Comments 16

中国的复杂性问题

Aug 25, 2015 Stephen S. Roach

纽黑文—在中国向其领导人所谓的中等富裕社会的艰巨转型中，有许多不断活动的部分。结构性变化在诸多前沿同时发生——经济、金融市场、地缘政治战略、社会政策等。终极考验也许就在于管理这些发展态势之间的过于复杂的互动。中国领导层能够胜任吗？还是会落入“贪心不足蛇吞象”的窠臼？

大部分西方评论家一直将这一争论过度简化，将其组织为众所周知的中国硬着陆论。这一论调至少已经存在了20年。今年夏天，当中国股市暴跌、人民币意外贬值时，同样的论调再一次兴盛起来。但是，我认为担心中国爆发全面衰退是杞人忧天。

关于中国近期前景的争论很重要，但比这个问题大得多的问题是中国经济稳步迈向再平衡——即从制造业和建筑业活动向服务业的结构转变。2014年，服务业占中国GDP比重达到了48.2%，远超制造业和建筑业之和（42.6%）。并且差距在继续扩大——2015年上半年服务业活动同比增长8.4%，远超制造业和建筑业的6.1%。

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 18 in all 18 Comments on this article

Wulfe Straat Nov 22, 2015

Commodity prices have dropped all the way down to levels not seen since 1999. And it's getting worse for commodities, as they all set new low levels at a near-daily basis. Why? Because China is no longer buying oil, steel, zinc, copper, aluminum, etc. as it did during Good Times. What does that mean for the Chinese? It means that it's over.

It means that if China doesn’t purchase raw materials today, it can’t churn those out as finished products tomorrow. That means Chinese workers will soon have nothing to do (as factories slow down and shut down) but brood on revolution against the CCP. Why? What else can they do? If those raw materials are not being purchased, they cannot be turned into products for exports and, obviously, are not being produced to be sold domestically to the Chinese. In fact, nothing and next-to-nothing is being produced.

Do you hear the lie, now, that the CCP is telling you? Which one, you ask, since there are so many? The one about developing a Chinese consumer market to replace the export-driven market of the last 30 years. If the factories are no longer importing oil, steel, zinc, copper, aluminum, etc., then those factories are not producing anything for the supposed Chinese market.

You have one great hope in China. It's revolution against the CCP and the eventual dissolution of the PRC. When you do, you can expect renewed peace and prosperity for yourself and family in the Yangtze People's Republic, the Yellow River Federation and the Pearl River Union...while the colonies of Tibet, East Turkestan, United Mongolia, Manchuria, Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan will revert to normal autonomous states within the PAX Americana!
atul baride Sep 15, 2015

China is in hurry to catch up with the world. Encouraging Opinions, Wishes and All other hues of human mind and brain should be Natural Part of the Society. Else, How Much May they try to balance may not get the right response. Pluralism is the Law of Nature not Uniformity.
simon noble Aug 31, 2015

Interesting ponts which add to one's view of China. But ironically the result is almost as one sided as the old model broke view. Services will save everything. What's missing is that all activity has been pumped up for years by stimulus, protection, subsidy etc. As the economy becomes ore complex and larger maintaining 7-10% growth seems highly unlikely and counterproductive. Given that China has got by so far on stimulus, poor labor protection, weak profitability and state protectionism, there must be real questions about how it will adapt to slower growth and the need to provide much better welfare, labor protection and true regulation. Not a crash but a long period of adjustment. it feels much like the end of the Japanese and Korean miracle economies. Add in the demographic effect in one-child and it will be interesting times indeed. And clearly more than can be micro managed from the centre by a party that instinctively opposes free will.
srinivasan gopalan Aug 30, 2015

With due deference to the academic heft and clout of Prof. Roach, his prognosis of the Middle Kingdom's complexity problem is misplaced. Although the erudite Mr. Coach has cautioned in the last para that "the last thing China needs is to try to balance too much on the head of a pin", it is precisely this dexterous art and great tact for which the Middle Kingdom sportspersons were well-known and universally acclaimed and acknowledged! As William Hazelit wisely put it centuries ago that "on what basis when we see nothing but progress behind us, are we to expect nothing but disaster before us?" , let us not all jump to the facile common conclusion that China will stand exposed after the slew of crises which it is currently facing or saddled with. The ingeunity and native wisdom or what the English people will call the gumption of the Chinese would definitely see them through to pass this phase in flying colours. It is after all the Chinese who paid the way for the world economy to get out of the rut of the Great Recession of the 2008 by their procyclical stimulus measures of gargantuan size and scale. Having seen China and its enterprising people as a tourist from India, I have nothing but great respect for the industry, ingenuinty and uncommon grace under which millions of Chinese toil day in and day out without the slightest betryal of loss of political rights. Here are a set of people who do not know the price of every thing but know the value of every thing to remain disciplined and earn the spurs fora decent existence. g.srinivasan, journalist, new delhi, inde
M M Aug 28, 2015

It is all about fundamentals and sound foundations, combined with good governance. In the absence of these basic principles, there can never be sound judgement. A few months ago, I attended an investors’ forum, the main speaker was a “Leading Investment / Fund Manager”. He presented these beautifully designed graphs and analyses to convince the audience to invest in China. His figures / assumptions were all based on historical data/trends. At the end of the forum, I had a brief chat with him and told him, the advice he had given was rubbish, the coming few years are not going to look anywhere near the last five years. In the absence of sound foundations in an economy, everything becomes just an illusion, and the events of the last few weeks proved me right.
Stephen Pain Aug 28, 2015

