Surely this has to end in tears, doesn’t it?
结局终将是痛苦的，不是吗？
China’s stock market is not so much defying gravity as defying logic, after a dizzying 32% rally since the end of October. That’s despite increasing evidence of stress in the financial sector and a slowing economy, the latter underlined again Monday by some shockingly weak trade data.
10月底以来，中国股市回升了32%，如此增长实在有些让人看不懂。因为与此同时，越来越多的证据表明，中国金融部门压力不小，而中国经济也在放缓。本周一公布的进出口贸易数据极为疲软，再次凸显了中国经济的放缓。
The Shanghai Composite index rose another 2.9% Monday to close above 3,000 for the first time since early 2010. It had risen 9.5% last week alone, in a week that ended with a spokesman for China’s equivalent of the SEC pleading at a press conference for investors to “respect the market, fear the market and…not blindly follow the trend of speculation.”
本周一，上证综合指数（The Shanghai Composite index）继续上涨，涨幅2.9％，自2010年年初以来，首次收于3000点以上。仅在上周，该指数就上涨了9.5％。上周五，中国证监会新闻发言人在新闻发布会上表示，希望广大投资者“尊重市场、敬畏市场……不要盲目跟风炒作”。
Just to recap: China’s economy is growing at its slowest rate since 2009. Although officials statistics and government pronouncements suggest it’s still above 7% year-on-year, house prices are falling in every major city across the country, bad loans in the banking system are rising at their fastest rate in years, and the central bank has had to intervene on more than one occasion in the last month to keep a febrile domestic money market stable.
简言之：目前中国经济增速处于2009年来的最低点。尽管根据官方统计数据和政府声明，中国经济仍同比增长7％以上，但全国所有主要城市的房价都在下跌，银行系统不良贷款上升速度多年未见，上个月，央行不得不再次出手干预，使狂热的国内货币市场维持稳定。
For those people (who, until recently, included premier Li Keqiang) who don’t entirely trust the official GDP data, hard indicators such as rail shipments and electricity consumption are also on a trend that is at best flatlining. HSBC/Markit’spurchasing managers index suggests manufacturing output and employment both fell in November.
对于那些不完全相信官方GDP数据的人士（中国总理李克强也是其中一员）而言，铁路运输和电力消耗等硬性指标的走势也顶多算得上持平。汇丰/Markit公布的采购经理人指数（PMI）显示，11月，制造业产出和就业双双下跌。
The usual counter-argument to such bearishness is that China is re-focusing its economy on services, which are less energy-intensive and have no real correlation to rail cargoes. And it’s true that HSBC/Markit’sServices PMI was still at 53.0 in November, suggesting a decent clip of growth (even if that too was the slowest rate since May).
对此，常用的反驳论据是，中国经济正将重心转移到服务业上，而服务业能源密集性较低，而且不会影响铁路货运。确实，汇丰/Markit公布的11月服务业PMI仍为53.0，显示服务业仍略有增长（虽然增速也是5月以来最慢的）。
But figures released Monday showed that imports were down 6.7% on the year in November, way below forecasts of a 3.5% increase. Even if much of that was due to lower prices for commodities from oil to iron ore, the figures hardly suggest surging domestic demand.
但周一公布的数据显示，今年11月，中国进口同比下降6.7％，远低于增长3.5％的预期。虽然进口额下降很大程度上是因为石油、铁矿等大宗商品价格下跌，但就数字来看，中国的内需并无大幅增长。
Alistair Winter, chief economist at London-based asset manager Daniel Stewart & Co, says there’s “a disconnect between the manic surge and equities since July and increasingly gloomy official as well as unofficial warnings on economic fundamentals.” Most of the latest surge, he reckons, is a hot-money inflow based on the pretext of “a very modest interest rate cut (last month) with more loosening to come” by a central bank that is fretting about how to unwind a debt-fueled bubble in real estate.
