近日，質疑世界第二大經濟體中國的隊伍又新增一員。國際權威信用評級機構穆迪指出，由于債務水平持續上升，中國經濟即將達到7%的增長目標。

穆迪評價稱：“2016年，中國政府會為追求經濟增長目標而持續給予支持政策，推遲去杠桿和消除過剩產能。如此拖延將對中國信用產生負面影響。”

近來各方一討論到中國經濟，必然會提到債務，部分原因是中國2008-2009年的大規模財政刺激已結束，信貸規模卻呈逐季度上升之勢。

以下是2002年以來中國信貸總規模圖表，看上去就像一條崎嶇的路，從2009年起就如同坐上過山車不斷攀升，至今升勢未止。

China’s economy is meeting its 7% economic growth target thanks to rising debt, credit rating agency Moody’s said Wednesday as it joined the chorus of skeptics about the world’s second-largest economy.

“Policy support in the pursuit of growth targets is likely to persist in 2016, postponing deleveraging and the eradication of excess capacity,” Moody’s said. “Such a delay would be credit negative.”

Conversation about China’s economy has shifted towards debt recently, in part because the country’s massive 2008-09 fiscal stimulus is over, and yet overall credit keeps rising quarter after quarter.

A chart of overall credit since 2002 looks like a bumpy road, followed by a roller coaster rising without end starting in 2009.

中國的經濟前景復雜難解，長期來看最確切的一點是：系統內部浪費性債務過多，如今這些債務用于支持國有企業和房地產項目，如若不然，國企和房市都會走受挫。

研究機構龍洲經訊的分析師潘啟思2015年在報告中寫道：“中國的債務問題與資本密集型工業模式密不可分，就像之前的日本、韓國和臺灣一樣，中國終將陷入債務泥潭。”

就連質疑者都指出，如果中國經濟實現再平衡，并向消費驅動型轉變，同時降低增長率，制止信貸增長，中國是可以避免經濟崩潰的。可中國還是鐵了心地將經濟增長目標制定得很高，增長不力就靠提升負債來填。

穆迪認為：“信貸總量（官方稱之為社會融資總量，簡稱TSF）的增速繼續超過比名義GDP增速，甚至還有加速跡象，導致杠桿持續攀升。”TSF是中國政府制定的衡量指標，用以衡量私營企業等非國有實體的貸款，不包括中央和地方政府借款。

TSF上升顯示信貸總規模增長速度遠超GDP，這意味著中國還未解決債務問題。北京大學金融學教授邁克爾?佩蒂斯等研究中國的經濟學家認為，TSF不是什么神奇的數據，達到一定程度就說明債務占GDP的比重太大。但不少人認為，以目前的速度發展，中國債務總有一天會達到警戒線。債務惡化的問題拖得越久，未來的破壞可能就越大。（財富中文網）

譯者：Pessy

校對：夏林

China’s economic outlook is dizzying and complicated. But the clearest long-term point is this: there is too much wasteful debt in the system and now it is being used to prop up state-owned businesses and real estate projects that should otherwise falter.

“Like, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan before it, China was always going to end up with a debt problem, which is hard-wired into its capital-intensive model of industrialization,” Gavekal Dragonomics analyst Joyce Poon wrote last year.

Even skeptics point out China can avoid a crash by rebalancing its economy toward consumption, bringing down the growth rate, and halting credit growth. But for now, the government is stubbornly keeping the economic growth rate high, and using debt to meet it.

“Overall credit growth (described officially as Total Social Financing) continues to grow faster than nominal GDP, and has even accelerated, leading to rising leverage,” Moody’s says. TSF is a metric invented by Beijing that captures lending to non-state entities like private companies and people, but excludes central and local government borrowing.

Its rise captures the point that overall credit is growing much faster than GDP, which means China isn’t yet fixing its debt problem. Economists studying China including Peking University professor Michael Pettis say there is no magic number at which debt is too large a percentage of GDP. But many believe China, on its current trajectory, will hit it. And the longer it lets the problem of excess debt fester, the more dramatic the fallout may be.