如果想了解中國經濟走勢，最好聽聽私募股權圈大佬單偉建怎么說。他對當前中國經濟困境的看法是：經濟減速剛剛開始，但長期來看比較穩健。

單偉建的觀點之所以很有價值，因為他可以從三種對立的角度看待中國經濟，很少有專家能做到。首先他是亞洲最大私募股權公司太盟投資的首席執行官，深耕本地市場；其次，他曾在美國接受教育，獲得了經濟學博士；此外，他的個人經歷與國家發展同步，曾作為知青下放插隊，后來又趕上了中國經濟發展奇跡，為投資者賺得數十億美元。

1月下旬一個周二晚上，我在紐約曼哈頓上城區西部的一家咖啡廳里見到了單偉建，他點了一杯熱水，后來提到當晚要參加董事電話會議。

單偉建主要在香港生活工作，他到紐約主要為了宣傳新書《走出戈壁灘：我在中國和美國的故事》。書中回憶，1969年，他只有十多歲時離開北京的家，在戈壁灘勞動六年。改革開放后，他有機會成為第一代政府公派前往美國學習的留學生。

單偉建在加州大學伯克利分校獲得國際貿易專業博士學位，博士論文指導老師是之后擔任美聯儲主席的珍妮特·耶倫，后來他加入沃頓商學院擔任教師。書中結尾是一段講了他回到搖搖欲墜的廢棄營房的見聞。他曾在農村當“赤腳醫生”，所謂“赤腳醫生”屬于中國農村干部，接受過治療小病的基本醫療培訓。他遇到轉行養豬的老朋友們，因為炎熱的土地上已無法謀生。“我們派了大批年輕人與自然斗爭，把戈壁變成了可耕種的農場。”他寫道。“然而最終自然還是勝利了，戈壁也變回了原樣。”

中國一個時代的結束

《走出戈壁灘》一書并未涉及單偉建回國從商的經歷，但在交談中單偉建表示最大的愿望是幫助中國和亞洲其他國家發展私募行業。他曾在摩根大通香港分公司工作五年，1998年加入了私募股權大鱷TPG。他在TPG工作了12年，2010年聯合創立了太盟投資，擔任總裁兼首席執行官。如今該公司管理資產達300億美元，成為業內巨頭。

單偉建對過去20年里中國的發展大加稱贊，但也警告稱高速發展的時代已經結束。他的觀察結合了對上海和北京高管圈的態度，還有身為經濟學家的判斷。“如果2019年中國GDP增幅降至6%，我也不會吃驚。”他表示，該增速比去年讓人失望的6.6%增幅還要低，而去年的增速已是1990年以來最低。

單偉建認為，當前經濟疲軟有兩個短期因素，但提醒說中國正經歷長期轉變，遠離快速增長的制造業，未來經濟增長更有可能小步快跑，不太可能保持之前的高速狀態。

他表示，兩大短期因素里第一個是信貸嚴重萎縮。“兩年前，政府開始打擊提供私營領域大部分信貸的‘影子銀行’網絡。”他表示，而且稱中國私營領域主要是中小型企業。中央政府擔心，“影子”系統里的信托公司和其他信貸機構過度擴張，魚龍混雜的各種機構可能崩潰，影響經濟發展。

與此同時，政府規定國有銀行至少將50%貸款投給中小企業，從而保持信貸流動。“但大型銀行不想貸給私營企業，因為風險較高。”單偉建說。“大銀行總想貸給大型國有企業，因為國企背后有政府支持，非常安全。”他表示，由于銀行拒絕，“劃定比例也沒用。”在他看來，私營領域缺少銀行信貸支持，無法辦新廠、開醫院和商店，所以現在經濟增速放緩。

第二個阻礙是中美貿易爭端。“對企業直接的影響很小，”他表示。“但對商業界的信心沖擊很大。貿易爭端打擊了中國制造商的信心，影響進一步投資。”

單偉建表示，如果想解決沖突，中國應該降低對美國進口產品的關稅，并放松美國中國企業持股比例的限制。“如此一來，汽車、手機和其他美國進口產品對消費者來說會更便宜，也逼著中國競爭對手提升競爭力。”他說。“降低相關產品價格后，消費者也會有更多錢花在其他產品上，比如家用電器或雜貨等。此舉有助于經濟增長。由于中國正逐漸轉向消費社會，在占據經濟大部分的領域促進競爭和效率也越發重要。”

