中国并非风景这边独好 英汉对照.docVIP

Shift of Economic Power to the East is a Complex Phenomenon By John Plender 2009-10-15 If there are winners from the financial crisis, many of them are, by common consent, in Asia. With the US economy punctured by Wall Street, China is widely perceived to be the global top dog designate. On this view, not only has the geopolitical balance shifted east but portfolio flows will follow suit. Welcome to the new investment reality. As with most conventional wisdom there is an element of truth in it. Chinas fiscal position is very strong relative to the West and its recovery has been very rapid. The region more generally has been spared the horrors of the banking crisis, having gone through financial fire in 1997-98. Where the problem arises is in translating economic growth into investment return. Shanghai has scarcely been a goldmine for investors. Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research notes that after the violent ups and downs of the past couple of years the Shanghai Composite in mid-September was about 3.5-4 times its level of 15 years ago, yielding a compound annual gain of 8.5-9 per cent. This, he rightly adds, is pretty dismal in a country with a 10 per cent trend rate of real growth, or average nominal growth of 15 per cent. And it is a very risky return at that, given the huge volatility of Chinese stock prices. The story is similar in much of the rest of Asia, with the notable exceptions of India and Hong Kong. In considering whether investors will do better in future, it is worth drawing a parallel with Japan in the 1980s. At that time Japans export-led growth thrust was in trouble. A model that had worked well for a small economy suddenly became a recipe for trade friction with the US and Europe, as Japan turned into a global economic giant. The bankruptcy of the model was then revealed by the collapse of twin stock market and real-estate bubbles and a subsequent banking debacle. During the boom, Japanese corporate capitalism was not exactly shareholder