????中國會出現金融危機嗎？如果出現的話，中國人的處境會變差嗎？這和中國快速上升的負債水平無關，而要看出現問題時中國會不會陷入混亂。中國金融體系的混亂程度仍在加深，但尚未觸及警戒線。

????金融混亂可以描述為一個問題有可能引發其他無法預見的問題。可能出現這種情況的原因是存在一些人們想不到的關聯，或者是因為出現問題后人們做出的反應無法預期或不合情理。這很接近著名投資人喬治?索羅斯所說的反身性。在索羅斯看來，愛思考的人容易犯錯，導致他們傾向于采取不恰當、而且有破壞性的行動。

????金融系統稍稍有些不可預測是件好事。自由促進創新，而且有助于資金流動到需要它們的地方，而不是按照中央管理機構的思路進行配置。中國領導人非常擔心混亂，但也容忍了一些金融層面的混亂，比如引進外國投資者，建立股市以及偶爾出現的國企裁員。

????假設存在金融混亂指數。它從零開始，這個點代表政府獲得充分信任，而整個國家都在政府的控制之下。這樣的政府可以通過發行貨幣來解決問題，而且不會有外國債權人或貿易伙伴對此表示不滿。假設這項指數的最高點為100。這個點代表政府得不到絲毫信任，居民都籠罩在恐慌和無知之下，具有金融價值的只有黃金。2007年迎來金融危機高峰時，美國的金融混亂程度可能在70左右。

????以前中國的金融混亂程度接近于零。1978年之前，中國只有一家真正的銀行，也就是中國人民銀行（the People's Bank of China），它按照政府指令分配投資資金。后來出現了其他銀行，但在信貸領域，政府實際上仍然處于壟斷地位。在當時的情況下，借款人是否償還貸款并不是真正的問題。中國政府是整個銀行體系的所有人，它可以修改賬目，抹除虧損。

????20年后，中國的金融混亂程度有所上升。私營放貸機構和外國投資者的數量猛增，更多的中國人成了“負翁”，但中國的金融體系仍然相當簡單，混亂程度可能只有10。就算有金融機構倒閉，還出現了大量的壞賬，人們仍然絕對相信政府不會讓他們蒙受損失——至少對中國的債權人和儲戶來說是這樣。

????接下來局面有了翻天覆地的變化。2010年，中國多家銀行開始把信貸重新打包為信托和理財產品，它不會出現在銀行資產負債表中。這是一步妙棋。此后，這種所謂的影子銀行大行其道。銀行依然是整個金融體系的核心，但中國企業的債權人范圍得到了延伸，實實在在地把數百萬存款人納入其中。

????這就是說，中國的金融混亂程度有了上升空間。比如，銀行把一家小型企業的債務重新打包為理財產品，這家企業倒閉后，追蹤它的數千名債權人就好比一場噩夢。此外，個人行為難以預測。如果不能收回投資，他們就有可能憤怒地進行抗議，也有可能不再購買這樣的產品，進而造成信貸緊張，還有可能把存款從銷售相關理財產品的銀行中取走，從而引發令人恐懼的銀行擠兌。

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????Will China have a financial crisis? And if so, would Chinese people be any worse off? The answers are not found in the country's rapidly rising levels of debt, but in the potential for chaos when things go wrong. China is sliding further along the scale of chaotic financial systems, but is not yet in the danger zone.

??? Financial chaos might be described as the potential for one event to cause other unforeseeable ones. That might happen because of unexpected linkages. Or it might be because people respond to developments in unpredictable or irrational ways. It's close to what investor George Soros has called 'reflexivity.' In Soros' eyes, thinking actors are fallible, and that makes them prone to inappropriate and destructive actions.

??? A bit of unpredictability in the financial system is a good thing. Freewheeling promotes innovation, and helps capital to go to where it's needed, rather than where a centralized authority thinks it belongs. Chinese leaders are deeply troubled by the idea of chaos, or 'luan', but have tolerated the financial kind occasionally, say by letting in foreign investors, setting up stock markets and occasionally laying off state-sector employees.

??? Imagine a Financial Chaos index. It starts at zero -- total state control in a country where the government is entirely trusted. The authorities can print money to make problems go away, and there are no foreign creditors or trade partners to complain. Now picture a system with a score of 100. It has no trust at all, and its denizens are driven by fear and ignorance. Only gold has financial value. At the height of its own financial crisis in 2007, the United States was probably around 70.

??? China used to be close to zero. Until 1978, there was really only one bank, the People's Bank of China, which dispensed investment funds following government orders. Later, new banks were created, but the state retained its virtual monopoly on credit. In that world, it didn't really matter whether borrowers paid back loans or not. The mandarins, as owners of the whole banking system, could rewrite accounts and make losses disappear.

??? Twenty years later, things had got more chaotic. Private lenders and foreign investors proliferated. Claims on China's borrowers were spread more widely, but the system remained pretty simple -- probably a 10 on the Financial Chaos index. Even when a financial institution failed and bad debts spiked, trust in the government to make things whole -- at least for Chinese lenders and depositors -- was absolute.

??? Then came the big bang. In 2010, banks stepped up a clever trick of repackaging credit into trusts and wealth management products that don't appear on their balance sheets. This so-called shadow banking has thrived since. Banks are still at the center of the spider's web, but the number of people with claims on Chinese companies has widened to include literally millions of depositors.

??? That means more room for chaos. Say a small business, whose debts were repackaged as a wealth management product, defaults. Tracking down its thousands of creditors would be a nightmare. Moreover, individuals are unpredictable. They might protest angrily if they don't get their money back. Or stop buying such products, creating a credit crunch. Or pull their savings from banks that sold failed investments, leading to dreaded bank runs.