Published on Tuesday, Oct. 06, 2009 6:42PM EDT Last updated on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009 7:38AM EDT

Dan Richards is president of Strategic Imperatives. He is a faculty member in the MBA program at the Rotman School at the University of Toronto. He also hosts a weekly conference call called Monday Morning Jump Start, which is about strategies for financial advisors. Advisors can see it GlobeAdvisor.com. He can be reached at [email protected]

As an investor, it's hard to avoid being impressed by the tremendous potential in China.

作为一个投资者很难回避中国巨大潜力的诱惑。

This was reinforced by a recent headline about a $2-billion contract to build trains for China won by Bombardier. Many of the MBA students from China in my class at the Rotman School at the University of Toronto are impressive and will certainly make strong contributions when they return to their homeland.

最近庞巴迪获得价值20亿加元合同的消息更加强化了这个诱惑力。多伦多大学罗特曼商学院里来自中国的主修工商管理的学生成绩出众，而且一定会回到祖国做出重要贡献。

That said, there are skeptics who question the payoff to investors from China's unquestionable growth.

诚然，至于投资者从无可争议的中国经济增长中能得到怎样的回报，也有人持怀疑态度。

So let's consider three questions: First, what's the basis for getting excited about China? Second, are there offsetting reasons for caution?

因此，让我们现就下述说那个问题做一明晰：

1）  对中国现象兴奋的基础何在？

2）  需要注意哪些对冲因素？

3）  投资者的实际感受如何？

And finally, what's the actual experience been for investors?

Causes for optimism

乐观的原因

One of the clearest voices on causes for optimism about China is Levi Folk, emerging market economist with the Excel Group of Funds, a fund company specializing in emerging markets.

专门研究新型市场的某基金（Excel Group Funds）的经济学家Levi Folk对中国状况持明显乐观态度。

Among the reasons for enthusiasm cited by Mr. Folk:

其乐观原因部分引述如下：

Continued prospects for growth in China's gross domestic product at levels three to four times what we'll see in developed countries.

中国的GDP可持续增长水平是迄今我们所见之发达国家的三至四倍。

The sheer law of large numbers makes it an unstoppable force– with a population of 1.3 billion, China has 177 cities with over 1 million inhabitants.

仅量数定理就是中国经济增长的不可遏止的动力 ——13亿人口、177个人口超百万的城市。

Rising incomes are leading to a burgeoning middle class. The threshold for a middle class is the point at which people can afford to spend on discretionary items beyond food and shelter. By that measure, McKinsey Global Institute estimates that one third of Chinese are already in that category; this will grow to 70 per cent by 2020. (Note that the threshold for being a member of China's middle class is annual income of $3,000.)

收入的增加催生了中产阶层，而中产阶层恰好是人们可以消费除食品和住房之基础消费之外的其他项目的门槛。据麦肯锡环球研究院（McKinsey Global Institute）的估测，中国人口的三分之一已在此范围内；到2020年其总量将占总人口的70%（注：成为中国中产阶层成员的门槛是：年收入3000加元）。

Rising incomes will inevitably lead to growth in spending. McKinsey estimates that consumer spending will multiply five times by 2020, putting the Chinese consumer market into the third spot globally. Even today, 650 million Chinese own mobile phones, a number growing by 10 million a month – equivalent to a third of Canada's population.

收入的增加势必导致花销的上升。麦肯锡推测，到2020年消费者花销量将翻升五倍，是中国的消费市场居全球第三位。即使今天，中国的移动电话用户为六亿五千万人，且每月以1000万数量激增 ——加拿大人口的三分之一。

Another reason for optimism is that Chinese business is starting to compete on the global stage – and not just as a low-cost manufacturer. A recent column by the chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters pointed out that historically patents didn't exist in China and it didn't adopt patent laws until 1985. China now issues 30,000 patents annually, behind only the U.S. and Japan – and is projected to be in first place by 2012.

乐观态度的另一原因：中国企业已开始在国际舞台上竞争——不只是低端产品的制造者。Thomson Reuters公司总裁近期的一片文章里描述，中国的历史上根本不存在专利，而1985年之前这个国家没有专利法，如今中国每年专利申报量30，000.仅次于美国和日本——2012年将居世界第一位。

Reasons for caution

小心谨慎的理由

China skeptics don't dispute these facts but point to a number of reasons for caution:

对中国现象持怀疑态度者对下述事实不予争辩，仅罗列出须小心谨慎以对之数个理由：

First is the huge gulf between city dwellers and the 70 per cent of Chinese people who still live in rural areas. To this point, the vast bulk of benefits from economic growth has accrued to those in cities, creating significant tensions among those left behind.

