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感谢思维导图作者
Mayof, 女，大三, catti三级备考中, 比较文学考研备考中
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Package deal
一揽子交易
英文部分选自经济学人Finance and economics版块
The Chinese economy
中国经济
Package deal
一揽子交易
A current-account deficit could remake China’s financial system, if the government lets it.
如果XX允许，中国经常账户赤字能够推动金融体系重组。
注：经常项目，是指在国际收支中经常发生的交易项目，主要包括贸易收支、劳务收支和单方面转移等。
In a control room at the headquarters of Ctrip, China’s largest online travel agency, dozens of fluorescent lines flash every second across a big digital map of the world. Each line represents an international flight sold on Ctrip’s platform. The top destinations on the morning of March 11th, when your correspondent visited, were Seoul, Bangkok and Manila. A live ranking for hotel reservations put Liverpool in first place among European cities, Merseyside’s rough-hewn charms briefly trumping Ven- ice and Barcelona (and apparently benefit- ing from a special offer).
In this century’s first decade Chinese citizens averaged fewer than 30m trips abroad annually. Last year they made 150m, roughly one-quarter of which were booked via Ctrip. That is not just a boon for hotels and gift shops the world over. It is a factor behind a profound shift in the global financial system: the disappearance of China’s current-account surplus.
在本世纪头十年，中国公民平均每年的出境行程不到3000万人次。但去年这个数字已高达1.5亿人次，而其中大约四分之一的游客是通过携程预订的。这不仅仅为全球的酒店和礼品店带来了繁荣。同时也是全球金融体系的一次深刻转变——中国经常账户盈余消失背后的重要因素。
As recently as 2007 that surplus equalled 10% of China’s gdp, far above what economists normally regard as healthy. It epitomised what Ben Bernanke, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, called a “global saving glut”, in which export powerhouses such as China earned cash from other countries and then did not spend it. China’s giant surplus was the mirror image of America’s deficit. It was the symbol of a world economy out of kilter.
在2007年，这一盈余相当于中国GDP的10％，这远远高于经济学家通常所认为的健康水平。时任美联储主席本伯南克（Ben Bernanke）将这类现象统称为“全球储蓄过剩”，即像中国这样的出口强国从其他国家赚取现金，却不进行消费。中国的巨额盈余折射着美国的巨额赤字，同时也是全球经济失衡的象征。
No longer. Last year China’s current-account surplus was just 0.4% of gdp. Analysts at Morgan Stanley predict that China could be in deficit in 2019—which would be the first annual gap since 1993—and for years to come. Others, such as the International Monetary Fund, forecast that China will maintain a surplus, though only by the slimmest of margins. Either way, it would be a sign that the global economy is better balanced than a decade ago. It could also be an impetus for China to modernise its financial system.
这一现象并没有持续多久。中国去年的经常账户盈余已跌落到仅占国内生产总值的0.4％。摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)的分析师预测，中国在2019年将会出现经常账户赤字——这将是自1993年以来首次出现逆差——并可能持续数年。但国际货币基金组织（International Monetary Fund）等其他机构的预测显示，虽然可能只有极少的盈余，但中国仍将继续保持经常项目顺差。无论哪种预测是正确的，这都反应了全球经济比十年前更加平衡的事实。同时，盈余的锐减也将推动中国金融体系的现代化变革。
注：Morgan Stanley是一家成立于美国纽约的国际金融服务公司，提供包括证券、资产管理、企业合并重组和信用卡等多种金融服务。
The basic explanation for the change is that China is buying much more from abroad just as its exporters run into resistance (see chart). Its share of global exports peaked at 14% in 2015 and has since inched down. The trade war with America adds to the headwinds. At the same time, imports have soared. China’s surplus in goods trade in 2018 was the lowest for five years.
The tale of trade in services, especially tourism, is even more striking. When Beijing hosted the Olympic games in 2008, foreign visitors splashed out a little more in China than Chinese did abroad. Since then the number of foreign arrivals in China has stagnated, while Chinese outbound trips have surged. Not only that: Chinese travelers have proved to be big spenders, as anyone who has queued for a vat refund at London’s Heathrow airport knows only too well. In 2018 China ran a $240bn deficit in tourism, its biggest yet.
Some of the current-account fluctuations are cyclical. Chen Long of Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm, notes that the price of oil and semiconductors, two of China’s biggest imports, was high last year. If they come down, a current-account surplus could swell up again.
Yet deeper forces are also at work. At bottom, a country’s current-account balance is simply the gap between its savings and its investment. China’s investment rate has stayed at a lofty 40% or so of gdp. But its savings rate has fallen to about the same, from 50% of gdp a decade ago, as its people have learned to love opening their wallets (or rather, tapping their mobile payment apps). An ageing population should lead to a further drawdown of savings, because fewer workers will be supporting more retirees. The disappearance of the surplus is, in this sense, a reflection of China growing richer and older.
There is, nevertheless, some concern about the implications. In emerging markets big current-account deficits can be a warning sign of financial instability, indicating that countries are living beyond their means and relying on fickle foreign investors to fund their spending. But China is in no such danger. Any deficit is expected to be small, as a fraction of GDP, in the coming years. What is more, the government still has a fat buffer of $3trn in foreign-exchange reserves. That should buy it time.
The crucial question is how China uses this time. By definition any country that runs a current-account deficit needs to finance it with cash from abroad. In an economy with a wide-open capital account and a freely floating currency, inflows and outflows balance without the central bank giving it much thought. But in China the government keeps a tight grip on both its capital account and its exchange rate.
