中國股市暴跌，貿易戰一觸即發？

上周連續兩天，在股市暴跌自動觸發“熔斷機制”之后，中國監管機構不得不中止股票交易。設定這項機制，原本是為了促進金融市場的穩定。

造成中國股市暴跌的原因有很多，但多數分析師認為，中國央行推動人民幣貶值是主因。我的同事斯科特?森德羅斯基在周四曾寫道：“中國央行下調了人民幣兌美元的所謂參考匯率，創下8月份以來的最大下調幅度，由此導致人民幣在兩天內貶值兩個百分點。這令各界擔憂，中國政府正在通過貨幣貶值的方式來刺激經濟增長；中國經濟目前面臨的困難其實要遠遠高于預期。”

幾十年來，中國管理匯率的方式一直都是美國觀察家關注的焦點問題，因為經濟學家們一直懷疑，中國推動人民幣貶值的目的在于補貼制造和出口行業。但近幾年，隨著中國政府允許人民幣升值，以推動經濟擺脫對投資和出口的高度依賴，更多地依靠國內消費驅動，從而實現經濟再平衡，這些擔憂有所減輕。

但中國經濟今年急速放緩，再加上股票市場大幅下跌，導致這種分析思路遭到質疑。人民幣正在貶值這一事實意味著，中國經濟向消費驅動轉型的努力遇到了困難。

今年早些時候，中國允許人民幣兌美元匯率在更寬的區間內浮動。但人民幣并未升值，反而開始貶值，上周四，中國政府允許（有人認為是強制）人民幣再次貶值，創下5年來人民幣兌美元的最低價。

在有些人看來，這聽起來像是一場貨幣戰爭，中國正在通過更廉價的貨幣促進出口，以提振迅速疲軟的經濟。但也有人認為，相比之前幾十年，現在的美元持續走強，讓人民幣貶值是說得通的。

但不論你對人民幣貶值的動機持怎樣的觀點，非常明顯的一點是，人民幣貶值將給全球經濟帶來連鎖反應。這就是美國和其他股票市場上周四暴跌的原因所在。

最大的擔憂是，全球經濟體針對非常有限的全球需求而展開的貿易戰會日益加劇。作為中國在亞洲的主要競爭對手之一，越南的貨幣越南盾今年已經三次貶值，上一次是在8月份。澳新銀行集團經濟學家尤金尼亞?法波恩?維克托里諾和艾琳?張在當時的一份研究報告中指出：“今天的政策行動，對于及時應對中國的人民幣貶值，具有積極效果?！?/p>

與此同時，其他主要出口國，如日本和韓國等，也在密切關注人民幣的未來走向。今年早些時候，韓元跌至三年來的最低水平，而近幾年，日本央行也在積極推動大規模貨幣刺激政策。日本政府堅稱，此舉只是為了刺激國內需求，經濟政策研究所的經濟學家羅伯特?斯科特等卻認為，日本的策略不同于美聯儲的量化寬松政策，它直接導致美國每年喪失幾十萬個工作崗位。

正如經濟學家和中國問題專家邁克爾?佩蒂斯所說，中國今天的問題凸顯出全球經濟需求的嚴重不足。目前在全球各大經濟體中，沒有一個是通過不斷提高的收入而獲得高速增長的。直至現在，中國經濟的高速增長一直是政府鼓勵過度投資并維持低工資水平的結果，這種政策的目的在于促進出口和增加就業。而少數幾個貿易持續逆差的大型經濟體，如美國和英國等，并沒有能力購買中國和其他出口國家努力推銷的產品。

因此，面對日益疲軟的需求，出口國家將繼續展開激烈的廝殺。只有時間才能告訴我們，中國經濟最終能否擺脫出口依賴癥。但現在可以確定的是，從長遠來看，中國在進行必要改革之前等待的時間越長，這個全球第二大經濟體就將變得越不穩定。（財富中文網）

譯者：劉進龍/汪皓

審校：任文科

For the second day in one week, China’s regulators shut down trading on its stock markets after sharp declines triggered automatic “circuit breakers” aimed at promoting financial stability in the country.

The reasons for China’s stock market troubles are many, but most analysts pointed to a move by the central bank to weaken China’s currency—the renminbi—as the primary cause for the decline. As my colleague Scott Cendrowski wrote Thursday,“China’s central bank lowered the yuan’s so-called reference rate, its trading peg to the U.S. dollar, by the largest margin since August, when the yuan dropped a couple percentage points over two days. That created a fear that China’s leaders are using a weaker currency to spark growth for an economy that is struggling more than expected.”

China’s management of its currency has been fascination for American observers for decades, as economists have long suspected that China undervalued its currency in order to subsidize its manufacturing and export industry. But those fears subsided in recent years, as the Chinese government allowed its currency to appreciate as part of a broader effort to rebalance its economy away from relying on investment and exports to one reliant more on domestic consumption.

But the sharp slowdown in the Chinese economy this year, paired with big losses in its equity markets, has thrown that analysis into question. And the fact that China’s currency is falling now is a sign that the transition the economy was supposed to be making towards the consumer is in trouble.

Earlier this year, China allowed its currency, the renminbi, to trade within a wider band around the value of the dollar, to which its value is pegged. But instead of rising in value, the renminbi fell against the dollar, and on Thursday the Chinese government allowed (or forced, depending on whom you ask) its currency to go down again, to its lowest value against the dollar in five years.

For some, this smacks of rank currency wars, with China fighting its quickly weakening economy with a cheaper currency to boost exports. Others argue that with the dollar stronger today than it has been in decades, it only makes sense to allow the yuan to weaken in response to this.

But wherever you come down on China’s motivations for its devaluation, it’s clear that a cheaper renminbi will send ripple effects through the global economy. And that’s likely why stocks in the U.S. and elsewhere plunged on Thursday.

The biggest fear is a deepening of a trade war that is being fought between the world’s economies over a very limited supply of global demand. One of China’s main competitors in the region, Vietnam, has moved three separate times this year to devalue its currency, with the last coming in August. “The policy action today is positive in its promptness in response to China’s devaluation,” Eugenia Fabon Victorino and Irene Cheung, analysts at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., said in a research note at the time.

Meanwhile, other big exporters like Japan and Korea, have been watching the moves in the renminbi closely. Korea’s won hit a three year low earlier this year, while the Japanese central bank has been engaged in massive monetary stimulus in recent years. The Japanese government argues that this is purely to stimulate domestic demand, but economists like Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute have argued that Japan’s tactics are different than, for instance, the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing, and that currency manipulation on the part of Japan has cost the U.S. hundreds of thousands of jobs per year.

As economist and China expert Michael Pettis has argued, what China’s troubles today underscore is the dearth of demand in the global economy. There are virtually no economies on earth today that are growing quickly as the result of rising incomes. Instead China’s rapid growth, until recently, has mostly been the product of a government policy that encourages excessive investment and keeps wages low in order to boost exports and employment. The few large economies that run trade deficits, though, like the United States and the U.K., don’t have the capacity to buy everything that China and the rest of the world’s exporters are trying to sell.

And therefore, it’s likely we’ll continue to see exporters fighting for every scrap of slow growing demand. Only time will tell whether China can ween itself off its dependency on exports. But what is certain is that the longer China waits to make the necessary reforms, the less stable the world’s second largest economy will be in the long run.