減少制造業，增速放緩

單偉建稱，實際上中國由制造業轉向消費主導型經濟過程中，未來增速放緩不可避免。中國經濟主要影響因素是人口。人們普遍認為“獨生子女政策”最終將導致中國勞動力人口減少。（2015年計劃生育政策已經取消。）

對單偉建來說，隨著大批人口從農村移居城市，人口問題得到了緩解，但也被掩蓋起來。“就在50年前，我下放到戈壁灘時，中國開始了人類歷史上大規模的‘農村化’。”單偉建說。“城市人口1.6億，有1600萬人被送往農村和荒地。過去20年又出現了人類歷史上大規模的城市化。正是因為農民前往城市里的工廠工作，才推動了中國的工業化。”

他警告稱，該趨勢已經達到頂點。“現在中國面臨勞動力短缺的局面，勞動力成本也不斷提升。”他表示。“過去十年里勞動力成本增加了11%，中國制造商出口產品的價格卻持平甚至走低。這也是中國出口領域比不過越南和印尼等亞洲國家的原因。”

以前中國工業非常渴望投資，中國家庭購買商品時也沒有太多選擇，所以大部分收入都儲蓄起來。大量儲蓄充實了銀行的資本，也為制造業強勢崛起輸送了資金。那些日子一去不復返了。如今，勞動者的收入里有很大一部分用來購買耐克運動鞋、精致的食物，還有香港和巴黎度假。“以前的儲蓄投資模式已經沒用。”單偉建說。他指出，十年前出口占GDP的36%，出口基本上是制造業，消費占35%。十年里，出口降到國家收入的19%，消費則升至50%。

制造業大量投資推動的國家比消費主導經濟有活力得多，單偉建說。“個人消費對經濟的推動比不上制造業投資。”他指出，并解釋程基礎工業發展可以實現“乘數效應”。在新工廠投資1萬億美元后可創造新的就業崗位，也可以建造更多工廠提供零部件和電力。“與之相反，”單偉建表示，“消費支出沒有乘數效應，無法像投資制造業一樣推動經濟增長。”

要問單偉建的結論，就是由制造業轉向消費的歷史進程決定了中國經濟未來發展將放緩。不過他補充說，中國仍可通過降低國有經濟領域，進一步鼓勵私營領域擴張，為經濟增長騰出空間。僅僅為了維持現有增長水平，也要提升相關領域的效率。

有人預計中國將采取大規模刺激計劃推動增長，他怎么看？單偉建認為不太可能。“中國當然有能力這么做。”他說。“中國的財政狀況比其他大國都要好。中央政府的債務對GDP占比僅為17%，外匯儲備有3萬億美元，而且外國投資者僅持有小部分主權債務。”但他預計政府不會輕易開放貨幣閘門。他表示，過去兩年，政策的主要目標是限制消費和商業領域過度杠桿的狀態，避免制造資產泡沫，一旦破裂可能拖累經濟。在單偉建看來，政府認為過度信貸比限制限制信貸更有可能影響經濟增長。

資產泡沫？可能性不大

有人擔心中國推動住房和其他房地產價格快速升高，一旦價格驟降可能出現災難性的后果。單偉建認為相關擔心言過其實，中國不會出現2008年到2010年的美國金融危機，或1997年到1998年的亞洲金融危機。

“之前兩次（危機）都是房地產市場崩盤導致，但關鍵是房產市場崩潰重創了銀行系統，導致信貸緊縮，隨后出現更嚴重的衰退。”單偉建表示。“上世紀90年代末，亞洲數百家銀行倒閉。我們（TPG）買了幾家。”他繼續說，差別在于在中國法律和銀行業規定的限制下，銀行在房地產市場的杠桿不高，風險也可控。

他列出了四個原因證明銀行業杠桿不高，所以銀行系統很安全。“首先，銀行放貸時不高于購買價格的70%到80%，”他表示，“說明購房者掌握大部分產權。第二，房價漲了很多，現有購房者已經支付了部分貸款，所以整體經濟中購房者持有的產權比例大概在50%左右。”

