习近平治下中国投资者面临残酷觉醒
中国领导人习近平与经济现实发生了碰撞。他对私营企业的打压严重拖累了经济。最脆弱的行业是房地产，尤其是住房。中国在过去二十年享受了长期的房地产繁荣，但如今这波增长正在走向终结。最大的房地产公司恒大集团负债过高，面临违约风险。这可能引发一场崩盘。
Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has collided with economic reality. His crackdown on private enterprise has been a significant drag on the economy. The most vulnerable sector is real estate, particularly housing. China has enjoyed an extended property boom over the past two decades, but that is now coming to an end. Evergrande, the largest real estate company, is over-indebted and in danger of default. This could cause a crash.
根本原因在于中国的出生率远低于统计数据所显示的水平。官方报告的数字严重高估了人口数量。习近平继承了这一人口结构，但他试图改变的努力却让情况变得更糟。
The underlying cause is that China’s birth rate is much lower than the statistics indicate. The officially reported figure overstates the population by a significant amount. Xi inherited these demographics, but his attempts to change them have made matters worse.
中产家庭不愿生育一个以上孩子的原因之一，是他们希望确保孩子能拥有光明的未来。因此，一个庞大的辅导行业应运而生，由美国投资者支持的中国公司主导。这类营利性辅导公司最近在中国被禁止，这成为在纽约上市的中国公司及空壳公司抛售潮的一个重要因素。
One of the reasons why middle-class families are unwilling to have more than one child is that they want to make sure that their children will have a bright future. As a result, a large tutoring industry has grown up, dominated by Chinese companies backed by US investors. Such for-profit tutoring companies were recently banned from China and this became an important element in the sell-off in New York-listed Chinese companies and shell companies.
中国政府的打压是真实存在的。在金融市场没有注意到的情况下，中国政府于 4 月悄悄收购了 TikTok 母公司字节跳动的股份，并获得了董事会席位。这一举措使北京方面在三人董事会中占据一席，并能直接接触到这家拥有全球最大个人数据宝库之一的公司的内部运作。市场更加意识到，中国政府正在入股阿里巴巴及其子公司，并取得有影响力的股份。习近平不了解市场如何运作。结果，抛售被允许过度进行。这让中国在全球的目标开始受到损害。认识到这一点后，中国金融当局不遗余力地安抚外国投资者，市场也以强劲反弹作为回应。但这是一个骗局。习近平将所有中国公司视为一党制国家的工具。买入这波反弹的投资者将面临残酷的觉醒。这不仅包括那些意识到自己在做什么的投资者，还包括数量更多的通过养老基金及其他退休储蓄而暴露其中的人。
The crackdown by the Chinese government is real. Unnoticed by the financial markets, the Chinese government quietly took a stake and a board seat in TikTok owner ByteDance in April. The move gives Beijing one seat on a three-person board of directors and first-hand access to the inner workings of a company that has one of the world’s largest troves of personal data. The market is more aware that the Chinese government is taking influential stakes in Alibaba and its subsidiaries. Xi does not understand how markets operate. As a consequence, the sell-off was allowed to go too far. It began to hurt China’s objectives in the world. Recognising this, Chinese financial authorities have gone out of their way to reassure foreign investors and markets have responded with a powerful rally. But that is a deception. Xi regards all Chinese companies as instruments of a one-party state. Investors buying into the rally are facing a rude awakening. That includes not only those investors who are conscious of what they are doing, but also a much larger number of people who have exposure via pension funds and other retirement savings.
养老基金经理的资产配置方式与其业绩衡量基准紧密挂钩。几乎所有人都声称，他们将环境、社会和治理（ESG）标准纳入投资决策。
Pension fund managers allocate their assets in ways that are closely aligned with the benchmarks against which their performance is measured. Almost all of them claim that they factor environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) standards into their investment decisions.
MSCI 所有国家世界指数（ACWI）是全球股权资产配置者最广泛跟随的基准。估计有 5 万亿美元是 passively managed（被动管理），即复制该指数。这个数倍的资金是 actively managed（主动管理），但也紧密追踪 MSCI 指数。
The MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) is the benchmark most widely followed by global equity asset allocators. An estimated $5tn is passively managed, which means that it replicates the index. A multiple of this amount is actively managed, but it also closely tracks the MSCI index.
在 MSCI 的 ACWI ESG Leaders 指数中，阿里巴巴和腾讯是前十大成分股之一。在贝莱德的 ESG Aware 新兴市场交易所交易基金中，中国公司占总投资的三分之一。这些指数实际上迫使属于美国投资者的数千亿美元流入那些公司治理不达标的中国公司——权力和问责权现在由一个人行使，而这个人不对任何国际机构负责。
In MSCI’s ACWI ESG Leaders Index, Alibaba and Tencent are two of the top 10 constituents. In BlackRock’s ESG Aware emerging market exchange-traded fund, Chinese companies represent a third of total investments. These indices have effectively forced hundreds of billions of dollars belonging to US investors into Chinese companies whose corporate governance does not meet the required standard — power and accountability is now exercised by one man who is not accountable to any international authority.
美国国会应通过一项两党法案，明确要求资产管理公司仅投资于实际治理结构透明且与利益相关方一致的公司。这一规则显然应适用于养老金及其他退休投资组合所选择的业绩基准。
The US Congress should pass a bipartisan bill explicitly requiring that asset managers invest only in companies where actual governance structures are both transparent and aligned with stakeholders. This rule should obviously apply to the performance benchmarks selected by pensions and other retirement portfolios.
如果国会实施这些措施，它将赋予美国证券交易委员会保护美国投资者所需的工具，包括那些不知情地持有中国股票及中国空壳公司的投资者。这也符合美国及更广泛的国际民主社会的利益。
If Congress were to enact these measures, it would give the Securities and Exchange Commission the tools it needs to protect American investors, including those who are unaware of owning Chinese stocks and Chinese shell companies. That would also serve the interests of the US and the wider international community of democracies.
SEC 主席加里·根斯勒多次警告公众投资中国所面临的风险。但选择在中国投资的外国投资者发现，要认识到这些风险异常困难。他们看到中国面对过许多困难，却总能化险为夷。但习近平领导下的中国不是他们认识的那个中国。他正在建立毛泽东式政党的更新版本。没有投资者有过那个中国的经验，因为毛泽东时代没有股票市场。因此，等待他们的是一场残酷的觉醒。
SEC chair Gary Gensler has repeatedly warned the public of the risks they take by investing in China. But foreign investors who choose to invest in China find it remarkably difficult to recognise these risks. They have seen China confront many difficulties and always come through with flying colours. But Xi’s China is not the China they know. He is putting in place an updated version of Mao Zedong’s party. No investor has any experience of that China because there were no stock markets in Mao’s time. Hence the rude awakening that awaits them.