FT社评：新兴市场摸索自己的道路
2017年，虽然美联储(Fed)多次提高利率，石油减产压力推升油价，新任美国总统威胁要全方位发起贸易大战，但新兴市场这一年表现大致良好。
Growth was solid more or less throughout the emerging market world, inflation was more or less under control and there was even a reduction in vulnerabilities for some of the fragile countries with large current accounts. Emerging market equities, after the volatility of earlier years, went on a sustained rally.
整个新兴市场的经济增长大体稳定，通胀大体受到控制，一些经常账户赤字巨大的脆弱国家的脆弱性甚至有所下降。新兴市场股市在经历数年波动后开始持续上涨。
Their prospects for 2018 defy easy generalisation, which in some ways is all to the good. A world in which their stocks and bonds are treated as generic risk assets does no favours to the countries concerned nor, ultimately, to investors. Following the taper tantrum of 2013 and the sudden sell-off across the asset class in early 2016, the lack of a simple animating story for the group last year is a positive development.
它们在2018年的前景很难简单概括，这在某种程度上是好事。一个将股票和债券视为一般风险资产的世界，既不利于相关国家，最终也不利于投资者。继2013年的“削减恐慌”(taper tantrum)和2016年初整个新兴市场资产类别的突然抛售之后，去年新兴市场没有发生什么跌宕起伏的故事，这是一个积极的发展。
Emerging market monetary authorities, for example, are not on a synchronised cycle. Some Latin American central banks, with inflation pressures ebbing, have been cutting interest rates. Others in central and eastern Europe, and east Asia, have been tightening. Diverse domestic considerations are more important for the moment than common external conditions.
例如，新兴市场货币政策当局并不处于一个同步的周期。一些拉美国家的央行在通胀压力下降的情况下一直在降息。中东欧和东亚国家的央行则一直在收紧。现阶段，各不相同的国内因素比共同的外部条件更为重要。
The traditional patterns of emerging markets dancing to the tune of rich-country monetary policy, if not gone, are much weaker than before. A Fed hiking cycle, for example, traditionally creates problems for emerging markets with significant dollar borrowings, whether public or private, particularly if their currencies generally go up and down with the dollar.
新兴市场受富国货币政策摆布的传统模式即便没有消失，也比以前大为削弱。例如，美联储的加息周期传统上会给有大量美元借款的新兴市场带来问题，无论公共还是私人领域，尤其对于那些货币通常与美元一起上下波动的国家来说。
On this occasion, however, the slow and clearly signalled pace of US rate increases means they have been absorbed even by economies with large current account deficits with relative ease. Moreover, although the dollar went on a tear at the end of 2016 as the “Trump trade” took hold, it has since given back those gains, reducing the competitiveness problems for emerging markets. And while short-term interest rates have risen, long-term Treasury yields have been capped by expectations of slow growth and low inflation. It turns out, in other words, that expectations of Fed tightening induced far more tantrums than the tightening itself.
然而这一次，美国加息步伐缓慢而且给出了明确的信号，使得即使是经常账户赤字巨大的经济体也较为轻松地消化吸收。此外，尽管美元在2016年底因“特朗普交易”(Trump trade)影响经历了一次大涨，但后来已经回落，减少了新兴市场的竞争力问题。而且虽然短期利率有所上升，但长期国债收益率一直受增长缓慢和低通胀预期的束缚。换句话说，事实证明，对美联储收紧政策的预期比收紧政策本身引发了更多恐慌。
If the worrywarts about US inflation and bond prices are right and there is a sudden rise in yields, the traditional patterns could reassert themselves quite quickly. Yet there are fewer vulnerable economies than before. Even the “fragile five” countries of India, South Africa, Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia, named for their dependence on external financing, have generally reduced their current account deficits.
如果对美国通胀和债券价格的担忧是正确的、而且收益率突然上升，那么传统模式可能很快卷土重来。然而，脆弱经济体的数量比以前减少了。就连因依赖外部融资而得名“脆弱五国”的印度、南非、巴西、土耳其和印度尼西亚，也普遍减少了各自的经常账户赤字。
Other possible shocks include Mr Trump’s potential trade war and a sharp slowdown in China. Yet while the US president’s rhetoric about deficits remains frothy, any actions seem likely to be much more narrowly targeted on particular products from particular countries, such as steel and aluminium from China. As for the Chinese economy, debt levels remain high and the chance of a hard landing persists, but growth for the moment is solid and core inflation is contained, meaning that the People’s Bank of China has room to loosen if conditions worsen.
其他可能的冲击包括特朗普可能发动的贸易战以及中国经济急剧放缓。然而，虽然美国总统关于贸易逆差的言论依然空洞，但任何行动似乎都可能更集中地针对特定国家的特定产品，如产自中国的钢材和铝。至于中国经济，债务水平仍处于高位，硬着陆的可能性依然存在，但目前增长稳健，核心通胀受到控制，这意味着如果形势恶化，中国人民银行(PBoC)有放松政策的空间。
The fortunes of emerging markets can never be totally divorced from the lead given by the rich countries and their policymakers. But the fates of most of the big middle-income economies are, for the moment, largely in their own hands.
新兴市场的命运永远不可能完全脱离富裕国家及其政策制定者给予的引导。但目前而言，多数大型中等收入经济体的命运主要还是掌控在它们自己手中。
