John Kuhns was in Hong Kong at the end of January, visiting local branches of his mainland banks in search of money. That was because “my banks told me they might only be able to provide 60 per cent of what they lent last year, given restrictive new quotas”, says the head of China Hydroelectric, a Beijing-based investor in hydropower.

　　中華水電(China Hydroelectric)首席執(zhí)行官約翰?庫恩斯(John Kuhns) 1月底在香港，到其內地銀行的本地分支機構尋找資金。庫恩斯是一位美國人，從上世紀90年代開始就一直活躍在中國的發(fā)電行業(yè)，他所在的中華水電總部位于北京。他表示，他當時去香港是因為“我的銀行告訴我，鑒于限制性的新額度，它們可能只能提供去年貸款的60%”。

　　But there was no need for alarm, these bankers added, according to Mr Kuhns, an American who has been active in Chinese power generation since the 1990s. “They said: ‘If you need more, we can help you arrange a bond issue in Hong Kong. Or we can help you set up a trust company to obtain more money.’?”

　　但庫恩斯表示，這些銀行家也告訴他無需恐慌。“他們說：‘如果你需要更多資金，我們可以幫你在香港安排債券發(fā)行?；蛘?，我們可以幫你組建一家信托公司，以獲得更多資金。’”

　　Welcome to the unofficial financial realm that has sprung up outside China’s heavily regulated banking system. At the same time as banks in China – under orders from a government anxious to rein in a lending boom – act to cut their credit to China Hydroelectric and other borrowers, their Hong Kong arms are offering alternative arrangements. Mr Kuhns says he was told he could raise as much as HK$3bn ($385m) in bonds tied to the value of the renminbi, an amount far greater than he needed.

　　歡迎來到在中國監(jiān)管森嚴的銀行體系之外已蓬勃興起的非官方金融王國。當在急于控制貸款熱潮的政府的命令下，中國內地銀行采取行動，減少對中華水電及其它借款者的貸款時，它們在香港的分支機構卻在提供其他的安排。庫恩斯表示，有人告訴他，他可以通過與人民幣掛鉤的債券，籌集高達30億港元（合3.85億美元）的資金，遠遠超出他的需求。

　　The message he had received in Beijing was the same as that conveyed to countless other borrowers across China as the authorities try to control credit growth. This year, with inflation running at almost 5 per cent and expected to rise, the government has signalled that it is serious about adopting a more restrictive policy.

　　在中國政府努力控制信貸增速之際，他在北京獲得的信息與傳達給中國各地無數其它借款者的信息是一樣的。今年，中國的通脹率幾乎達到5%，預計還會繼續(xù)上升。中國政府已表明，對于采取限制性更強的政策，其態(tài)度是認真的。

　　But can it? In response to the heavy hand of the regulators, a host of grey-market institutions and arrangements has sprung up precisely to get around formal restrictions in China’s heavily controlled financial markets. Analysts say annual flows could involve Rmb2,000bn ($305bn) – equivalent to about one-third of gross domestic product.

　　但它能做到嗎？面對監(jiān)管機構的強硬手段，中國涌現出了大量灰色市場機構和安排，就是為了繞開管控嚴格的中國金融市場的正式規(guī)定。分析人士表示，年度資金流動可能達到2萬億元人民幣（合3050億美元），約相當于國內生產總值(GDP)的三分之一。

　　“The People’s Bank of China has difficulty in controlling liquidity and getting the banks to meet the loan quotas,” says Francis Cheng at CLSA in Hong Kong. He reckons the banks account for only half of total financing. The rest comes from a variety of trust companies, finance companies, leasing companies and underground banks. All of them are less regulated than the banks, subject to conflicting regulators or not regulated at all.

　　里昂證券(CLSA)駐香港的鄭名凱(Francis Cheng)表示：“中國人民銀行(PBoC)很難控制流動性，讓銀行按額度放貸。”他估計，銀行僅占中國融資總額的一半。其余部分來自各種信托公司、金融公司、租賃公司和地下銀行。它們要么受到的監(jiān)管不如銀行那么嚴格，要么受到互相沖突的監(jiān)管機構的監(jiān)管，要么根本不受監(jiān)管。

　　Yet Beijing operates as if the banks account for all of the financing. That is one reason credit growth has continued to exceed official targets, fuelling the inflation that worries Beijing.

