新興市場面臨債務風險 Debt burdens weigh on the emerging markets

Warren Buffett’s magisterial dictum about the aftermath of financial booms has now become conventional wisdom: only when the tide has receded can you see who has been swimming naked.

沃倫巴菲特(Warren Buffett)有關金融熱潮後果的權威名言現在已經變成了普遍看法：只有當潮水退去，你才能看到誰在裸泳。

In the case of emerging market countries who have spent years wallowing in cheap money, however, the issue is complicated by the changing identity of the bathers in the water.

然而，就多年來一直享受着廉價資金的新興市場國家而言，這個問題因爲游泳者身份的變化而變得複雜。

Traditional debt busts in emerging markets, from the Latin American crisis of the 1980s to the Asian financial turmoil of the late 1990s, generally used to be centred on sovereign bonds, usually contracted in dollars and often linked to the collapse of a currency peg. But the build-up of debt in emerging markets over the past decade has been disproportionately concentrated in the corporate sector , often in local currency. Total private sector debt in emerging markets is now equal to more than 100 per cent of annual gross domestic product, higher even than it was in developed economies on the brink of the global financial crisis in 2008.

從上世紀80年代的拉美危機到90年代後期的亞洲金融危機，傳統上新興市場的債務危機基本集中於通常以美元計價的主權債務，並且往往與盯住匯率制的崩潰有關。但過去10年，新興市場的債務積累過多集中在企業部門，且通常是本幣債務。新興市場私人部門的債務總額現在已經超過了年度國內生產總值(GDP)的100%，甚至比處於2008年全球金融危機邊緣時的發達經濟體還高。

In fact the problem may be even bigger, given that data on private sector emerging market debt are imperfect. Some of the cheap money created by the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing that found its way to emerging markets came via the “shadow banking” system, where flows are harder to record. Many emerging markets have also borrowed from China’s opaque development banks to a substantial but unknown degree.

事實上，考慮到新興市場私人部門的債務數據並不完備，問題可能更爲嚴重。一些由美聯儲(Fed)量化寬鬆計劃創造並進入新興市場的廉價資金是通過影子銀行體系流入的，這種資金流動更難記錄。許多新興市場還從中國不透明的發展銀行借入數量龐大但數額不明的資金。

The classic emerging market crisis ends with a sudden shock and a severe economic adjustment — often including a debt writedown — that clears the way for countries to grow again. The risk today, particularly in countries such as China with deep-pocketed governments, is of a different denouement: a series of partial short-term fixes via state interventions such as bailouts and regulatory forbearance to keep the show on the road. This risks the kind of prolonged malaise that afflicted Japan after the bursting of the 1980s bubble: banks weakened by bad loans clogging up their balance sheets; failing companies kept afloat; excess industrial capacity creating gluts and threatening chronic deflation.

新興市場的危機一般以突然的強烈衝擊和嚴重的經濟調整收尾——通常包括債務減記——這爲國家的再次增長掃清了道路。現在，尤其是在中國等政府財力雄厚的國家，債務風險的結局與過去不同：政府通過紓困和監管上的寬容等國家干預手段進行一系列短期部分修正，以保證經濟的繼續運行。這樣的做法可能會導致日本在上世紀80年代泡沫破裂後遭遇的那種長期經濟不振：銀行因爲資產負債表中充斥的不良貸款而被削弱；瀕臨破產的企業苟延殘喘；過剩的工業產能導致過量供應並帶來長期通縮的威脅。

It is easy to see why the Chinese and other authorities might prefer avoiding the debt nettle to grasping it. Although falling short of the official growth target would undoubtedly weaken Beijing’s credibility, a full-blown debt crisis and recession, with swaths of banks and companies going bust, would have more severe political consequences.

很容易看出爲何中國和其他一些國家的當局更寧願避開債務問題，而非進行果斷處理。雖然達不到官方增長目標無疑會削弱中國政府的信譽，但全面爆發的債務危機和衰退，以及銀行和企業大批破產，會帶來更爲嚴重的政治後果。

It is already evident from China’s management of its exchange rate — and more generally its painful transition from an export-oriented manufacturing model to a domestic demand-driven service economy — that Beijing has a habit of trying to make large moves in a series of small steps, reversing them to avoid short-term dislocations. It would hardly be a surprise if that mode of behaviour were to emerge again in the face of a debt crunch. If it did, long-term growth prospects for China and emerging markets as a whole would suffer.

中國對匯率的管理，以及更大範圍內由出口導向型製造業經濟模式向國內需求拉動的服務業經濟模式的艱難轉型，明顯表明中國政府習慣將大動作分解爲一連串的小步子，有時還通過撤消動作以避免短期經濟擾亂。在債務危機面前，中國如果再次採用這種行爲模式也算不上什麼意外。如果事實的確如此，中國和新興市場整體的長期增長前景將會變得更爲黯淡。

The euphoria surrounding emerging markets as an asset class started before the global financial crisis and was rapidly resurrected afterwards. That excessive enthusiasm has now, fortunately, very largely dissipated. But it was in place long enough to create a misallocation of capital that could take several years and many billions of dollars of losses to sort out.

對作爲一個資產類別的新興市場的狂熱始於全球金融危機之前，並在危機後快速捲土重來。幸運的是，這種過度熱情現在大體上已經消散。但這種狂熱持續了較長時間，其造成的資本錯配可能需要花上幾年的時間和數十億美元的損失才能釐清。

Many emerging market policymakers have a difficult and uncertain future. They can start by recognising that they are facing a potentially very serious problem. The easy good times have gone; the hard work lies ahead.

許多新興市場政策制定者都面臨着艱難和不確定的未來。他們可以從認清自己正面臨一個可能十分嚴重的問題開始。輕鬆的好日子結束了；等待着他們的是艱苦的工作。