身居上海，大多数时候，每到夜晚，我都会听到消费者新闻与财经频道（CNBC）里那些远在美国的、面目模糊的专家们絮叨着中国经济的天就要塌了，于是我很快便会睡眼惺忪。我已经开始习惯这些有线电视网的愚昧无知，要不然肯定早就发疯了。在对全球经济超级担忧的当下（提醒一句，这种担忧合情合理，毕竟欧美经济危机仍在不断升级），我们不妨深吸一口气，将目前中国的经济放缓置于一定背景下来看待。

    过去一年中国经济的放缓是有必要的。前十年大多数时候，中国的实际GDP增速都保持在10%以上，引发了普遍的通货膨胀和经济结构的严重扭曲（过度依赖固定资产投资作为经济增长动力）。为此，政府收紧了政策，特别严加调控住宅市场。住宅建设过热，但绝大多数中国人还是买不起房，从而导致社会矛盾升级。（建设过热和房价过高显然是一对经济悖论，我们稍后将做解释。）

    宏观调控政策已经奏效，效果或许甚至有点超出政府的预想，因为很明显，今年前两个季度中国经济增速正在快速放缓。3月份，中国国务院总理温家宝正式将2012年的官方GDP增长目标调低到了7.5%，但就算达到这个目标都还需要点运气。中国近来的工业产值、用电量等数据都非常差。全球大宗商品价格下跌，从煤炭、铁矿石到原油的库存都在不断攀升，显然都与中国经济的放缓紧密相关。受中国需求推动的大宗商品市场长达十年的牛市正在接近尾声。

    造成中国经济放缓的部分原因是欧洲危机——经济学家委婉地称其“经济衰退”，但老实说，希腊、西班牙等国的情况已经比大萧条好不了多少。欧洲是中国最大的贸易伙伴国，欧洲危机加深，中国自然不能全身而退。同时，美国是中国第二大贸易伙伴国，美国经济疲弱自然也无益于中国。

    中国政府主导的这轮经济放缓完全有必要，但它恰好赶上了外部需求疲弱，所以结果自然不太美妙。特别是那些相信中国经济将永远保持10%的年增长、持续进行相应产能扩张的公司。预计中国业务比重高的跨国公司业绩不及预期的情况将越来越多。

    不过，话虽如此，也不能夸大当前中国经济的放缓。中国经济没有出现自由落体式的下滑。它面临的宏观问题也远不及欧美眼前的问题。要知道，首先，将中国归为“出口型”经济已不再准确，因此外部需求的冲击可能有限。中国的经常项目顺差在国民经济中的比率已略低于3%，远低于八年前的10%。发达世界上演的经济危机已经波及中国，但还没有严重到扼杀中国经济的增长势头。

    Some of the last words I hear before nodding off to sleep most nights here in Shanghai are uttered by a pasty-faced guy in the United States, nattering on CNBC about how the sky is falling (economically speaking) in China. I've become somewhat inured to the inanities of cable television -- you'd go insane if it were otherwise -- but in these days of hyper-concern about the global economy (quite legitimate concern mind you, given the unfolding debacles in Europe and the United States), it's useful for everyone to take a deep breath and put China's current slowdown in some context.

    China's economy for the past year has been slowing out of necessity. Its consistent 10%-plus real GDP growth rates for most of the past decade had contributed to a broad inflation, as well as severe distortions in the economy's composition (a significant over reliance on fixed asset investment as the driver of growth). The government tightened policy as a result, and put shackles in particular on the residential housing market, which was at once overbuilt and still unaffordable for the vast majority of Chinese, thus contributing to social tensions here. (Overbuiltand overpriced is, to be sure, an economic oxymoron, but we'll leave the explanation for that for later.)