　　然而，中國政府的做法就好像所有的融資全都來自銀行。這就是中國的信貸增速總是超出官方目標的一個原因，引發(fā)了令中國政府擔憂的通脹。

　　Some senior banking officials deny the very existence of the informal sector. “The term ‘shadow banking’ doesn’t really apply to China,” says Jiang Jianqing, chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of the country’s biggest banks. “There are no financial institutions outside the supervisory and regulatory system here.”

　　一些銀行業(yè)高級官員甚至否認非正規(guī)領域的存在。“‘影子銀行’這個詞不太適用于中國，”中國四大國有銀行之一——中國工商銀行(ICBC)的董事長姜建清表示。“這里沒有游離于監(jiān)督和監(jiān)管體系之外的金融機構。”

　　Whether Beijing succeeds or not in reining in informal fund flows is important, since the fate of these restrictions provides clues to the future direction of China’s economy. If credit growth became too great, China would face more inflation in the short term and possible excess capacity in the longer term. That could lead to a resumption of the profitless growth that China is trying to leave behind. If inflation remained high, social unrest would become increasingly likely.

　　中國政府能否成功遏制非正規(guī)資金流很重要，因為這些限制措施的命運預示著中國經濟未來的走向。如果信貸增長變得過快，中國短期內將面臨更多通脹，較長期內或許會遭遇產能過剩。這可能會導致中國一直在努力擺脫的“無利潤增長”重現。如果通脹持續(xù)高企，社會出現不穩(wěn)定的可能性就會越來越大。

　　If, conversely, China slammed the monetary brakes on too hard, it would have a big contractionary impact both at home and abroad, given that Chinese imports have become an important source of global growth.

　　相反，鑒于中國進口已經成為全球增長的一個重要源頭，如果中國的貨幣剎車踩得過猛，在國內外都會產生重大收縮性影響。

　　Monetary policy matters more in China than it does in most developed markets, because the ability to allocate capital remains largely the preserve of the state. It is where financial power and political power intersect.

　　貨幣政策對中國比對大多數發(fā)達市場都更重要，因為中國的資金配置能力仍主要掌握在政府手中。金融力量與政治權力在這里交叉。

　　One main spur to the shadow financial world has been the strict rules in place on the price of money. The shadow system has developed because interest rates in the formal financial sector are tightly controlled – and kept within a narrow band. So banks prefer to lend to large state enterprises that can be relied on to repay.

　　刺激影子金融世界形成的一個主要因素是中國對貨幣價格的嚴格規(guī)定。影子體系得以發(fā)展壯大，是因為正規(guī)金融領域的利率受到嚴格管制，并保持在狹窄的區(qū)間內。因此，銀行更愿意貸款給可以指望其償還資金的大型國有企業(yè)。

　　They will never be blamed for lending to these giant enterprises; indeed, that is what they are supposed to do. Dealing with the state sector buys the lenders political goodwill and puts the individual bankers making the loans in a good light. By contrast, the banks have virtually no incentive to lend to private enterprises, since they cannot charge higher rates to compensate for the greater risk of lending to entities that often have less collateral.

　　它們永遠不會因為貸款給這些大企業(yè)而受到批評；實際上，這似乎就是它們該做的。與政府部門打交道讓銀行獲得了政治名譽并讓個人銀行家在有利的情況下放款。相比之下，銀行幾乎沒有貸款給私營企業(yè)的動機，因為它們無法收取更高的利息，以彌補貸款給通常抵押較少的機構的較大風險。

　　Yet China boasts an ever growing number of entrepreneurs and other wealthy individuals with excess savings. They have no desire to put their money in a bank when real interest rates on deposits are negative. They are therefore happy to put money into informal channels that lend to cash-strapped young private companies that will pay 20-30 per cent a year to obtain it.

　　然而在中國，擁有過多儲蓄的企業(yè)家和其他富裕個人數量正在不斷增多。在實際存款利率為負值之際，他們無意把錢存入銀行。因此，他們樂于把資金投入非正規(guī)渠道，借給那些資金拮據的年輕私營企業(yè)，每年收取20%至30%的利息。

　　“Without interest rate deregulation, you will drive more money underground,” says Christina Chung at RCM Asia Pacific in Hong Kong, a fund manager. “It is difficult to reduce the importance of the black market until financial reforms take place and banks have the incentive to lend to small and medium enterprises and diversify their loan books.”

