中國放開金融管制進程受阻

When Chinese conglomerate HNA paid 80 per cent over the market rate for a plot of land on the site of Hong Kong’s former airport in Kowloon late last year , there was little surprise. Many analysts simply assumed the lofty price was paid to get around the increasingly stringent controls on capital outflows from mainland China.

去年底，中國企業集團海航集團(HNA)支付高於市場價80%的價格拿下九龍原機場區一個地塊時，人們並未感到驚訝。許多分析師只是認爲，支付高價是爲了繞開中國內地對資本流出的日益嚴格的管制。

In the past, when Chinese firms wished to buy companies or assets offshore, they could simply get the foreign branches of local banks to issue letters of credit offshore against cash they had on deposit back in China. However, today regulators in Beijing are discouraging such arrangements as they seek to keep capital from flowing out of the country and further weakening the currency. These efforts are part of a broader attempt to rein in leverage which increasingly threatens financial stability.

過去，當中國企業希望購買海外公司或資產時，它們只要找到中資銀行的海外分支，以其內地存款爲擔保開出海外信用證，就可以了。然而，如今北京的監管機構開始限制這種做法，因爲它們正想方設法阻止資本流出境外、進一步壓低人民幣匯率。這是旨在抑制槓桿的更宏觀努力的一部分。槓桿對金融穩定造成了越來越大的威脅。

This comes just as Chinese investors are also increasingly using debt both to help make acquisitions and juice returns. While the People’s Bank of China is dedicated to reducing these sometimes invisible chains of borrowed money in the system, their efforts, ironically, could yet make the markets more volatile.

此時，中國投資者也越來越多地利用債務來幫助實施收購併提升回報。雖然中國央行(PBoC)致力於減少金融體系中這些有時看不見的借款鏈條，但諷刺的是，他們的努力可能使市場更不穩定。

In this game of chicken between a central bank determined to control the financial markets and squeeze speculators, prudent investors and imprudent borrowers can both get crushed. The PBoC must tread carefully as it squeezes out the leverage that has helped fuel bubbles, while avoiding the risk of a damaging crash in prices. All of the choices facing the central bank’s policymakers come with painful trade-offs. Low rates encourage investors to take risks in the search for yield, but high rates make the existing debt burden of companies ever more dangerous.

在這場決心控制金融市場和打壓投機者的央行與投機者之間的懦夫博弈(game of chicken)中，謹慎的投資者和魯莽的借款人都可能遭到碾壓。中國央行必須小心行事，它既要清理掉助推泡沫的槓桿，又要避免價格發生破壞性崩盤的風險。央行政策制定者面臨的所有選項都包含痛苦的權衡。低利率會鼓勵投資者冒着風險去尋求收益，但高利率會使企業的既有債務負擔變得更危險。

Worries about leverage in China, especially in the shadow banking system, are nothing new but still have the capacity to deliver unpleasant shocks. In the summer of 2015, few understood how much of the bull market in Chinese shares was driven by purchases made with borrowed money. More than a year on, the bond market is the subject of similar concern.

對於中國的槓桿、特別是影子銀行體系槓桿的擔憂，不是什麼新鮮事，但仍有能力造成令人不快的衝擊。在2015年夏天，很少有人清楚中國股市的牛市在多大程度上是由借錢炒股推動的。一年多之後，債券市場出現了同樣的擔憂。

Last week, the central bank engineered a dramatic, if not unprecedented, squeeze of liquidity in the offshore market that drove the overnight funding rate between banks higher. One effect of such a move was to make it more expensive to bet against the renminbi in Hong Kong, a major trading hub for the currency.

不久前，中國央行在離岸市場急劇收緊流動性（即便並非史無前例），推高了銀行間人民幣隔夜拆借利率。此舉的效果之一，是提高在香港做空人民幣的成本。香港是全球主要人民幣交易中心之一。

By pushing up the rate that banks charge one another to borrow overnight, the central bank also hit prices in the bond market. This could ultimately lead to capital losses for investors, and has already forced some companies to cancel plans to sell debt.

中國央行推高離岸銀行間隔夜拆借利率，也打擊了債市價格。這可能最終導致投資者的資本損失，並已迫使一些企業取消了發債計劃。

The problems have been building for some time. As a consequence of interest rates being kept low in the interbank market until late October, banks issued certificates of deposit and then put the proceeds in the bond market in a lucrative arbitrage, according to Jianguang Shen, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Asia Securities in Hong Kong.

這些問題已經醞釀了一段時間。根據香港瑞穗證券亞洲(Mizuho Securities Asia)首席經濟學家沈建光的說法，由於到去年10月下旬銀行間市場利率一直保持在低位，各銀行發行存款單，然後將現金收入投資於債市，實現利潤豐厚的套利。

Mr Shen now fears that some of the riskiest wealth management products through which investors secure access to the bond market involves using leverage of nine times. That is similar to the leverage in the riskiest slices of the subprime securities that wreaked havoc in the US mortgage market in 2008.

現在沈建光擔心，讓投資者得以投資於債市的一些風險最高的理財產品，使用了9倍的槓桿。2008年，造成美國抵押貸款市場重創的次級證券中風險最高的部分，其槓桿大致也在這一水平。