    The tightening measures worked, arguably a bit more than the government intended, as it became clear in the first two quarters of this year that China was decelerating rapidly. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in March officially lowered the government's growth target for 2012 to 7.5%, and that should be considered a target that Beijing will be lucky to hit this year. The data these days -- industrial production, electricity consumption -- are weak, and the global slump in commodity prices, with inventories piling up in everything from coal to iron ore to crude oil, is obviously closely tied to macro weakness in China. It's the unwinding of the decade-long, China-driven bull market in commodities that is now over.

    Part of the China slow-down is driven by the disaster in Europe -- what polite economists call a "recession," but which is, let's face it, nothing less than a depression in countries like Greece and Spain. Europe is China's biggest trading partner, and China is plainly not immune to its deepening pain. The U.S. is China's second-largest trading partner, and its weakening economy is obviously not helping China's growth, either.

    So a government-led deceleration, which was necessary, now has weakness in external demand added to it, and the result is not pretty. That's particularly true for companies the world over that convinced themselves that China would grow at 10% per year forever, and scaled up capacity accordingly. Expect earnings disappointments from multinationals everywhere with big China businesses to increase.

    But, having said all that, it's critical not to exaggerate the current weakness. China is not in free fall. The macro issues it confronts pale in comparison with those now front and center in Europe and the U.S. Remember, first, that China can no longer accurately be characterized as an "export led" economy, so the damage the outside world can do is limited. Beijing's current account surplus as a share of its economy is now slightly less than 3%. That's down from 10% eight years ago. The unfolding economic debacle in the developed world is wounding China, but not killing it.

    其次，而且更重要的是，中国有政策工具，而且已经开始使用——最近的降息（无疑标志着经济增长已取代通胀成为中国人民银行的首要担忧）最为明显。高盛（Goldman Sachs）投资管理部首席投资策略师哈继铭最近的研究报告指出，中国一些省级和地方政府已开始悄悄地试图稳定楼市。有些省份的银行已开始向首次购房者提供低于现行基准利率的购房贷款（过去，购房贷款利率往往较人民银行的基准利率上浮5%-10%）。而中央政府关注的是另一面，有迹象显示楼市，特别是在北京、上海以外的二三线城市开始有反弹迹象。

    中国的消费者仍然需要住房，也想买房——而且，关键是他们买得起。虽然宏观经济放缓，实际工资增长依然强劲，因此消费态势保持良好。这也是为何国际危机加深后，中国政府并不着急的原因之一。要知道2008-2009年，中国政府在全球金融危机第一阶段后的的确确急了。看到数以万计突然失业的农民工挤满了中国东部的火车站，准备坐火车回到贫穷的内陆省份，难免令人着急。中国政府疯狂地向经济注资，只为稳定经济，他们做到了，但后果是通胀上升，以及迄今为止仍然数量不明的坏账。这次，除了放松楼市调控，中国政府迄今采取的措施都只是小打小闹，提供节能家电销售补贴，削减一些特定商业税赋，监管机构加快审批投资计划等等，从这类微调可看不出北京着急了。

    更重要的一点是如有需要，北京可以采取更多举措。悲观分析认为，中国过去10年，特别是过去四年，所有政府推动的资本投资都已结束；这造成经济过热和过度投资重工业，令如今重工业深陷产能过剩。这造成了中国经济结构的失衡，消费/GDP比率仅为39%，即便对于发展中国家也处于历史低点。简而言之，中国的增长模式难以持续，如果不迅速转变为像美国那样的消费驱动型国家，前面就是无底的深渊。看着办吧。

    Second, and more important, China has policy options that it has begun to use -- the recent interest rate cut (signaling emphatically that growth has replaced inflation as the central bank's primary concern) being only the most obvious. Quietly, as a recent research note from Jiming Ha, chief investment strategist at Goldman Sachs' investment management division in China noted, provincial and local governments have begun to try to stabilize the housing sector. Banks in a variety of provinces are now offering mortgages to first time buyers that are available at a discount to the current benchmark rate (in the past they'd have to pay a 5%-10% premium over the PBOC's benchmark rate.) The central government is looking the other way, and there are signs that housing markets, particularly in second and third-tier cities outside Beijing and Shanghai, are now rebounding a bit.