　　“如果不放開利率，就會推動更多資金轉入地下，”基金管理公司RCM Asia Pacific駐香港的鐘秀霞(Christina Chung)表示。“除非進行金融改革，讓銀行有動機貸款給中小企業(yè)并實現貸款的多樣化，否則就難以降低黑市的重要性。”

　　“Credit quotas are ineffective,” adds Qiang Liao, a director of Standard & Poor’s in Beijing and a former official at the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission. “Non-banks such as trust companies are a response to a regulated interest rate regime.”

　　 “信用額度沒什么作用，”標準普爾(Standard & Poor)駐北京董事、曾在中國銀監(jiān)會(CBRC)任職的廖強表示。“信托公司等非銀行機構是對受到監(jiān)管的利率機制作出的回應。”

　　The trust companies are often at the heart of these new kinds of money flows, operating in a murky domain where the official banking system meets the shadow banking system. The trust companies cater largely to two groups of clients: private companies that need capital and cash-rich families in search of higher returns.

　　信托公司通常處在這些新類型資金流動的中新，運營在正規(guī)銀行體系與影子銀行體系交匯的陰暗領域。信托公司主要為兩類客戶服務：需要資金的私營企業(yè)以及資金充裕尋求更高回報率的家庭。

　　The trust companies and other shadow institutions are particularly active in the politically sensitive real estate market. Informal money flows are a big reason why property prices continue to rise. Across China, money continues to flow into apartment blocks, gleaming office towers and shopping malls. Since developers cannot borrow money from banks until they own the land, many need to raise funds elsewhere. As they are willing to pay upwards of 10 per cent for the privilege, that sort of return attracts lots of interest from those with a surplus to invest.

　　信托公司等影子機構在頗具政治敏感性的房地產市場上尤為活躍。非正規(guī)資金流是房地產價格持續(xù)上漲的一個重要原因。在中國各地，資金繼續(xù)流向住宅樓、熠熠生輝的辦公大樓和購物中心。由于開發(fā)商在擁有土地前無法從銀行借款，因此有很多開發(fā)商需要從別處籌集資金。它們愿意為此多付出10%的利息，那些有盈余資金可供投資的人對此頗感興趣。

　　So when Banyan Tree, a Singapore-based resort company, was looking to raise a Rmb1.1bn fund for China, it turned to established entrepreneurs and high net worth individuals whom it tapped through wealth management consultants. “Institutional investors in China are not mature enough to understand the concept and give us their money,” says a Banyan Tree executive. “Wealthy entrepreneurs can make decisions very quickly.”

　　因此，當新加坡度假酒店公司悅榕集團(Banyan Tree)考慮為中國市場設立一只11億元人民幣的基金時，它求助的是通過理財顧問篩選出來的著名企業(yè)家和高凈值個人。“中國的機構投資者還不夠成熟，它們無法理解這個概念，不會把資金交給我們，”該公司的一名高管表示。“富有的企業(yè)家能夠非常迅速地做出決定。”

　　Virtually everyone has a stake in keeping the game going and turning a blind eye to edicts from Beijing. Since the trust companies are supposed to be simply intermediaries and cannot collect deposits from retail customers, Beijing is not all that bothered about them, bankers say. Banks themselves take advantage of less regulated institutions, shifting loans off their balance sheets by selling them to the trust companies, which slice them up and distribute them to their clients. That enables the banks to make more loans. “Innovative tools can make credit simply not appear,” says Helen Qiao, an economist with Goldman Sachs in Beijing.

　　 讓游戲繼續(xù)進行下去，對中國政府的法令視而不見，幾乎與每個人都利害攸關。銀行家們表示，由于信托公司應該是單純的中介機構，無法吸納散戶的存款，因此政府對它們并不是很擔心。銀行本身則利用監(jiān)管不那么嚴格的機構，把貸款出售給信托公司，再由信托公司將貸款切割發(fā)放給客戶，由此將貸款從銀行的資產負債表上轉移出去。這讓銀行擴大了放貸規(guī)模。高盛(Goldman Sachs)駐北京經濟學家喬虹(Helen Qiao)表示：“創(chuàng)新性工具能夠讓信貸隱身。”

　　與此同時，地方政府依靠賣地為自己的活動融資。因此，它們樂于確保開發(fā)商擁有資金在土地拍賣會上大肆抬高報價。在很多情況下，地方政府就是幫助開發(fā)商為買地融資的信托公司的所有者，并在此過程中收取費用。最后，在那些擁有資金并希望獲取高額回報的人中也不乏市政高官的身影。