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La
Repubblica del 23-8-2010

La
Cina? Per CNNMoney sarà la prossima bolla

Di Rosaria Amato

Alcuni lettori  qualche giorno fa si sono confrontati con molto
interesse sulle prospettive economiche e sociali del Brasile: hanno inviato
dati e raccontato esperienze di vita vissuta a sostegno della tesi secondo la
quale il Paese sudamericano possa diventare “il Paese del futuro”
o a sostegno della tesi opposta, secondo la quale lo Stato sudamericano ha
ancora troppi problemi da risolvere per aspirare in tempi brevi a un posto
tra le maggiori economie del pianeta. Allora, leggendo stamattina CNNMoney, la sezione economica del sito della CNN, ho
pensato di sottoporre la stessa questione ai lettori in relazione alla Cina.
Perché per gli analisti della CNN l’economia
cinese sarà con molta probabilità la prossima
‘bolla’(1) a scoppiare a danno degli investitori incauti.

Le ragioni, viene spiegato sinteticamente, stanno nel fatto che boom
edilizio e spesa delle famiglie, che attualmente stanno favorendo la
straordinaria crescita del Pil, “sono sostenute dai debiti”,
tanto che “l’anno scorso le banche cinesi hanno raddoppiato il
numero dei prestiti rispetto al 2008″, e i debiti privati hanno
raggiunto il 29% del Pil. Non solo: “I prezzi delle case stanno
continuando a salire, nonostante 65 milioni di abitazioni siano vuote”.

Verdetto: per CNNMoney l’economia cinese
costituisce una bolla, prossima a esplodere. I primi segni: “Il mercato
azionario cinese è arretrato quest’anno, e a luglio il manufatturiero ha segnato l’aumento minore in 17
mesi”. La Banca Centrale Cinese ha varato una stretta, “nel
tentativo di ridurre i prestiti facili”. Infine l’articolo cita
Jim Chanos, importante gestore di hedge fund, che da tempo vede
nero per l’economia cinese. In effetti le analisi di Chanos sono state molto contestate negli Stati Uniti, e
da mesi va avanti un dibattito che trova eco nei giornali. CNNMoney qualche giorno fa ha anche pubblicato
un’analisi più approfondita dell’economia cinese,
attraverso la quale, pur non parlando di bolla prossima a scoppiare, sostiene
che
la Cina non sarà il prossimo leader dell’economia mondiale nel
2030 (2), a differenza di quanto sostenuto da autorevoli economisti,
così come non lo è diventato il Giappone, che prima della grave
crisi che lo ha investito veniva indicato come il Paese che avrebbe
sorpassato gli Stati  Uniti.

La tesi di CNNMoney è piuttosto
minoritaria. Secondo le previsioni della Banca Mondiale, della banca
d’investimenti Goldman Sachs e altri analisti, la Cina supererà
il Pil degli Usa già intorno al 2025, diventando la prima economia del
mondo. Al momento, tuttavia, il reddito procapite dei cittadini cinesi, di
3.800 dollari all’anno, è ancora una frazione di quello dei
cittadini degli Usa e del Giappone. “La Cina è ancora un paese
in via di sviluppo – ha ammesso alcune settimane fa il capo
dell’ufficio governativo che regola il valore dello yuan, Yi Gang – e dobbiamo essere abbastanza saggi da
tenerne conto”. Dal 1987, quando sono iniziate le riforme e
l’apertura del mercato, il Paese è cresciuto ad un ritmo medio
del 9,5% all’anno, che però nei prossimi anni si dovrebbe
stabilizzare intorno a un più ‘modesto’ 7-8% annuo.

Proprio oggi il premier cinese Wen Jiabao nel corso di una visita a Shenzhen, la metropoli
industriale del sud della Cina, ha sottolineato che “senza una riforma
politica, la Cina potrebbe perdere quello che ha ottenuto attraverso la
ristrutturazione dell’ economia e gli obiettivi della modernizzazione
potrebbero non essere raggiunti”.

Nota 1

5 investing bubbles

Even after multiple
crashes, investors still tend to pile into overheated sectors. Where are the biggest risks today?

'A
fantastic time for bubbles'

Investors
have lived through the calamitous crashes of real estate and tech stocks in a
single decade. You'd think we would have learned to avoid the sort of
frenzied enthusiasm that causes an investing category to see its value
inflated beyond all reason. Alas, that is almost certainly not the case.

Didier Sornette, who studies bubbles and is a professor at the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, says low-interest-rate, low-return
environments, where everyone is looking for safe havens (sound familiar?),
are perfect for new investment manias. "This is a fantastic time for
bubbles," says Sornette. "Right now there
is not one bubble, but many, in our analysis." With a surprising
quantity of investing categories looking excessively frothy, Fortune decided
to examine some of the leading suspects -- and a few unexpected ones.

