The CSI 300 index of China’s biggest listed companies, which had soared more than 150 per cent over last year’s levels, plunged almost 40 per cent in little more than a month before moves to prop up the market halted the fall.
There’s nothing unusual about governments stepping in to cushion stock market collapses. Central banks in the United States, Japan and Europe have all moved in recent times to buy shares and ease credit in order to turn around stock market crashes. But there was more than a whiff of panic about the moves to stop the stock market rout in China. Aside from easing interest rates (a move that might be taken further in a deflationary economy that is operating under potential), the regulators capped short selling; pension funds were pledged to buy more stocks; initial public offerings were suspended, and brokers were cashed up by the central bank to buy more shares.
China’s stock market is still very underdeveloped. Its absolute size, measured in volume of turnover, has more than doubled over the past year. But it still plays a surprisingly small role in the economy. It’s about a third of GDP, by one measure, compared with more than 100 per cent in developed economies. Less than 15 per cent of household financial assets are invested in the stock market. That’s why rising share prices did little to boost consumption and why falling prices will do little to hurt it. The players in the market are small. Institutional investment is underrepresented. Corporations do not yet rely on equity financing for investment. The connection between the stock market and China’s economic performance is much weaker than in developed economies.
Then why was there a touch of policy panic around managing what would seem like a side problem? The context of Europe’s unravelling gave pause to even cool, experienced policy hands around the world. Experience and depth in managing financial markets is a commodity that’s understandably still in short supply in China. Xiao Gang, Chair of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, is under particular pressure. Premier Li Keqiang had with good reason emphasised the growth and reform of the stock market as a facilitator of the emergence of the new, entrepreneurial edge of the Chinese economy. But that’s no short-term job. There’ll be missteps. Yet pinning over-reaction on President Xi’s inclination to reach for the armoury of the state is too simple (though for some, politically convenient) an explanation of how the Chinese state has responded to this event.
By some accounts outside China, the sudden end to the rally and the multi-pronged scramble to stop its collapse is the first major dent in the public standing of the Xi-Li reform team. If they are pro-market reformers, the argument runs, let the market take its course. That, of course, is the wrong inference: but it hints at another risk.
The immediate reaction of the authorities to the gyrations of the Chinese stock market over the past year may have been a little ham-fisted but it presents no serious threat to reforms that are necessary to capture the economic benefits of financial market deepening and opening to global financial markets. The main risk to the ongoing transition of the Chinese economy to steadily higher incomes would arise were Xi and Li, seared by optics of this bump along the way, to be deterred from their commitment to comprehensive financial market and capital account reform.
Today, the sustainability of Chinese growth is at the front of everybody’s mind. And the challenges facing Chinese policymakers have never appeared more real since historically most other countries have failed to graduate into high-income status after reaching a stage of development that is similar to that in China now. With Chinese growth visibly and persistently slowing the bears are coming out of the woods.
China’s growth model is already changing, evidenced by a narrowing current account surplus, rising shares of consumption and services in the economy, an improving income distribution and higher wage shares in income. There’s still quite a way to go. So far, the positive changes have been mainly triggered by changes in the labour market.
At the core of the task ahead will be China’s steady-handed delivery of its financial reform agenda. Financial reform is the critical first step. Financial repression results in an enormous misallocation of capital. It favours particular regions, privileges state-owned enterprises, shields the banking sector from the need to build risk-management capacity, and starves the more dynamic private sector of competitive funding. The next and complementary step is capital account liberalisation that links investment in domestic and international capital markets.
And it seems likely that purchase on political legitimacy with China’s new middle class will depend primarily on success in this next phase of economic reform. So it is important that President Xi and Premier Li show no signs of losing the stomach for it.
Peter Drysdale is Emeritus Professor and Head of the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research and co-Editor of East Asian Forum in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. This article was published in the Australian Financial Review today.
I am dismayed at how some academics these days use incomprehensible language and euphemisms that make me rather annoyed. For example,”a whiff of panic”; “a touch of policy panic”;”missteps”;”reach for the armoury of the state “; “ham-fisted “;”seared by optics of this bump”; “purchase on political legitimacy”. I simply have no idea what you are saying. And why on earth write such a condescending article, unbecoming of a well respected academic. All you seem to do is point out China’s weaknesses relative to rich affluent nations.
Many thanks for this feedback. I’m sorry my meaning was not clear to you. Whatever difficulty there might be in understanding my meaning, you can be absolutely assured that there is not a skerrick of condenscension in what I’ve tried to argue. Quite the reverse. The Chinese authorities, are handling a very challenging set of policy problems with what on balance appears to be great strategic sureness, and it is important the strategy not be thrown off course by ill-informed perceptions of the nature of the problems and how and why they are being handled in the way in which they are.
Professor Drysdale,
Perhaps I have been unfair in judging your intentions regarding the article in question based on it’s style and content. I have no doubt that your knowledge regarding China and its many facets is well rounded enough to put forward a reasonable argument as you have no doubt done throughout your career. Nevertheless, I still find it difficult to sift through the enormous amount of euphemisms, new compound words, and somewhat grandiose statements which in my opinion make reading rather difficult. By the way, I read most of your articles that appear in the East Asia Forum.
Apologies
While you find some words or incomprehensible, I also find some wording in the previous piece particularly hard to comprehend, such as “imbued”, “wherewithal”, “bulging foreign-exchange reserves” and so on, although understandably English is my second language and it should not be too much a surprise that I have to use a dictionary to look up what some words mean.
Some may also argue that the rapid slowing in the growth of the Chinese economy would have been a major piece of evidence of poor handling of or leadership in the economy on the authorities behalf, even though the phrase of the so called “new normal” was probably the authorities attempt to prepare the public for the slowing. The problem is that the slowing may have been or still be too much for comfort for the authorities.
Of course, should the over slowing of the Chinese economy and the panic in dealing with the stock market may, in turn, have implications for the pace of reforms. Some in the authorities may be really nervous now, so their confidence in reforms may be affected. In a Chinese saying “惊弓之鸟“ – the birds scared of bows.
Having said that, the piece today titled “China’s challenges drive experiment-driven reforms” from Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng, provides some timely encouragement to Chinese economy observers, particularly overseas ones.
Many thanks indeed for this most rational, insightful, calm and, hopefully, calming, commentary on a complex challenge facing Beijing and its economic/financial interlocutors.