So now that it is facing the prospect of current-account deficits, it has little choice but to relax its grip, in order to bring in more foreign funding. It is moving in that direction. China has long controlled access to its capital markets by issuing strict quotas to foreign investors, with a preference for institutions such as pension funds. But in recent years it has opened more channels, notably through carefully managed links to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
These moves, though incremental, have been enough in aggregate to persuade compilers of leading stock and bond indices, important benchmarks for global investors, to bring Chinese assets into their fold. Last month MSCI said it would more than quadruple the weight of mainland-listed shares in its emerging-markets stocks index to 3.3%. Next month China will enter the Bloomberg Barclays bond index, which could fuel roughly $100bn of inflows into Chinese bonds within two years.
In a new book on China’s bond market, the IMF argues that this could foster a virtuous cycle. More active investing in bonds would support the government’s goal of using interest rates as a bigger weapon in its monetary-policy arsenal (instead of old-fashioned administrative guidance). With a more flexible exchange rate to boot, China would end up with a more modern, efficient financial system—proof that a current-account deficit can handle well, be a welcome development.
But there are clear limits to how far China is willing to go. Efforts to lure in foreign investors have not been matched by moves to make it easier for its citizens to invest abroad. Yi Gang, the newish governor of the central bank, has reportedly vowed to maintain the “basic stability” of the yuan. Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics thinks the constraint is ultimately philosophical. The Chinese government is wary about ceding too much control to the market. “It implies a relatively slow opening up,” he says.
Another element of China’s approach to managing a deficit is therefore to stop it from getting too big in the first place. Guan Tao, a former central-bank official, says that China has to improve its competitiveness in services. With a better tourism industry, better universities and better hospitals, China would, he believes, attract more foreigners and keep more of its own spending at home.
Think of it as the second act for the Great Wall. It never much worked as a fortification for China: over the course of its two-plus millennia in existence, barbarian invaders repeatedly breached it. But now its role is to lure in tourist hordes. In this battle it has a better chance of success.
翻译组：
Olivia，教育从业者，经济学人粉丝
Jasmine，税务，爱笑爱生活爱经济学人
Sue，女，游手好闲者，爱电影爱文学爱TE
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Gloria，女，经济学在读，爱健身爱电影爱古怪新奇的事物
Alex,男，工科研究生，文学与科学爱好者，经济学人忠实读者
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观点|评论|思考
本期评论员
Alan，男，金融工程硕士，经济学人粉丝
经常账户=净出口=出口-进口。经常账户一般用NX(net export)表示。
影响对出口和进口的主要因素，先在这里简略地讲，是对本国和外国产品的相对偏好和名义汇率。如果本国居民更偏好外国商品，那么进口上升出口下降，NX减少；或者汇率贬值，也就是国内居民发现外国商品变贵了外国居民发现国内商品便宜了，也会影响净出口，在这里经常账户变好了。当然也可以通过增加进口税或者补贴出口企业等政策来影响经常账户。
中国经常账户在很长一段时间里高得吓人的原因是，央行将人民币贬值到稍微低于其真实价值的水平以使国内产品变得相对便宜，政府制定了相关鼓励出口的政策（大力补贴出口企业），并且对外国商品征收较高的进口税或者干脆在某些战略型行业政策上偏爱国内企业。这样的结果是很长一段时间，国内居民只能购买本国商品，而国内企业也免受外国企业的竞争，虽然积攒了大量外汇储备但是本国居民享受到的商品“质量”是不高的。因为经常被诟病“汇率操纵”和“外国企业受到歧视性竞争”，央行慢慢让人民币升值到了它的真实价值，政府也慢慢不再丰厚补贴出口企业，从而净出口减小了。当然还有别的让经常账户减小的理由：国内居民越来越富有了从而享受得起外国商品，电商的兴盛让进口品进入国内市场变得更方便了，外国企业越来越重视中国市场加大自身产品在中国的销量等等。本质上，中国经常账户的减小是长久以来国内居民被压抑的对外国商品和服务的需求得到了释放。而其中首当其冲的就是去国外旅游（我猜是国力强盛了所以签证方便了出国容易多了？国内景区做得太烂了？过劳时代人们加剧人们旅游放松的需求？）。
虽然一味追求经常账户盈余的做法会找来其他国家的反感（因为一国的出口变对对应另一国的进口变多也就是经常账户恶化）同时以损害国内居民利益为代价（享受不到外国更好商品以及浪费税收在出口企业上），但是经常账户确实有它积极的一面，尤其是对发展中国家。一国的经常账户盈余意味着该国央行可以持有相对应数额的外汇储备，外汇储备被认作是该国央行抵御国际投机客的有力武器（前提是外汇储备足够多）。现在假设市场预期该国货币会贬值，那么国际投资者就会要求该国的利率上升，以抵消将来货币贬值的损失（不然他可以投资别的国家的资产），不然会引发资本抽逃（他真的把钱投到别的国家去了），在对外币资产的超额需求下，货币会真的贬值，如果一国央行不希望汇率贬值到那个程度，就必须在外汇市场上用自己的外汇储备买回本国货币来应对外汇市场的超额需求，才能阻止本币的继续下跌。所以总结下来就是让本币升值就要消耗外汇储备，让本币贬值的话央行就要买入外汇储备。所以一般央行需要有足够的外汇储备才能让货币做空者望而却步。但是没有了经常账户盈余，央行就没有了外汇储备的来源，（尤其是发展中国家的货币），容易引发货币贬值的预期。
从目前的中国外汇储备储量来看，央行还不需要担心外储不够的情况。未来几年的人民币汇率的逻辑是，经济下行让其适当贬值，人民币国际化过程中会遇到人民币外流的问题，如果外流严重遇到贬值过快的问题，央行又回暂时严格把控资本账户同时损失部分外储让人民币升值，杜绝一切产生货币危机的可能。
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