By
Stephen Gandel, contributor

Why it's hot

A decade-long boom has lifted many of China's 1.3 billion citizens out of
poverty, spurring epic consumption and building. As a result, China's stock
market has risen nearly 300% over the past 15 years.

Why it's worrisome

Much of that building and spending has been funded by debt. Last year Chinese
banks made twice as many loans as they did in 2008, boosting lending by the
equivalent of 29% of GDP. Housing prices continue to rise despite reports
that 65 million dwellings in China are vacant.

Verdict: a bubble

Cracks appear to be slowly forming. China's stock market is down this year, and in
July its manufacturing expanded at the slowest pace in 17 months. China's
central bank has tightened its policies in an effort to rein in risky
lending. Some savvy investors, including short-seller Jim Chanos,
have turned bearish. Chanos said in April that
China "is on a treadmill to hell."

Nota 2

China to dominate in
2030? Maybe not.

By Nin-Hai Tseng, reporterAugust 17,
2010: 4:18 PM ET

FORTUNE -- Now that Japan
has been knocked out by China as the world's second-biggest economy, the next
question is: When will it dominate the U.S.? The Asian powerhouse could
unseat the U.S. from the top spot as early as 2030, experts say, reconfirming
China's growing influence on economies in every corner of the globe.

But a lot could happen
over the next 20 years. Japan has been the world's second-largest economy for
most of the past four decades. At one point, there was even speculation that
Japan would eventually unseat the United States -- in the 1980s, Japan edged
very close, but not close enough.

But
unlike Japan, which has an older, smaller population and an economy that saw
lackluster growth for more than a decade, China has plenty more room to grow.
Its potential lies in the fact that about one-fifth of the world lives there
and virtually every major company looking to increase market share, from
General Electric (GE, Fortune 500) to Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500), has a strategy to somehow reach
those consumers.

But what does it really
mean for China to be the No. 2 economy in the world, let alone the No. 1? And
what could practically stand in the way of China eventually becoming the
world's biggest economy?

The all-important
demographics

For one, says Nicholas
Lardy, senior fellow with the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International
Economics, China's demographics are vastly changing, potentially constraining
its supply of workers. Although its population is about four to five times
bigger than the U.S., its prime working age population of 20 to 35 year-olds
is beginning to shrink as the country continues enforcing its policy limiting
couples to one child. What's more, the vast majority of the population living
in rural areas is either very old or very young. The huge cost of growth is
predicted to only continue to go up as demand rises for everything from
cleaner air and water.

The fact that China's
economy is driven so heavily on investments and exports will eventually catch
up with the country's leaders sooner rather than later. While China's exports
have remained strong amid uncertainties of the global economy -- in July,
exports rose 38.1% to $145.5 billion, and the trade surplus with the U.S.
widened by 46% to $28.7 billion -- demand for Chinese goods will likely drop
off considerably with lackluster U.S. growth and debt problems in parts of
Europe.

And if we look at the
value of China's GDP, it's clear that the country isn't necessarily richer.
It's just a lot bigger. For the three months ending in June, Japan's economy
was valued at $1.29 trillion. China came in higher at $1.34 trillion. But
they are still dwarfed by the U.S. economy, which had a GDP of $3.5 during
the same period.

Yet citizens of the U.S.
and Japan are still the richest in the world. America boasted an income per
capita of $42,240 last year, while Japan came close at $37,800. For its size,
China has made incredible strides in raising individual incomes, but it lags
far behind at nearly $3,600. Even if China trumps the U.S. economy in the
next two decades, income per capita will definitely still trail behind.

Growing influence

This is not to downplay
China's progress or its huge rising global influence. China reaches far, wide
and, in some cases, deep into many places and many sectors. Parts of Africa
and Latin America, including Colombia and Peru, have seen commodity prices
surge on demand from China for its natural resources. Even developed nations,
such as Australia and Canada, have seen steady growth from China's appetite
for everything from coal to oil. It also holds huge amounts of foreign
reserves and a large chunk of U.S. debt.

The International
Monetary Fund predicts China will grow steadily in the foreseeable future --
10.5% in 2010 and 9.6% in 2011. The great debate (if only other nations were
so lucky) is whether it will continue to grow at around 10% or will it drift
down to 8%.

Whether or not China
surpasses the U.S. economy may not be the point of the country's
extraordinary growth story. Indeed, milestones are memorable, but how
China grows will be the far bigger story than who it overtakes.

Update: An earlier
version of this story incorrectly compared the U.S.'s 2009 GDP of $14.6 trillion
with the GDP of China and Japan during the second quarter. The correct
comparison is with the U.S.'s second-quarter GDP of $3.5 trillion.