中国债券市场危机显露 投资人惊慌

SHANGHAI — Chinese officials cheered on the country’s stock market when it reached heady new highs, offering hope that it could become a new source of money to fix China’s economic problems. Then, last year, the market crashed.

上海——去年，当中国股市令人兴奋地屡创新高时，中国官员欢欣雀跃不已，希望它可以成为一个新的资金来源，帮助解决中国的经济问题。然后，股市崩盘了。

Now another fast-growing part of China’s vast and increasingly complicated financial market is showing signs of distress: its $9 trillion bond market.

现在，在中国庞大且日趋复杂的金融市场中，另一个快速增长的部门正在显露出危机迹象：9万亿美元规模的债券市场。

Prices for government and corporate bonds have tumbled over the past week, a sell-off that continued on Tuesday. The situation has spooked investors, prompting the government to temporarily restrain some trading and to make emergency loans to struggling financial institutions.

上周，国债和企业债券出现价格下跌，本周二抛售仍在继续。这种情况令投资者感到惊恐，他们敦促政府暂时限制一些交易，并向处于困境的金融机构提供紧急贷款。

The price drops have resulted in higher borrowing costs at a time when more Chinese companies need the money to cope with slowing economic growth. Yields reached new highs again on Tuesday.

当更多的中国企业需要货币来应对经济增长放缓时，债券价格下降导致了借款成本的增加。周二，债券收益率再次创下新高。

In part, China is reacting to financial shifts across the globe. With the Federal Reserve raising short-term interest rates and many expecting the presidency of Donald J. Trump to lead to heavier government spending, investors worldwide are selling bonds.

从一定程度上说，这也是中国正在对全球金融变化做出反应。随着美联储提高短期利率，以及很多人认为唐纳德•J•特朗普(Donald J. Trump)上任后会加大政府支出，全球投资者都在出手债券。

But China is struggling with its own balancing act. The Chinese bond slump also stems from Beijing’s efforts to wring excess money from its financial system and to stop potential bubbles that may lurk in shadowy, hard-to-track corners of its economy. Should it continue with those efforts, bonds could fall further.

但中国在实施自己的平衡措施时步履维艰。中国债券下跌的另一个原因是北京力图从金融体系中挤压出超发的货币，防止潜在泡沫出现，这些泡沫可能藏在阴暗的、难以追踪的经济角落。如果北京继续这些努力，债券价格可能还会进一步下跌。

“The adjustment has not yet finished,” said Miao Zuoxing, a partner at the FXM Brothers Fund, a Shanghai-based investment fund that trades stocks, bonds and futures. “It will continue and normalize until money is put where the government can see it.”

“这一轮调整还未结束，将继续修正、规范化，使钱放在政府看得到的地方。”在上海开展股票、债券和期货交易的投资基金FXM兄弟基金合伙人苗作兴说。

At least 40 companies have said they would postpone or cancel bond offerings rather than risk being forced to pay high interest rates to sell the bonds — or being unable to sell them at all. Among them was the Jiangsu Sumec Group Corporation, an industrial trading house that exports items as varied as gardening tools and auto parts; the company said on Thursday that it would not go through with the sale of $130 million in short-term bonds.

至少有40家企业表示，他们将推迟或取消债券发行，因为销售债券会有被迫支付高额利率的风险，或者根本就销不出去。江苏苏美达集团就是其中之一，这家工业贸易公司出口的商品五花八门，从园艺工具到汽车零部件都有。上周四，该公司取消了1.3亿美元短期债券的发行。

“Due to recent, relatively large market fluctuations, our company decided to cancel the issue of the current bond,” Jiangsu Sumec Group said in a statement, “and will reissue it at a chosen time.”

“鉴于近期市场波动较大，本公司决定取消本期债券发行，择时重新发行。”江苏苏美达集团在一份声明中表示。

China has particular reason to worry. As the world’s second-largest economy, after the United States, it relies on a rickety financial system that is mired in debt and susceptible to hidden stresses. Higher overseas interest rates could also prompt more Chinese investors to move their money out of the country, either to chase higher returns elsewhere or to avoid what some see as China’s growing problems.

中国有特别的理由感到担心。作为仅次于美国的全球第二大经济体，它的金融体系相当脆弱，眼下深陷债务，容易受隐性压力的影响。海外利率升高也可能会促使更多的中国投资者将资金转移出国，以追求更高的回报，或者是避开一些人眼中中国正在日益加剧的问题。

The outflows are “adding to domestic banking system stresses and weakening the already fragile foundations of the entire financial system,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University who was formerly chief of the China division at the International Monetary Fund.

这种资金流出“增加了国内银行系统的压力，削弱了整个金融体系已经很脆弱的基础”，康奈尔大学贸易政策教授埃斯瓦尔•S•普拉萨德(Eswar S. Prasad)说道。他曾任国际货币基金组织的中国事务主管。

A healthy bond market is crucial to China’s restructuring plans. The country has been counting on its fast-growing bond market as one way to bring market discipline to its traditionally state-directed — and wasteful — economy.

