無様な中国政府の証券市場

Bungling Beijing's Stock Markets
（無様な中国政府の証券市場）
Paul Krugman
NYT：AUG. 14, 2015

China is ruled by a party that calls itself Communist, but its economic reality is one of rapacious crony capitalism. And everyone has been assuming that the nation's leaders are in on the joke, that they know better than to take their occasional socialist rhetoric seriously.

中国は共産主義者を自称する政党に仕切られていますが、経済的現実は強欲なコネコネ資本主義の一種です。
で、この国の指導者は悪い冗談をやらかしてるんだ、たまに吐く社会主義なセリフを本気で信じ込むほど馬鹿じゃない、とみーんな思ってきました。

Yet their zigzagging policies over the past few months have been worrying. Is it possible that after all these years Beijing still doesn't get how this "markets" thing works?

けどこの数ヶ月間、連中の政策がぐるぐる迷走してるのは心配ですね。
結局、中国政府はこの「市場」とやらがどう機能するのか、全くわかってないのかも…。

The background: China's economy is wildly unbalanced, with a very low share of gross domestic product devoted to consumption and a very high share devoted to investment. This was sustainable while the country was able to maintain extremely rapid growth; but growth is, inevitably, slowing as China runs out of surplus labor. As a result, returns on investment are dropping fast.

背景は以下の通り。
中国経済はおっそろしく歪で、GDPに占める消費の割合がおっそろしく低くて、投資の割合がおっそろしく高い。
これは中国が超急成長を維持出来る間は続けられました。
でも、中国の余剰労働力が無くなるにつれ、成長も否応なく鈍化してます。
その結果、ROIが猛スピードで落ち込んでるってわけです。

The solution is to invest less and consume more. But getting there will take reforms that distribute the fruits of growth more widely and provide families with greater security. And while China has taken some steps in that direction, there's still a long way to go.

解決策。
投資を減らして消費を増やす。
でもそうなるには改革が必要になるんですね。
成長の成果をもっと広く分配して、家庭にもっと安心を提供するような改革。
で、中国はそっちの方へちょろっと動いたんですが、先はまだまだ長いぞと。

Meanwhile, the problem is how to sustain spending during the transition. And that's where things have gotten weird.

一方、問題はこの移行期間にどうやって支出を維持すんのかってこと。
そこでおかしなことになるわけですよ。

At first, the Chinese government supported the economy in part through infrastructure spending, which is the standard remedy for economic weakness. But it also did so by funneling cheap credit to state-owned enterprises. The result was a run-up in these enterprises' debt, which by last year was high enough to raise worries about financial stability.

最初はね、中国政府もインフラ支出なんかも入れて経済を支えてたんです。
これは不景気に対する基本的な処方箋。
でも、政府系企業に低金利でどしどし融資してそうやったわけ。
おかげでこの手の企業の債務は積み上がりまくりで、去年までに金融の安定性が心配になるぐらいの規模になっちゃったと。

Next, China adopted an official policy of boosting stock prices, combining a stock-buying propaganda campaign with relaxed margin requirements, making it easier to buy stocks with borrowed money. The goal may have been to help out those state-owned enterprises, which could pay down debt by selling stock. But the consequence was an obvious bubble, which began deflating earlier this year.

その次に中国は株価上昇を公式路線にしました。
株買えプロパガンダと信用取引緩和のコンボ。
株を売り飛ばせば借金を返済出来た、政府系企業を支援したかったのかもしれません。
でもその結果はあからさまなバブルだったわけで、これは今年先に弾け始めました。

The response of the Chinese authorities was remarkable: They pulled out all the stops to support the market — suspending trading in many stocks, banning short-selling, pushing large investors to buy, and instructing graduating economics students to chant "Revive A-shares, benefit the people."

中国当局の対応がまた奮ってましたね…市場への支援、全面停止。
沢山の株が取引停止にされるわ、空売りが禁止されるわ、大手の投資家は買わされるわ、卒業を控えた経済専攻の大学生には「A株復活、人民に利益を」と叫ばせるわ…。

All of this has stabilized the market for the time being. But it is at the cost of tying China's credibility to its ability to keep stock prices from ever falling. And the Chinese economy still needs more support.

