While the world fights inflation, China’s problem is deflation


Zero-Covid policy has left the world’s second-largest economy out of sync with its peers. 6park.com
中国经济正在逐渐接近通货紧缩。通缩不但会使消费者推迟购买，而且对借款人来说也是一个问题。



From a property crisis to strict Covid controls to its lowest growth target in three decades, the Chinese economy is facing many problems. But inflation is not among them. 6park.com
从房地产危机到严格的新冠疫情防控，再到30年来最低的增长目标，中国经济正面临许多问题。但通胀并不在其中。 6park.com
 
Data released last week showed that consumer prices added 2.1 per cent year-on-year in October — the kind of moderated gain that western policymakers can only dream of. Producer prices, a measure of prices for goods as they leave factory gates, entered negative territory for the first time since 2020. 6park.com
上周发布的数据显示，10月份居民消费价格指数(CPI)同比上涨2.1%——这种温和的上涨是西方政策制定者梦寐以求的。工业生产者出厂价格指数(PPI)——衡量商品出厂价格的指标——自2020年以来首次同比下降。 6park.com
 
There are caveats. Producer prices fell against a high base last year, China’s National Bureau of Statistics noted, with prices in the metals and coal mining industry falling significantly. But without food and energy, core inflation was 0.6 per cent: consumer prices heavily rely on pork, which makes up a tenth of the basket and whose price rose 52 per cent in October after swine fever-related decimations of herds. 6park.com
有几点需要注意。中国国家统计局指出，PPI是从去年的高基数基础上下降的，其中金属和煤炭开采行业的价格大幅下跌。但如果扣除食品和能源，核心通胀为0.6%：CPI受猪肉影响严重，猪肉在食品篮子中占十分之一，在猪瘟相关的大量宰杀后，猪肉价格在10月份同比上涨了52%。 6park.com
 
While other big economies have been struggling to tame inflation during the pandemic retreated, China, where Covid-19 still dominates a languid economy and authorities continue to enforce lockdowns and mass testing, is grappling with the threat of deflation. As well as encouraging consumers to delay purchases in the hope of prices falling further, deflation is a problem for borrowers because it increases the real value of their debts, making them harder to repay compared with present-day incomes. 6park.com
其他大型经济体在疫情消退期间一直在努力抑制通胀，而中国正在努力应对通缩威胁。在中国，新冠疫情仍是经济疲软的主要因素，当局继续实施封锁和大规模检测。通货紧缩不仅促使消费者推迟购买，希望物价进一步下跌，而且对借款人来说也是一个问题，因为它增加了他们债务的实际价值，使其与当前收入相比更难偿还。 6park.com
 
“Deflation is worse than inflation in China for sure because it drives up the cost of borrowing for both consumers and corporates,” said Dan Wang, chief China economist at Hang Seng Bank China. Debts for corporates and local governments were still the country’s “highest financial risks”, she added. 6park.com
恒生银行（中国）(Hang Seng Bank China)首席经济学家王丹表示：“在中国，通缩肯定比通胀更糟糕，因为它推高了消费者和企业的借款成本。”她补充称，企业和地方政府的债务仍是中国“最大的金融风险”。 6park.com
 
The risk of high debt in China is encapsulated in its property crisis, which has in the past year seen waves of defaults across highly leveraged real estate developers and a fall in transactions. Deflation stood to increase pressure on households’ mortgage payments, Wang added, and a slower property market was indirectly putting “downward pressure” on consumption. 6park.com
中国的高负债风险集中体现在房地产危机上。过去一年，高杠杆的房地产开发商出现了一波又一波违约，交易量也在下降。王丹补充说，通货紧缩将增加家庭按揭贷款还款的压力，而房地产市场放缓也间接给消费带来了“下行压力”。 6park.com
 
“If people don’t buy an apartment, there will be pretty much no durable goods consumption.” 6park.com
“如果人们不买房，就几乎不会有耐用品消费。” 6park.com
 
The future of inflation in China is bound up with its zero-Covid policies. Although cases this week reached a six-month high, the government’s approach has for now meant that only a tiny fraction of the population has been infected almost three years after it emerged. The government slightly eased rules for inbound quarantine and contact tracing last week, but the timeline for any reopening remains uncertain. 6park.com
中国通胀的未来与其“清零”政策息息相关。尽管本周新增感染数量达到了6个月来的最高点，但中国政府目前的做法意味着，新冠疫情爆发近三年来只有很小一部分人被感染。上周，中国政府稍稍放宽了入境隔离和接触者追踪规定，但重新开放的时间仍不确定。 6park.com
 
Erin Xin, an economist for greater China at HSBC, notes that the government has been “fine tuning” its Covid policies and that a potential “gradual consumption recovery” could help with the demand side of inflation. 6park.com
汇丰(HSBC)大中华区经济学家Erin Xin指出，中国政府一直在“微调”其防疫政策，潜在的“逐步消费复苏”可能有助于通胀的需求侧。 6park.com
 
One of the few signs of inflation in China is food prices in big cities, which Wang suggests may be a result of the higher cost of transporting food between provinces, given strict travel restrictions under zero-Covid. 6park.com
中国通胀为数不多的信号之一是大城市的食品价格。王丹认为，这可能是因为在“清零”政策的严格出行限制下，在各省之间运输食品的成本上升。 6park.com
 
Otherwise, she notes household savings have been rising rapidly this year. This has a faint echo of what happened in western economies, which in 2020 also grappled with the threat of deflation and saw higher savings, before prices began to rise sharply in 2021. 6park.com
此外，她指出，今年中国家庭储蓄一直在快速增长。这有些类似于西方经济体之前的情况。2020年，西方经济体也曾努力应对通缩威胁，家庭储蓄增加，然后2021年物价开始大幅上涨。 6park.com
 
In China, the government has over the past year sought to gently ease monetary policy rather than unleashing vast stimulus of the kind seen in the US and Europe. But Beijing may be forced to provide such stimulus to its local governments, which shoulder many of the costs for zero-Covid and can no longer rely on land sales to developers. 6park.com
中国政府过去一年一直寻求温和放松货币政策，而不是像美国和欧洲那样释放大规模刺激。但北京方面可能被迫向地方政府提供这样的刺激，因为地方政府承担了“清零”政策的许多成本，而且不能再依赖于向房地产开发商出让土地。 6park.com
 
A rapid reopening in China combined with a shift in the government’s approach to stimulus could swing the pendulum on inflation, with profound implications for the world given the country’s demand for energy and its production of goods. 6park.com
考虑到中国对能源的需求及其商品生产，如果中国迅速重新开放，再加上政府刺激方式的转变，可能会改变通胀的钟摆，对世界产生深远影响。 6park.com
 
But for now, this is not a central scenario. China, under its Covid policy framework, is edging closer to deflation. For the rest of the world, this might provide an unexpected source of relief. 6park.com
但就目前而言，这并不是核心前景。在其防疫政策框架下，中国正在逐渐接近通缩。对世界其他地区来说，这可能是通胀缓解的一个意外来源。 6park.com