第三，中國人對償還房貸很負責。如果面臨贖回，他們不會像金融危機期間數百萬美國人一樣放棄了之。“舉例來說，亞洲金融危機期間，香港房主在虧本情況下也在堅持還房貸。”單偉建表示。“極少有贖回的案例，而在亞洲其他地區出現了贖回潮，市場上涌入了大量房子。”

第四個保障措施在于中國限制擁有多套住宅。“這意味著中國家庭的風險暴露低得多，不會滿足剛需后去買度假屋，再買一套投資。”他說。單偉建總結稱，即使房價下跌30%，對銀行系統幾乎構不成威脅。不過他也警告，房價下跌也有后遺癥，主要會影響“財富效應”。 “如果房價下跌，消費者感覺變窮，消費會減少，經濟增長將受影響。”他說。

下注中國消費者

毫不奇怪，單偉建最中意的投資領域是消費品和服務，他認為這些領域代表了中國的未來，而不是曾經推動中國崛起的重工業領域。“我們最看好的是醫療、醫藥、專業金融，還有食品飲料領域。”他表示。“畢竟中國有14億消費者，每年的消費越來越多，儲蓄越來越少。”

太盟投資在音樂領域獲得了巨大成功。單偉建解釋說，大概五年前，太盟投資向中國音樂集團投資了1億美元，多年來該公司不斷買入或授權音樂版權，幾乎囊括中國所有流行音樂，也包括進入中國市場的西方音樂。

但他表示，中國政府強力推行法律保護本土知識產權，法院執行方面也大力加強。而且，音樂愛好者也開始拒絕盜版商制作音質低劣的音樂。

2018年12月中旬，中國音樂集團與QQ音樂合并后的騰訊音樂娛樂集團在美國納斯達克上市，目前市值260億美元左右。太盟投資持有的股份價值數十億美元。“我們每月有8億獨立用戶。”單偉建表示。他表示，騰訊音樂發展的故事集中體現了中國如何由世界工廠轉變為世界市場。他說，完全開放市場不僅對中國消費者有利，也可以重振面臨困境的貿易伙伴關系，過去貿易合作推動了中國發展，未來也是關鍵。（財富中文網）

譯者：馮豐

審校：夏林

If you want to understand where China is heading, the best guide may be private equity veteran Weijian Shan. His take on his country’s current economic predicament: Its slowdown has only just begun, but its long-term health looks sound.

Shan’s perspective is so valuable because he views his homeland’s economy from three contrasting vantage points that few, if any, experts can match: As an on-the-ground dealmaker in his role as chief of PAG, Asia’s largest private equity firm; as a U.S.-trained, PhD economist; and as a figure whose personal story followed his nation’s rise, from the brutal oppression that exiled him into forced labor during the Cultural Revolution to the economic miracle that enabled him to bring billions of dollars in gains to his investors.

On a Tuesday evening in late January, I met Shan at a modest cafe on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Shan––who later mentioned he was attending a board meeting by phone later that evening––ordered a cup of hot water.

Though he lives and works in Hong Kong, Shan was in town to promote his new book, Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and America. It chronicles the nightmare of being torn from his family in Beijing as a teenager in 1969 and sent to the Gobi Desert, where he toiled as a laborer for six years. Shan relates how China’s liberalization under Deng Xiaoping enabled him to join the first generation dispatched by the government to study in the U.S.

Shan earned a doctorate in international business at U.C. Berkeley, where he wrote his PhD thesis under the tutelage of future Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, then joined the faculty at the Wharton School. The book’s epilogue is a heartbreaking account of his return the crumbling, abandoned barracks where he once toiled as a “barefoot doctor,” one of a cadre of rural Chinese given basic medical training to treat minor illnesses. He encountered old friends who turned to pig farming because they could no longer scratch a living from the parched soil. “We had spent so much of our youth battling nature to turn this land into arable farms,” he writes. “Eventually, nature prevailed and took it back.” This final chapter is a eulogy for his comrades, victims of the notorious “Cultural Revolution’ who “had been denied a future, wasting their best years when they should have been in school. For what?”

The end of an era in China

Out of the Gobi doesn’t encompass the business career that took him back to his homeland, but in our conversation, Shan noted that his ultimate ambition was to help provide the capital to build private enterprise in China and other Asian countries. After a five-year stint with J.P. Morgan in Hong Kong, he joined private equity colossus TPG in 1998. He spent the next 12 years at TPG, then in 2010 co-founded PAG, where he serves as chairman and CEO. He has built that firm into a giant with $30 billion in capital under management.