总部位于伦敦的资产管理公司Daniel Stewart & Co首席经济学家阿利斯泰尔•温特表示：“7月以来中国入市资金和股价的狂涌，同官方与非官方对于经济基本面日益悲观的警告间存在脱节。”温特认为，最近的股市飙升主要是因为大量热钱涌入，而热钱涌入的借口是，中国央行在“（上月）极为温和的降息之后，将有更多的货币宽松之举”。央行正为如何解决由债务催生的房市泡沫问题烦恼不已。
This wouldn’t be the first time that a stock market had got ahead of reality by anticipating supportive policy action. And it’s worth remembering that Shanghai stocks have gone nowhere fast in the last four years after having the pre-crisis froth knocked off them.
这不是第一次出现这样的情况：经济尚无起色，但股市因预期扶持政策即将出台而上涨。应该记住的是，金融危机前的股市泡沫被戳破后，过去四年来，上海股市一直毫无起色。
In theory, the much-touted link between the Hong Kong and Shanghai Stock Exchanges, which went live in November, could explain the surge in Shanghai, as foreign institutional investors pile into a mainland market that was previously off-limits. Unfortunately, the data suggest that flows from Hong Kong are running at barely a quarter of the daily maximum permitted.
备受关注的沪港通于11月启动。理论上，这能够解释上海股市的大涨，因为之前无法入市的外国机构投资者会大量涌入内地市场。然而，数据表明，从香港流入的资金，仅为每日限额的四分之一。
The real reason for the Shanghai rally is more alarming: like the real estate boom, it has been driven by borrowed money. According to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, daily purchases on margin are running at between eight and 10 times the levels seen only five months ago.
上海股市大涨的真正原因更具警醒意味：其背后的推动力量是借入资本，这与房地产热潮的形成非常相似。据上海证交所透露，当前日均差额购股量已经升至5个月前的8-10倍。
And this is happening when China’s financial system is throwing up red flags aplenty elsewhere: deposits in the banking system fell for the first time since the 1990s in the third quarter, pressuring the People’s Bank of China into a partial liberalization of deposit rates in November.
而且，目前中国金融系统可谓危险信号频现：今年3季度，银行系统存款自上世纪90年代以来首次下跌，迫使中国人民银行于11月实行了存款利率部分自由化。
Another red flag is that the government finally pushed the button on its plan to insure bank deposits at the end of November. Previously, people had just assumed that the state would bail out any significant bank that got into trouble. Having a deposit insurance scheme is one way of saying you think you can keep bank failures orderly.
另一个危险信号是，中国政府最终于11月末启动了银行存款保险计划。此前，人们一直假定，一旦大银行出现困难，政府会施以援手。存款保险制度的设立表明，国家认为可以将银行破产控制在有序范围内。
Increasingly, there is a sense that the day when China gets presented the bill for years of wasteful ‘investment’ is drawing closer. A recent study by two economists affiliated with the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission suggested that $6.8 trillion had been wasted just since the massive post-crisis fiscal stimulus package in 2009.
市场越发感觉到，中国为其多年过度“投资”买单的日子即将到来。两位与中国发改委有关的经济学家近期研究表明，自2009年金融危机后一系列巨额财政刺激计划实施以来，已经浪费了6.8万亿元人民币。
It seems a question of when rather than whether the first shoe will fall. Gabriel Sterne and Alessandro Theiss of Oxford Economics argued in a post last week that the inconsistency between low official rates of non-performing loans and a massive expansion of private debt in the last five years (over 100% of GDP, according to PBoC data) cannot be sustained.
目前看来，“第一只鞋子”迟早会落地，只不过是时间早晚的问题。牛津经济研究院（Oxford Economics）经济学家加布里埃尔•斯特恩与亚历山德罗•蒂萨上周发帖称，中国官方发布的低不良贷款率与过去5年间私人债务大幅飙升（中国人民银行的数据显示，私债规模超过中国GDP总量）相矛盾，此情况难以持久。
Already, the stock market is valuing the major Chinese banks’ equity at as much as 30% below what the banks’ books say it is worth. And they’re supposed to the country’s strongest institutions, with the greatest likelihood of state support.
目前，中国银行业的市值比其账面价值低30%，而银行理应是中国最具实力的机构，最有可能获得国家支持。
If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s barely years since the U.S. and Europe were in this position. You remember how that one went.
如果上面这些话听来有些耳熟，那也很正常。类似的情况在美国与欧洲都出现过，就是几年前的事。欧美最终如何收场，大家应该都还记得。
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