[双语]中国房地产：泡沫要破裂了吗？

Whether China’s real estate market is a bubble that could pop, knocking out Chinese growth and shaking the world’s economy, is a question that is now being asked by everyone from Brazilian iron ore traders to hedge fund managers in the City. In the first of a series on beyondbrics – with a separate series on FT.com – Jamil Anderlini, the FT’s Beijing bureau chief, says that whether it pops or not, the current situation is unsustainable.
中国房地产市场是否出现了可能破裂，影响中国经济增长并动摇全球经济的泡沫，这是从巴西铁矿石贸易商到伦敦金融城对冲基金经理的所有人都在问的一个问题。英国《金融时报》中文网从今天开始推出中国房地产专题，本文是这个专题的首篇文章。英国《金融时报》驻北京记者站站长吉密欧(Jamil Anderlini)在此文中表示，无论泡沫破裂与否，中国当前的局面是不可持续的。
   
It was not until the Chinese government decided to privatise much of the country’s urban residential housing stock in 1998 that most people in China had even considered the possibility of owning their own home.
在1998年中国政府决定将大部分城市存量住宅产权私有化之前，大多数中国人甚至都没有想过有一天能拥有自己的房子。
   
While official figures now show 89 per cent home ownership in the cities – a figure disputed by many – analysts argue that Chinese real estate constitutes the single most important sector for the health of the entire global economy today.
尽管现在的中国官方数据显示城镇居民住房自有率达到了89%（许多人对这个数字颇有争议），但分析师们指出，中国房地产是目前保持全球整体经济健康最重要的一个因素。
   
“Real estate and housing construction pervade the entire mainland [Chinese] growth model,” says Jonathan Anderson, economist at UBS, the Swiss bank. “They are the most important determinant of commodity demand, a very big marginal driver of China’s external surpluses and indeed a crucial key to real understanding of household balance sheets, saving and investment.”
瑞银(UBS)经济学家乔纳森-安德森(Jonathan Anderson)表示：“房地产和住房建设主导着中国内地的增长模式。它们是决定大宗商品需求的最重要因素，是中国外部盈余最大的非主流推动力，而且事实上是真正理解家庭资产负债表、储蓄和投资的关键因素。”
   
A visit to any Chinese city, with its forests of cranes and endless construction sites, should be enough to convince most casual observers of the importance of real estate in what is now the world’s second-largest economy.
去中国任何一座城市看看，密密麻麻的起重机和永不停歇的建筑工地，应该足以让最漫不经心的观察人士明白房地产在这个全球第二大经济体中的重要性。
   
And while there is no consensus among economists and analysts over whether rapid price rises and a massive construction boom do constitute a bubble, there is serious concern among some Chinese officials and recognition from almost everybody that the current growth is unsustainable over the long term.
尽管经济学家和分析师没有就中国房地产价格快速上涨和大规模建设热潮是否真的形成泡沫达成共识，但一些中国官员强烈担忧，长期而言，当前的增长是不可持续的，这一点几乎得到了所有人的认可。
   
By some estimates, China now consumes up to 50 per cent of key global commodities and materials such as cement, iron ore, steel and coal and Chinese real estate is the main driver of that demand.
按照一些人的估计，中国目前消费了全球多达50%的主要大宗商品和原材料，比如水泥、铁矿石、钢材和煤炭，而中国房地产是这种需求的主要推动因素。
   
For example, real estate construction directly accounts for about 40 per cent of Chinese steel usage.
例如，房地产建设直接占到中国钢材使用量的40%左右。
   
But when home appliances, automobile production, property-related infrastructure and other such property-dependant sectors are included, as much as two-thirds of total steel consumption in China is broadly driven by property spending.
但是如果把家用电器、汽车生产、与房地产相关的基础设施以及其它依赖房地产的行业考虑进去，中国高达三分之二的钢材消费量基本上是由房地产支出推动的。
   
Since last year, the Chinese government has been trying to rein in soaring real estate prices and limit over-investment in the middle- and high-end residential developments that have proliferated across the country.
自去年以来，中国政府一直在努力遏制房地产价格飙升，并限制遍布全国的对中高端住宅开发的过度投资。
   
At the same time, Beijing has launched an unprecedented campaign to build tens of millions of state-subsidised apartments to provide housing for the majority of Chinese citizens who can no longer afford to buy or rent their own home in the cities.
与此同时，中国政府史无前例地推出了建设数千万套政府保障性住房的计划，为不再负担得起在城市买房或租房的绝大多数中国居民提供住房。
   
This plan is intended to continue the investment and construction boom even as the commercial housing sector slows but it is also an attempt to address the widening disparities in Chinese society that have partly emerged as a result of such rapid growth.
该计划的目的是在商品住房市场放缓之际继续投资和建设热潮，但也是中国政府解决日益扩大的社会差距的一种尝试——在一定程度上这是中国如此高速增长所造成的。
   
Indeed, the rise of the Chinese real estate market has been accompanied by a range of unintended side-effects.
实际上，中国房地产市场的兴起一直伴随着一系列意料之外的副作用。
   
Some analysts estimate that actual home ownership in major cities is probably closer to 45 per cent rather than the official 89 per cent, once the huge rural migrant population living in urban areas is taken into account.
一些分析师估计，如果把居住在城市中的庞大农民工人口考虑在内，中国主要城市的实际住房自有率可能接近45%，而不是官方所说的89%。
   
Local governments now rely heavily on land sales to real estate developers for a huge portion of their revenues and the requisition of land belonging to ordinary citizens is probably the single biggest source of serious social unrest in the country.
地方政府目前很大一部分财政收入都严重依赖向房地产开发商出售土地，而向普通老百姓征地或许是中国严重社会动荡的一个最大来源。
   
While official data are often hard to interpret and recent readings show a mixed picture, the fate of the Chinese real estate market will have an impact on everyone from Australian miners to German exporters to US consumers.
尽管中国官方数据通常很难解读，而且最近数据显示经济形势好坏参半，中国房地产市场的命运仍将影响从澳大利亚矿商到德国出口商乃至美国消费者的所有人。
   
“From a macroeconomic perspective if you don’t understand Chinese property you probably don’t understand China,” says Mr Anderson. “And if you follow these commodities and industries [such as metals, cement, iron ore, coal, auto parts, construction equipment, power generation machinery etc], you are well advised to have the right call on the mainland property markets.”
安德森表示：“从宏观角度看，如果你不理解中国房地产，你大概就不会理解中国。如果你在追踪这些大宗商品和行业（比如金属、水泥、铁矿石、煤炭、汽车零部件、建筑设备、发电机械等等），你最好能对中国内地的房地产市场做出正确的判断。”