I am not convinced by the argument that the ratio toward services is a good thing, after all it was exactly this that was behind the collapse of the Greek economy, as the ratio became more weighted toward the public sector and the manufacturing fell into decline. China is not like Germany or Japan, its system is weighted heavily in favour of the planned economy and it will be near to impossible for it to make the transition - when the Soviet Union made that shift - it became a kleptocratic state - the Chinese leadership are deeply concerned about opening up too much. Already they face unprecedented corruption - a shift to the consumerist model will accelerate corruption.
Osman Gani Aug 27, 2015

I think that this problem is solved difficult. They have lake young guys. They had control increase of population. There are many people that they have no guys.
http://couponappa.com/supplies-outlet/
Robbie Jena Aug 26, 2015

In China Engineers did the Economic Development. In USA and India, Lawyers are at it...so, things are what it must be...from Chaos to Order...
Garrett Connelly Aug 26, 2015

Complexity will increase geometrically again when China surpasses the one planet pollution recycling service level.

Surpassing one Earth to the three Earth level country by country in a sparsely populated pristine planet was missed as relevant historically. Now China is evolving to grow to infinity in the same old way and meeting resistance from a full and already stressed planet.

Will China see the information-age autonomous democracy solution in time?
A.Michael Lipper Aug 25, 2015

This post was particularly well done. I have enjoyed your pieces for a long time and particularly after you spoke at the NYSSA annual dinner when I received the Ben Graham award.
Mike Lipper
Michael Public Aug 25, 2015

Life is complicated. The problem comes when decision making is removed from the hands of individuals (who can manage their own situation well) into centralized decision making. Centralized makes it easy to achieve impressive things - but the contribution of the individual is lost in the process. The Soviet Union (with it many truely impressive achievements) eventually collapsed under this weight. China it seems - is doomed to repeat the USSR's mistakes.
Shane Beck Aug 25, 2015

The agenda of the Chinese leadership is simple- all power in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and anything that threatens that agenda must be eliminated. Nationalism, economic growth, currency manipulation are just merely tools. It will be the unexpected and the unplanned events that will trip up the Chinese leadership much like 9/11 derailed the American Century.
Petey Bee Aug 25, 2015

The "it's complicated" argument is a difficult one to refute, although current polls indicate that it is a loser from a rhetorical point of view.

But the numbers are very useful. The apparent ambition of the Chinese planners is to replicate the entire full spectrum of Western economic activity within their borders, and to do so much faster than we did it. They are doing quite well so far, having already displaced the bulk of western manufacturing. As the next generation grows up with cheap computers literally everyone can afford, IT will likely come next. Finance, science, and benevolent foreign actions will likely follow.

Our best hope is to corrupt their business leaders. Human nature being what it is, it won't be that hard.
- Shane Beck Aug 25, 2015
  
  Chinese business leaders are already corrupt. That is why there is a lot of Chinese money parked in overseas tax havens and foreign property, just in case things go south in China.....
Walter Gingery Aug 25, 2015

When we come to assign grades for management of the economy, China's leaders will have a low bar to get over. The political leaderships of the rest of the world have pretty well flunked the test posed by the last 8 years.

An "F"to the Eurozone, a grade of "D-" to the UK, and a "C-" to the US. It won't take much for China to better those grades.
- Walter Gingery Aug 25, 2015
  
  Final grades will not be awarded until QE is completely wound up: which will require at least 5 years.
Procyon Mukherjee Aug 25, 2015

It is easier to explain China's situation, if we take Tobin's Q, the ratio of market value of installed capital to the Replacement Value (which could be simplified to Market value of Assets to Book value of assets) or in other words If we were to sell all assets (tangible and intangible) of all the companies in China then we would have arrived at the numerator of the Tobin’s Q, while its denominator would be the net worth of all the firms.

The Tobin's Q was steadily rising as it reflected that the market value was higher than the costs, but it reached that stage when the ratio started to exceed 1 and the question of marginal product of capital came into play. Unlike S&P 500, which went through a similar increase from 0.7 to 1.1, dealt with the problem by buying back stocks instead of fixed investments.

The problem had to come some time, till the Q returns back to normal.
christopher tingus Aug 25, 2015

You state Sir, "Its leaders need to simplify and clarify an agenda that risks becoming too complex to manage" -

however Sir, that is exactly the problem and unfortunately a Chinese leadership you and so many others afford far too much confidence in their acumen to amend the corruption, the self-serving lust in power and control and the real reason why China's stocks are far too overvalued and spells simply, a 30% correction in the Chinese markets and woes to the western countries who themselves are led by nothing more than lackluster politicians spewing empty rhetoric and who choose as does Barry Obama and good 'ol Ms. Hillary to spin their own lust in power and monies rather than to adhere to the oath in serving the good people....therefore whether in China or the USA or in India or wherever we see such self-serving demeanor, we are en route to War which looms ahead and again, humanity will be confronted with much angusih so hold on to your hats because China is going to land pretty damn hard as the Yanks say and with it, its dependents, the western nations all indebted and all plagued by failed policies....

Given that I am in the oil business, anyone looking for West African crude oil and who is credible, well, I suspect shortly given the further decline in manufacturing demand and the surplus and the loss in jobs, well, I will be at some point looking to find a buyer for West African Crude Oil though at the moment, there are fortunately still remaining customers willing to buy! Thank goodness....

God Bless us all!

Christopher Tingus
Managing Director
Innovative Global technologies LLC
Washington, DC 20006 USA
chris.tingus@gmail.com
skype: christopher.tingus
@christoptingus

http://prosyn.org/apQLtyH/zh;

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