    China's consumers still want and need housing -- and, critically, they can afford it. Real wage growth remains strong, despite the macro deceleration, and that in turn means consumption has held up pretty well. This is part of the reason the central government has not panicked in the wake of the growing global crisis. Believe me, in 2008 and 2009, the central government DID panic in the wake of the first phase of the global financial crisis. The site of tens of thousands of suddenly unemployed migrant workers clogging the trains stations in eastern China, headed home to much poorer interior provinces, tends to have that effect. Beijing dumped money furiously into the economy in order to stabilize it, succeeded in doing so, and then paid the consequences down the road in terms of higher inflation and a still unknown amount of bad loans. This time, the steps it is taking, in addition to loosening controls on housing sector, are so far all little tweaks -- subsidies for the sale of energy efficient appliances, some targeted business tax cuts, quicker approval of investment plans by regulators -- the small kind of stuff that doesn't bespeak panic.

    The more important point is that Beijing can do more if needed. Part of the bearish case on China is that all of the government driven capital investment that we saw in the last decade -- and in particular in the last four years -- is now over; it resulted in excessive growth overall and too much investment in heavy industries that are now plagued by over capacity. It's resulted in a disfigured economy, with consumption comprising only 39% of GDP, a historically low figure even for developing countries. Simply put, China's growth model is supposed to be dead, and if it doesn't shortly turn into a manic consumption driven clone of the United States, well, the abyss is right over there. Proceed accordingly.

    空头卖家和杂志编辑们自然津津乐道这样悲观的前景。问题是，事情远没有那么简单。龙洲经讯（GK Dragonomics Research）驻北京的董事总经理葛艺豪指出，尽管过去十年中国的资本投资规模庞大，但中国的固定资产总量——基础设施、工厂和房屋——相对于其经济规模或总人口并没有那么高。葛艺豪指出，发达国家的资本存量常常是GDP的三倍多一点。中国的资本存量仅为GDP的约两倍半，只相当于日本上世纪60年代末的水平。

    至少未来十年，中国可以，也应当继续进行投资。葛艺豪认为，总体资本支出可能在未来几年将继续保持10-12%的年增长，然后才会放缓，而消费将继续保持每年约8%的增长速度。

    我承认，对于任何一个像我这样过去10年里大部分时间都生活在中国的人来说，这至少有悖直觉。十年来，这个国家简直就是一个大工地。但葛艺豪提醒我们的，则是中国庞大的规模。他认为，中国的急起直追阶段还没有结束。

    中国有巨大的增长空间，许许多多的人需要从偏远农村移居到城市。鉴于此，中国或许有资本抵御愈演愈烈的西方危机。

    译者：早稻米

    This makes for a nice tidy bear case of the sort that short sellers and magazine editors love. The problem is, it's not nearly that simple. Arthur Kroeber, the Beijing based Managing Director of GK Dragonomics Research, points out that despite the mind-bending amount of capital investment that's taken place here over the past ten years, China's total stock of fixed capital --infrastructure, industrial plants and housing -- is still not all that high compared to the size of its economy or its overall population. In the developed world, Kroeber notes, a country's capital stock tends be a bit more than three times the size of GDP. In China, it's about two and a half times its GDP, or about where Japan was in the late 1960s.

    China can, and indeed should, continue to invest for at least another decade. Kroeber believes it's possible that overall capital spending can continue to grow by 10%-12% annually for the next couple of years before decelerating, while consumption growth continues to pickup at around 8% a year.

    I admit that to anyone who has, like me, been here for most of the past decade, this is counterintuitive, to say the least. This country has been nothing but a construction site for that entire period of time. What Kroeber urges us to remember, though, is the sheer scale of China. As manic and as rapid as China's "catch up" phase has been, he argues, it's still not over.

    China's got lots of room to grow, lots of people to move from the countryside into the cities, and given that, it also probably has the wherewithal to withstand the intensifying crisis in the West.