外刊听读| 经济学人 中国资本外流

Capital controls

资本管制

In full flight

全速外流

As Chinese tourists venture overseas, their money will follow them

随着中国游客去海外旅游，他们的钱也一同前去

 

A RAILWAY TOUR of Laos, a trip to the far corner of Russia to see the Northern Lights, or a polar cruise in the Arctic. These are some of the adventurous options being marketed in China as the country reopens. The urge to travel seems strong: Ctrip, a travel agent, has reported a quadrupling of inquiries in the space of a month; students are searching more for study-abroad opportunities, too. In Macau, a gambling centre, two of the fanciest hotels are fully booked this month. If pre-pandemic patterns reassert themselves, China’s travel spending could increase by $160bn this year, according to Natixis, a bank.

 

老挝铁路旅行，去俄罗斯的偏远地区看北极光，或者是乘船游览北极风光。随着中国重新开放，这些是在中国不断推销的一些旅行选择。人们旅游的冲动似乎很强烈:据旅行社携程报道，在一个月的时间里，旅游咨询量翻了两番；学生们也在更多地寻找出国留学的机会。在博彩中心澳门，两家最高档的酒店本月被预订一空。根据法国外贸银行的数据，如果疫情前的旅行模式重新发挥作用，今年中国的旅游消费将增加1600亿美元。

 

After three years of covid-19 restrictions, this wanderlust is understandable. But alongside the obvious motives—sun, sea, sand and study—is another unstated one: spiriting money out of the country. Capital controls limit the foreign currency Chinese citizens can buy. The movement of people across borders creates cover for the movement of money. In 2017, for example, China’s authorities reported how an individual from Tianjin got hold of 39 bank cards and withdrew more than C$2.4m ($1.8m) “in the name of studying abroad”.

 

经过三年的新冠肺炎管制，这种旅行癖是可以理解的。但是除了这些显而易见的动机——阳光、大海、沙滩和学习——还有另一个没有明说的动机:把钱带出这个国家。资本管制限制了中国公民可以购买的外汇。人员跨境流动为资金流动提供了掩护。例如，2017年，中国当局报告称，一名天津人持有39张银行卡，并“以留学为名”提取了逾240万加元(合180万美元)。

 

A paper published in 2017 by Anna Wong, then at America’s Federal Reserve, tried to calculate how much money was leaking out of China by this route. She examined a variety of sources in 20 popular destinations, including their balance of payments, their tallies of visitor numbers and surveys of how much a typical Chinese visitor spends. This allowed her to compare outbound spending reported in China’s balance of payments with its mirror image: inbound spending reported by countries of destination. In principle, the inbound and outbound measures should have matched. From 2014, though, a large gap emerged between the two. It reached $100bn in 2015, or 1% of China’s GDP. Ms Wong found a similarly large gap between China’s reported travel expenditure and the level predicted by an economic model, based on factors like the GDP of destination countries, their distances from the mainland and China’s own economic size.

 

2017年，美联储的Anna Wong发表了一篇论文，试图推测出有多少资金通过这种途径流出中国。她调查了20个热门旅游目的地的各种信息来源，包括它们的国际收支、游客数量统计以及普通中国游客的消费调查。这使她能够将中国国际收支平衡表中报告的出境支出与其镜像(目的地国报告的入境支出)进行比较。原则上，入境资金和出境资金应该相匹配。然而，从2014年开始，两者之间出现了巨大的差距。2015年达到1000亿美元，相当于中国GDP的1%。王女士发现，中国报告的旅游支出与一个经济模型预测的水平之间存在类似的巨大差距，该模型基于目的地国家的GDP、它们与中国内地的距离以及中国自身的经济规模等因素。

 

Since then, policymakers have tightened the country’s capital controls and scrutinised transactions more closely. They have also revised past data, removing some illicit financial transactions from figures for travel spending. But a suspicious gap persists. China’s own figures for travel spending still exceed those derived from destination countries and global sources. In a report released on February 14th Natixis estimated that the gap was almost $68bn in 2020 (roughly 0.5% of China’s GDP), despite the sharp drop in travel.

 

自那以后，政策制定者收紧了该国的资本管制，并更加密切地审查交易行为。他们还修改了过去的数据，从旅游支出数据中剔除了一些非法金融交易。但是可疑的缺口依然存在。中国自己的旅游支出数据仍然超过了来自目的地国家和全球的数据。在2月14日发布的一份报告中，法国外贸银行估计，尽管旅游大幅下降，但2020年的缺口仍接近680亿美元(约为中国GDP的0.5%)。

 

As China reopens, chances for circumventing capital controls will increase. The country’s currency is stable and growth this year looks likely to be strong, but Chinese households accumulated a large stash of deposits in the pandemic. The property market, historically a favoured destination for the country’s wealth, remains moribund. Thus many will be keen to diversify their assets. Most people travel to broaden their horizons. The Chinese also like to broaden their portfolios.

 

随着中国重新开放，规避资本管制的机会将会增加。该国货币稳定，今年的增长看起来可能会很强劲，但中国家庭在疫情期间积累了大量存款。在过去，中国财富青睐的目的地为房地产市场，但该市场仍处于停滞状态。因此，许多人将热衷于分散他们的资产。虽然大多数人旅行是为了开阔视野，但中国人也喜欢拓宽自己的投资组合。