これぜーんぶで市場もしばらく落ち着きました。
でもそのために、中国の信頼性と株価下支え能力を結び付けるって犠牲を払ったわけ。
それでも未だ中国経済は追加支援を必要としてますけどね。

So this week China decided to let the value of its currency decline, which made some sense: While the renminbi was clearly undervalued five years ago, it's significantly overvalued now. But Chinese authorities seem to have imagined that they could control the renminbi's descent, taking it a couple of percent at a time.

ってことで、今週中国は「人民元下落を放置プレーする」決意を固めまして、それって或る意味わかるかも。
5年前、人民元は確かに安過ぎましたけど、今じゃどうみたって高過ぎるし。
けど中国当局は人民元安なんてお茶の子さいさいアル、2-3%ずつ下落させてやるヨロシ、とか思ってたみたいですね。

They appear to have been taken completely by surprise by the market's predictable reaction; namely, the initial devaluation of the renminbi was "the first bite of the cherry," a sign of much bigger declines to come. Investors began fleeing China, and policy makers abruptly pivoted from promoting currency devaluation to an all-out effort to support the renminbi's value.

どうも市場の予想出来るリアクションは完全に想定外だったみたいですね。
つまり、最初の人民元引き下げは「序の口」、つまりもっとデカい引き下げが来るぞってサイン。
投資家は中国を逃げ出し始めました。
政策立案者は突然、人民元引き下げ推進から、人民元の全力防衛に掌を返しました。

The common theme in these wild policy swings is that China's leadership keeps imagining that it can order markets around, telling them what prices to reach. And that's not how things work.

この政策大回転の共通テーマは、中国指導部は、市場なんて我の言うなりアル、いくらになれば良いか我が命令するヨロシ、って妄想し続けてるってことです。
違うっツーの。

I'm not saying governments should never interfere with markets, or even set limits on prices. There is, as I've written in the past, a strong case for raising the minimum wage and in general for promoting higher wages for American workers; there's an even stronger case for effective financial regulation.

別にね、政府は絶対に市場に介入スンナ、価格制限すんじゃねー、とか言ってるんじゃないからね。
前にも書いたけど、最低賃金引き上げとか全般的な米国人労働者の賃金引き上げとかを支持する理由は大いにあるの。
効率的な金融規制に賛成する理由はもっと大いにあんのね。

There's even a case for occasional intervention to prop up asset prices. Three years ago, the European Central Bank's promise to do "whatever it takes" to safeguard the euro — generally interpreted as a promise that it would buy government bonds if necessary — worked wonders. Back in 1998 the Hong Kong Monetary Authority purchased large amounts of stock to beat back a hedge fund attack on its currency, and scored a notable success.

それどころか、資産価格の下支え介入を時々やるのだって賛成する理由はあるんだよ。
3年前、ECBがユーロ防衛のために「なんでもするもん」って約束したけど（必要なら国債買うよ！って約束だと一般的には解釈されてましたね）、あれ、大成功でしたよね。
1998年まで遡れば、香港の金融当局が通貨攻撃してきたヘッジファンドを叩きのめすために株を大人買いして大勝利したこともあるし。

But these were short-lived actions, taken at times when markets seemed to have lost their bearings. Staffers at the Federal Reserve used to call these moves "slap in the face" interventions. That's very different from the kind of sustained intervention and political dictation of prices China seems to imagine it can pull off. Do the country's leaders really not understand why that won't work?

でもこういうのって短期的なアクションだったし、市場が迷走したっぽい時にやってたことだし。
FRBの中の人はこういう動きを「ビンタ」介入って呼んでたもんです。
それって中国が出来ちゃうと妄想してるっぽい持続的介入とか政治的な価格命令みたいなのとは全然違うよね。
あの国の指導者って、上手くいかない理由、マジでわかってないの？

If they really don't, that's a big concern. China is an economic superpower — not quite as super as the United States or the European Union, yet, but big enough to matter a lot. And it's facing tough times. So if its leadership is really as clueless as it has been looking lately, that bodes ill, not just for China, but for the world as a whole.

わかってないなら相当ヤバいっしょ。
中国は経済大国なんだよね…米国とかEUほどじゃないけど、それでもやっぱりヤバい程度の規模はあるし。
で、それがキビシー時期を迎えてるわけ。
だからそこの指導部が、最近それっぽく見えてるほど、本気でわけわかんないんだっていうなら、中国だけじゃなくって世界全体にとってイヤーな感じなのであります。