According to FitchRatings latest in their Global Perspectives series, policy responses to sharp corrections in financial markets should be expected as the Chinese government adheres to a core principle of maintaining stability.
Much Western criticism of Chinese policy responses to the equity market sell-off as clumsy and ineffective misreads critical points on China. Common views expressed are that Chinese officials don’t fully understand how markets operate, are manipulating the market, or have not yet developed policy channels and tools that are sufficiently sophisticated and adept to affect the market.
Stability a Higher Priority than Market Principle
The easiest misconception to take issue with is that intervention by Chinese policymakers confirms a lack of market insight. Even casual observers of China in recent decades would recognise the increased role of foreign firms and private innovation and the diminished role of the state. State enterprises retain a dominant role in critical areas of the economy, but private enterprise and market-based solutions have been vital to the country’s rapid industrialisation and development.
But the Chinese authorities’ deep aversion to instability – broadly defined, including financial instability – means there are limits to their embrace of market-based principles. Although the equity market is small from a macroeconomic perspective, a period of free-fall would sit uncomfortably with a government that does not hide its desire to retain and control the status quo in so many other areas.
In this context, recent equity market interventions were less about denying market principles than about confirming a stronger preference for stability, and for the state to have a primary role in providing it. The preference for stability would have been better placed had it come prior to the equity bubble inflating, but the government actually had an active role last year in encouraging investment in the market. This provided even stronger motivation to intervene during the market correction.
Collective Policymaking and Possibly More Debt
Even if public opinion could be swayed, creditors may take the view that there is still the need for significant policy change in Greece, and that debt relief would simply address the consequences of previous shortcomings, not the root causes. Greece still needs to undertake major reforms to deliver sustainable public finances and more robust economic growth, and creditors may be reluctant to surrender the ongoing conditionality provided by support programmes that could be discontinued if there were wholesale debt forgiveness. The risk would be that Greek imbalances re-emerge, eventually threatening the viability of the eurozone again.The various policy responses to the decline in the equity market have two familiar features – they involve a large number of participants and there is likely to be a resulting increase in debt.
The “national team” of public institutions involved in providing direct and indirect support to the equity markets has been portrayed by some observers as disjointed and ineffectual, primarily because there were several initiatives announced to which there was little or no market response. In addition, it has been argued that with so many institutions involved, including the Ministry of Finance and the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), none took a clear lead or stood out as having the credibility or authority to single-handedly sway the markets in the way that the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank were able to during episodes of stress in their markets.
But this misses the point that China’s patchwork of financial supervision and regulation is consistent with a deliberately diffused policy framework. This arrangement is in place not because a consensus-driven approach to decision-making is favoured – in fact, in some cases responsibilities are overlapping and initiatives at cross-purposes. Instead, policy diffusion is intended to ensure that state organisations operate collectively under the ultimate guidance of the country’s political leaders. As such, China’s authorities are unlikely to conclude from criticisms of the “national team” that they need a Greenspan or a Draghi to personify economic influence and authority. It is equally unlikely that there will be a regulatory overhaul to raise one institution to a coordinating “super-regulator”, as has been proposed by some foreign observers.
Just as the equity market was egged higher during its upswing in part by increases in debt – specifically via margin and peer-to-peer lending – elements of the policy responses to the downturn are also likely to raise debt levels. In July the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) relaxed some margin lending requirements of brokers, reversing a trend towards tightening earlier this year. The CSRC is also reported to have extended credit of RNB260bn to brokers, with funding from the bond market, banks and liquidity provided by the PBOC. Additionally, the China Banking Regulatory Commission has allowed banks to take a more flexible approach to corporate loans collateralised by equities, and has encouraged them to lend to listed companies engaged in stock buy-backs and to the CSRC.
The specific equity market initiatives that may increase debt should not be interpreted as a change in policy direction, as one of the authorities’ overriding objectives remains a reduction of indebtedness in the economy. The risks of potential solvency problems at current debt levels have been central to the acceptance and adoption of lower economic growth targets. But, as with other immediate policy challenges in China, the authorities see a further build-up in debt as a reliable – and presumably short-term – solution.
