中国银行业乱局为什么是个政治问题(1)

The worst credit squeeze in China in recent memory seems to be over. After the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, issued a reassuring statement on June 25 that dispelled investors' worries about the lack of liquidity in China's interbank loan market, Chinese stock markets halted their plunge, and the rates of China's interbank loans fell from over 20% to around 6% (still two to three times greater than the average rate before the recent panic). China's Lehman moment, for now at least, appears to have been averted.

最近一个时期内，中国最严重的信贷紧缩似乎已经过去。6月25日，中国人民银行（the People's Bank of China）发布了一份公告来稳定人心，扫除了投资者对中国银行间同业拆借市场流动性不足的担忧。中国股市停止暴跌，银行间拆借利率从20%以上回落至6%左右（仍为最近恐慌行情出现之前平均利率的两到三倍）。看来中国已经躲过了自己的雷曼时刻，至少目前是这样。

However, many questions remain, both about the causes of the recent turmoil in China's banking system and the implications for the Chinese economy.

不过，还有许多问题，其中既有最近中国银行体系陷入混乱的原因，又有它对中国经济的影响。

As for what prompted the recent seizing-up of China's interbank loan market, there is no shortage of theories. The PBOC, widely perceived as having engineered an artificial credit squeeze to crack down on China's shadow banking sector, has come out with innocent but not very credible explanations. It blames the panic on a set of coincidental factors, such as the June deadline for banks to report their numbers (a requirement that forces many banks to reduce outstanding loans and embellish their risk profiles), tax due dates at the end of May and middle of June (tax payments suck cash out of the circulation), and increased demand for cash before a traditional Chinese holiday.

对于最近中国银行间拆借市场为什么会出现资金紧张的情况，人们莫衷一是。外界广泛认为是中国人民银行人为制造了信贷紧张的局面，目的是整治国内的影子银行。央行则为自己开脱，但它的解释并不非常可信。央行将这次恐慌归结为一系列巧合，比如银行要在6月底前公布经营数据（这项要求迫使许多银行压缩贷款余额，同时矫饰自身的风险情况），5月底和6月中期清缴税收（缴税造成现金退出流通）以及端午节假期前现金需求增多。

An alternative explanation, popular mainly among economists and investors, is that the PBOC was engaged in a high-stakes game with players in China's shadow banking system, all with the blessing of China's new political leadership. Because interbank loans constitute the bulk of funding for borrowers in the shadow banking system, making such loans less available sends a powerful message that the central government will no longer tolerate risky behavior and keep inflating China's credit bubble. Some analysts went so far as to suggest that this is the first shot fired by the Chinese government to signal the start of a deleveraging process.

许多经济学家和投资者都接受另一种解释，那就是，获得新一届领导人许可后，央行和国内影子银行体系的参与者展开了一次高风险角逐。由于在影子银行体系中，借款人获得的资金主要来自银行间市场，减少此类贷款供应释放出了一个有力信号，即中央政府不会再允许冒险行为，也不会允许国内信贷泡沫继续膨胀。有些分析师甚至认为，这是中国政府打响的第一枪，它标志着去杠杆化进程的开始。

There is a third explanation, which is simpler and perhaps more reasonable. This incident is most likely a botched response by the Chinese monetary authorities to a problem that has been long in the making but exploded without warning and caught them completely by surprise.

还有第三种解释，它更简单、而且可能更为合理。那就是长期以来一直存在的一个问题在没有征兆的情况下突然爆发了，完全出乎中国货币监管部门的预料，而且监管部门对此应对不力，很可能是造成本次危机的原因。