健康的债市对中国的重组计划至关重要。中国一直指望其快速增长的债市可以成为一种途径，将市场约束机制引入其传统的、浪费资源的政府导向型经济。

In the mature financial system of the United States, businesses have plenty of ways to get money. They can borrow from a bank, raise money selling stocks or bonds, or seek funds directly from any number of investors.

美国的金融体系比较成熟，企业有很多种办法筹到资金。他们可以从银行借款、靠出售股票或债券筹资，或者直接从任意数量的投资者那里筹集资金。

But in China, state-run banks are by far the main source of funding. That helped power the country’s economic rise, but it also led to loans going to politically connected borrowers rather than to where the economy needed it most. That is one reason the Chinese economy is now stuck with more steel, glass, cement and auto factories than it needs.

但在中国，国有银行是迄今为止的主要资金来源。这有助于推动中国的经济增长，但它也使得贷款流入了有政治背景的借款人那里，而不是经济最需要它的地方。这就是中国经济如今陷在供过于求的钢铁、玻璃、水泥和汽车厂里的原因之一。

Particularly in the past two years, China has taken steps to encourage the development of robust stock and bond markets as well as private lenders, needing a way to ensure the flow of money was being directed by profit-minded investors rather than politicians and their allies at state-owned banks.

特别是在过去两年中，中国已采取措施，鼓励股市、债市，以及私人贷款机构的健康发展，它需要一种方式来确保引导资金流向的是重视利润的投资者，而不是政界人士及其在国有银行的盟友。

The stock market crashed last year, and private lending has been slow to take off. But until this past week, the bond market had performed well. The investment arms of local governments and other large borrowers rushed in recent months to issue bonds at low interest rates and to pay off bank loans issued at higher rates — just as the government intended. Bond issuance jumped 47 percent in the first 11 months of this year from the same period last year.

去年股市崩盘，私人贷款发展缓慢。但在上周之前，中国债市一直走势良好。地方政府的投资部门和其他大型借款机构最近数月涌入债市，以低利率发行债券，偿还利率更高的银行贷款——这也正是政府的意图所在。今年前11个月，债券发行量比去年同期增长了47%。

What the government did not foresee was an explosion of speculative bond trading by Chinese banks.

政府没有预见的到是，中国各家银行进行的投机性债券交易出现了爆炸式增长。

Banks have increasingly raised money by selling wealth management products, investments that have the look and feel of dependable bank deposits and are usually sold to average investors. Banks rarely disclose what is behind those wealth management products and generally keep them off their books.

银行越来越多地通过出售理财产品筹集资金，这些产品看上去像是可靠的银行存款，通常出售给普通投资者。银行极少披露这些理财产品背后的内幕，而且通常也不把它们计入资产负债表。

Still, it is becoming increasingly clear that many of them are backed by bonds. The bond holdings of wealth management products more than doubled over the 18-month period that ended in June. Adding to the risks, banks are also making large, leveraged bets on the direction of bond prices.

然而，越来越清楚的是，很多理财产品都在以债券为支撑。理财产品的债券持有量在截至今年6月的18个月内翻了一番。除了这种风险之外，银行还使用大规模杠杆押注债券价格的走向。

Now the government is moving to rein it in. On Monday evening, The Financial News, a newspaper controlled by China’s central bank, published questions and answers with ad central bank official who was identified only as being in charge of the reviews of banks’ financial soundness. The official told the newspaper that starting next year, the central bank would include wealth management products in these reviews.

现在政府正在努力控制它。周一晚上，中国央行主管的报纸《金融时报》(The Financial News)发表了对一名央行官员的采访，文中只提到该官员负责评估银行财务的健全性。这名官员说，从明年开始，央行将把理财产品纳入评估范围。

A press officer at the central bank confirmed that the interview was an accurate reflection of the institution’s views but declined to elaborate.

央行的一名资讯官员证实该采访准确地反映了该机构的观点，但拒绝进行详细阐述。

On Tuesday, the yield on one-year government bonds rose to 3.11 percent, compared with 2.35 percent two weeks ago, a considerable jump for bonds. Yields go up when bond prices go down, and a higher yield makes it more expensive to issue bonds.

周二，一年期的国债收益率从两周前的2.35%上升到3.11%，对于债券来说，这个涨幅已经很大。当债券价格下跌时，收益率就会上涨，导致发行债券的成本增加。

Corporate bond yields are also rising fast, as investors have begun demanding a better return from entrusting their money to China’s frequently opaque companies. That reverses a trend from earlier this year, when investors were so enthusiastic for Chinese bonds that they bought corporate bonds as well, narrowing the natural spread between government and corporate bonds.

企业债券的收益率也在快速上升，对于将资金注入到常常不透明的中国公司，投资者已经开始要求获得更好的回报。这反转了今年早些时候的趋势：当时投资者对中国债券非常看好，他们也购买了企业债券，导致国债和企业债券之间的自然差距缩小。

Mr. Miao, of FXM Brothers, predicted that corporate bonds would continue to sell off until the spread between government corporate yields was wider again.

FXM兄弟基金合伙人苗作兴预测说，企业债券将会继续遭到抛售，直到政府和企业债券收益率的差距再次拉大为止。

“When the corporate bubble has burst,” he said, “then we could say the adjustment is finished.”

“去除了企业债泡沫后，”他说，“这一轮调整才算完成。”