Shan is full of praise for China’s ascent over the past two decades, but he warns that the era of epic growth is ending. His observations blend what he sees in the C-suites in Shanghai and Beijing with his insights as an economist. “I wouldn’t be surprised if GDP falls to 6% in 2019,” he says, a rate below last year’s already disappointing 6.6%, one of the lowest readings since 1990.

Shan reckons that two short-term forces are contributing to the current softness, but cautions that it’s the durable, secular shift away from fast-expanding manufacturing that ensures that China will jog rather than sprint in the future.

The first of two immediate problems, he says, is a severe contraction in credit. “Two years ago, the government started cracking down on the ‘shadow banking’ network that provided most of the credit to the private sector,” he says, adding that private enterprise is dominated by small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in China. Beijing was worried that trust companies and other lenders in the “shadow” system were dangerously over-extended, and the motley group might crash, hobbling the economy.

At the same time, the government tried to ensure that the state-controlled banks kept credit flowing by dictating that they target at least 50% of their lending to SMEs. “But the big banks didn’t want to lend to private companies because they’re riskier credits,” says Shan. “They always wanted to loan money to the big state-owned enterprises, [SOEs] because they’re backed by the government, and totally safe.” Because the banks resisted, he says, “the quotas didn’t work.” His view: The private sector isn’t getting the bank financing it needs for new plants, medical facilities and stores––a phenomenon that’s now slowing the economy.

The second deadweight is the trade dispute with the U.S. “The direct impact on business is small,” he says. “But the impact on business confidence is large. The dispute is hitting confidence among Chinese producers, and discouraging them from investing.”

To help resolve the conflict, says Shan, China should lower its tariffs on U.S. imports, and lift barriers to U.S. ownership of Chinese companies. “That would lower prices to consumers on cars, cell phones and other U.S. imports, and also force Chinese rivals to become more competitive,” he says. “Making those products cheaper would give consumers more money to spend on other products, on appliances or groceries. And that would help growth. Since China is becoming much more of a consumer society, it’s getting more and more important to promote competition and efficiency in what’s now the bulk of the economy.”

Less manufacturing, slower growth

Indeed, says Shan, China’s shift from a manufacturing to consumer-led economy is what will inevitably slow its future growth. China’s economic destiny is being dictated by its demographics. It’s long been clear that the “one-child policy” would eventually constrict China’s workforce. (That policy was ended in 2015.)

For Shan, that problem was alleviated, and masked, by the giant migration from rural areas to the cities. “Exactly fifty years ago, when I was sent to the Gobi, China began the greatest ‘ruralization’ in human history,” says Shan. “Out of 160 million people living in cities, 16 million were sent to farms and barren areas. For the past twenty years, we’ve seen the greatest urbanization in human history. It’s that migration of peasants and farmers to urban factories that drove China’s industrialization.”

That trend, he now warns, has peaked. “China is now facing a tight supply of workers that’s driving up labor costs,” he says. “Labor costs have risen 11% a year for the past decade, while prices of the exports China manufactures are flat or declining. That’s why China is now losing exports to other Asian nations such as Vietnam and Indonesia.”

Chinese industry was once hungry for investment, and the Chinese, faced with a meagre choice of consumer goods at home, saved most of their incomes. Those savings swelled the bank deposits that funded China’s mighty rise in manufacturing. Those days are over. Today, a much bigger share of workers’ paychecks are going to Nike sneakers, fancy foods, and vacations in Hong Kong or Paris. “The old model of saving to invest no longer works,” says Shan. He points out that ten years ago, exports, a proxy for manufacturing, accounted for 36% of GDP and consumption 35%. Over that span, exports have dropped to 19% of national income, and consumption has jumped to 50%.

A nation driven by heavy investment in manufacturing is a lot more dynamic than an economy dominated by consumer spending, says Shan. “Private consumption produces lower growth than than manufacturing investment,” he notes. He explains that a growing industrial base creates a “multiplier effect.” Each trillion yuan in invested in a new factories contributes far more than that in economic growth by creating new jobs and still more factories to supply components and power. “Conversely,” says Shan, “consumption spending doesn’t provide a multiplier. It doesn’t provide the impetus for growth that investment in manufacturing does.”

