是外国直接投资。

这部分盈余不是外国人交给中国、从此不管不问的钱。重点在于，净外国直接投资总额代表中国的对外负债。

最后一点是中国严格的资本管制的影响，以及管制可能如何为中国带来一种新的外债——即在华经营外国公司的留存利润。

西方公司设在全球各地的分支机构都会报告分红方案，但正如西班牙对外银行(BBVA)首席新兴市场经济学家阿莉西亚?加西亚-埃雷罗(Alicia Garcia-Herrero)所指出的那样，报告分红方案不代表总部实际上能得到分红，尤其是来自中国的分红。

笔者未发现对留存利润规模的准确估计。但为了对问题有个大致了解，让我们想想苹果公司(Apple)。它仍有500亿美元的现金留在美国国外，因为它不愿将利润转移回国内，否则就要缴纳相应的税款。不过，这笔钱中可能有一部分留在了中国等国家。问题是金额有多少？

除美国之外，中国是唯一一个去年对苹果净销售额的贡献率超过10%的国家。苹果去年在华销售额为228亿美元，高于两年前的28亿美元。整个苹果公司的毛利润率为44%，但监管文件没有披露它在中国的盈利情况。

苹果将一部分利润重新投资，在中国积累所谓的“长期资产”。苹果在中国的长期资产去年增加两倍，达到73亿美元，超过它在美国持有的长期资产。

苹果可能会把在内地赚到的利润更多地转移到香港，从而逃避资本管制。我们很有兴趣知道，苹果在香港和内地的利润会如何分配，以及将从内地流出多少资金。

译者/何黎