短线观点:中国试图控制债市

In China, it isn’t so much what is said but who says it. Few market followers can have been surprised by a warning that China’s rising leverage poses risks. But this one came from Li Keqiang, China’s premier, to the National People’s Congress. The impression left by the Chinese premier was that Beijing’s emphasis is now on controlling risks — deleveraging in other words — as much as growth. China’s fast-evolving bond markets are already reflecting this shift.

在中国，比说了什么更重要的是谁在开口说。没什么市场观察人士会对中国不断上升的杠杆带来各种风险这一警告感到意外。但这一次是中国总理李克强在向全国人大会议讲话时发出的警告。中国总理给人留下的印象是，北京方面现在的重点是增长和控制风险（换句话说就是去杠杆）并重。中国快速演变的债券市场已经在反映这种转变。

Borrowing costs in China have been rising rapidly, and in some cases faster than US rates. Yields on two-year government bonds have jumped 42 basis points this year, compared with 11bp in the US. And there is almost a full percentage point gap between yields on Chinese 10-year bonds and their US counterparts, which is double the gap three months ago. Largely as a result of higher rates at home, mainland companies have for the first time ever issued more bonds overseas than domestically in the first two months of this year.

近来中国的借款成本在快速上升，在某些情况下比美国的加息步伐更快。两年期政府债券的收益率今年以来上涨了42个基点，远高于美国国债的11个基点。中国10年期国债与美国10年期国债的收益率几乎相差整整一个百分点，是三个月前收益率之差的两倍。今年头两个月首次出现了中国企业在海外债券发行量超过国内的情况，主要原因就是国内利率较高。

The driver for these moves can be found in China’s short-term money markets, where the central bank has been broadening the range of its operations. A year ago the People’s Bank of China fine-tuned its influence by starting daily liquidity operations. Last month it raised short-term repo rates for the first time since 2013 and lifted longer-term money market rates for the first time since their creation in 2014. The net effect is a tightening without resorting to the blunt instrument of raising headline interest rates and risking an economic slowdown. Hence monetary policy can still be described officially as “neutral”.

这些举动的驱动力可在中国的短期货币市场中找到，在这里，中国央行正在拓宽其操作范围。一年前，中国人民银行(PBoC)开始通过每日流动性操作来微调其影响力。上月，它自2013年以来首次提高短期回购利率，同时提升较长期货币市场利率（这是此类利率自2014年创建以来的首次）。这些操作的净效应是收紧流动性，同时无需付诸提升整体利率之类的生硬工具，然后承受经济放缓的风险。因此，货币政策仍然可以被堂而皇之地形容为“中性”。

Any direct transmission of policy from lifting short-term rates to longer-term ones is not a given in China, where markets are expanding rapidly but not all at the same pace in terms of either size or sophistication. Onshore bond markets grew 32 per cent last year to Rmb64tn ($9.3tn). That is huge by any standards. But the problem for investors is reading that expanded market amid figuring out what the PBoC wants to achieve. For all its increased involvement, it does not target a single rate as its peers do. Amid the guesswork one thing remains clear: with lending reaching a new record in January, Mr Li and the PBoC still have some way to go in their risk-controlling efforts.

在中国，政策从短期利率向较长期利率的任何直接传递都不是一件板上钉钉的事情；中国的各个市场都在快速扩大，但在规模或先进程度方面步伐各有不同。在岸债券市场去年增长32%，达到64万亿元人民币（合9.3万亿美元）。无论按照什么标准，这都是巨大的。但投资者的问题在于，如何在揣摩中国央行想要实现什么目标的大背景下，解读市场的扩大？因为尽管中国央行加大了参与，但它并不像其它国家的央行那样，设定一个单一的目标利率。在所有猜测中，有一件事情仍是清楚的：在1月新增贷款创下新纪录的情况下，李克强和中国央行在他们的风险控制努力方面还有一段路要走。