Shan’s conclusion: The historic shift from manufacturing to consumption is bound to slow China’s future expansion. He adds, however, that China still has lots of room to improve its growth profile by downsizing the state-owned sector, and further encouraging expansion of private industry. And those sources of efficiency will be needed simply to sustain current levels of growth.

What about predictions that Beijing will enact a big stimulus package to re-ignite growth? Shan doesn’t think it will happen. “China certainly has the capacity to do it,” he says. “Its finances are in better shape than any other major economy. The central government’s debt to GDP ratio is just 17%, it has $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, and foreigners own a tiny amount of its sovereign debt.” But he predicts that the government will avoid opening the monetary floodgates. The policies of the past two years, he says, are specifically aimed at curbing what Beijing viewed as excess leverage for both consumers and businesses, potentially creating asset bubbles that once exploded, could sink the economy. For Shan, the government views the risks of excess credit as more damaging than the drag on growth from restricting credit.

A real estate bubble? Not likely

Some concerns about China center on the rapid escalation in prices for housing and other real estate, and the possibly disastrous aftershocks if prices fall sharply. Shan sees those fears as overblown: He doesn’t see a replay of the U.S. financial crisis of 2008 to 2010, or the Asian collapse in the 1997 and 1998.

“Both [those crises] were caused by a collapse in real estate, but the key is that the real estate collapse wrecked the banking system, causing a credit crunch that led to deep recessions,” says Shan. “In the late ’90s, hundreds of Asian banks failed; we [at TPG] bought several of them.” The difference, he continues, is that Chinese federal laws and banking guidelines have limited leverage in the real estate market, limiting the danger to the banks.

He lists four reasons that real estate isn’t dangerously leveraged, and hence why the banking system is well protected. “First, the banks will lend no more than 70% to 80% of the purchase price,” he says, “meaning the homebuyer has substantial equity. Second, prices have risen a lot, and existing homeowners have already paid down part of their loans, so their equity across the economy is more like 50%.”

A third factor: The Chinese are personally liable for the entire amount of their home loans. They can’t walk away if they face foreclosure, as millions of Americans did in the financial crisis. “In the Asian financial crisis, for example, homeowners in Hong Kong kept paying even when they were under-water,” says Shan. “There were few foreclosures, while in other parts of Asia, foreclosures flooded the market with homes.”

A fourth safeguard arises from the widespread restriction on owning more than one home. “That means the Chinese families are a lot less exposed than if they owned a main house, but also a vacation home and another place for investment,” he says. All told, Shan concludes that even if housing prices dropped 30%, that scenario would still would pose little threat to the banking system. Such a fall, he cautions, would still leave a big hangover– in the form of the “wealth effect.” “If housing prices fall and consumers feel a lot poorer, they’ll spend a lot less, and growth will falter,” he says.

Betting on Chinese consumers

Its hardly surprising that Shan’s favorite sector for investing is consumer products and services that he says are China’s future, rather than the heavy industry that once defined its incredible ascent. “We see the best opportunities in health care, pharmaceuticals, specialty finance, and food and beverage,” he says. “We’re talking about 1.4 billion consumers who are consuming more and saving less every year.”

PAG just scored a spectacular success in music. Shan explains that about just five years ago, PAG made a $100 million investment in China Music Corp, a company that for years was either buying up or licensing virtually every pop music copyright it could in China, and also for Western music targeting the Chinese market. “Those copyrights and licenses were selling for peanuts,” says Shan. “That’s because ten years ago there was so much pirating and illegal copying of music, that the copyright protections were almost worthless.”

But over time, he says, the government enacted strong new laws shielding China’s intellectual property, and the courts greatly improved enforcement. To boot, music lovers began shunning scratchy-sounding copies made by the pirating shops.

In mid-December 2018, Tencent Music Entertainment, created from a merger of China Music and QQ Music, went public on the Nasdaq, and now carries a market value of $26 billion. PAG’s holdings are worth a few billion dollars. “We have 800 million unique monthly users,” says Shan. The Tencent Music story, he says, epitomizes what he calls China’s shift from the world’s factory to the world’s market. Fully opening that market, says Shan, would both benefit the Chinese consumer, and reinvigorate the now-endangered trading partnerships that so enriched its past and are so crucial to its future.