城市居民与占人口总数70%的农村居民之间的巨大差异。经济增长的巨大利益均流向城镇居民，对没有得到此利益的农村的居民形成压力。

There are questions about whether an authoritarian political regime can put the cap on demands for freedom among its increasingly educated youth – and whether conflicts will arise as a result.

权威政治体制是否能满足日益增多的知识青年对自由的需求——是否会由此引发冲突。

Then there's the tenuous rule of law. While not at the level of countries like Russia, there is ample evidence that rules are stacked against foreign investors.

法制法规不健全（薄弱）。许多实例表明，当然不至于到俄罗斯那类国家的水平， 许多规定对外国投资者不利。

Finally, China has been unable to rationalize inefficient operations, as provinces have balked at central directives. For example, the country has thousands of small, inefficient steel mills – because local authorities resist the necessary consolidation for fear of losing jobs. Similarly, the focus on maintaining employment by China's provinces means they resist scaling back lending by banks to local businesses, even if they're losing money. (And we thought Canada had a monopoly on conflict between the federal government and the provinces.)

最后一个因素：中国一直对无效生产未能采取有效疏理措施，许多省份由于中央的指示约束而缩手缩脚。例如：这个国家里的有成千上万个小型、低效的炼钢厂——由于当地政府反对对其进行必要的整合，意恐失去就业机会。 同样，中国各省为维持就业水平，即使本地企业出现亏损，也不愿意缩减本地银行对本地亏损企业的贷款水平（我们以为联邦政府与省政府之间的冲突是加拿大独有之物）。

Another cause for concern is extremely low profitability by Chinese companies. Earlier this year, I attended a talk on “The China profit paradox,” by a Harvard Business School professor who runs programs for Chinese managers. His research shows rapidly growing sales often lead to very low levels of profit by Chinese companies, well below their cost of capital.

另一令人担忧的因素是中国企业的超低利润率。本年初，我参加由哈佛商学院教授主持的“中国利润悖论”论坛，该教授主管中国经理人培训项目。他的研究结果表明，中国企业的快速销售增长通常都伴随出现极低的利润率，低过其资金成本。

The investor experience

投资者经验

Even given some legitimate causes for caution, the preponderance of evidence would seem to tilt towards a positive outlook.

即便罗列诸多需要小心谨慎的因素，但看来还是得出一个正面的展望。

So what's the actual investor experience in China been?

那么， 那些在中国的投资者的经验何在？

The global standard for tracking market performance is the MSCI Index, which has data for China going back almost 17 years, to the beginning of 1993.

对市场表现和效果进行跟踪分析全球标准时MSCI指数，其拥有几乎中国过去17年的数据，从1993年算起。

According to MSCI data, if you'd invested $100 in World Stock Markets on Jan. 1, 1993, at the end of September of this year you would have had $321.

根据MSCI数据，若你于1993年1月在世界股票市场投资100加元，本年度9月你的回报是321加元。

That same $100 invested in a cross section of emerging markets would be worth $431, reflecting the much rockier ride investors had along the way.

同样是这100加元，投在新兴市场的回报是431加元——反映出投资者驾驭经济快速发展的所得。

If you'd taken that $100 and put it into India, in August you would have had $571; note that almost all of India's growth happened in the last seven years, with the 10 before that being a wash.

如果将这100加元于是年8月投入印度，如今可得571加元；注意：印度的经济起飞只是过去7年里的事情，在此前的10年一贫如洗，不算。

In Brazil, that $100 investment would be worth a whopping $2,389.

投在巴西，如今可得2389加元。

And $100 invested in China almost 17 years ago (drum roll please) … at the end of August was worth $87, up from $58 at the end of last year.

若在几乎17年前投在中国（请击鼓）…今年8月底为止得到回报是87加元，去年仅为58加元。

At first I thought I'd made a mistake and double checked the data. Then I showed this to a number of industry veterans – none of whom thought this was possible and verified the numbers themselves, arriving at the same conclusion.

起初我以为数据出错，并对数据做了复核；之后我还将此数据转给行业前辈看，都说这不可能而且均自己亲自核对，结果与MSCI相同。

Making things worse, not only has China dramatically underperformed, but it's done so with incredible volatility.

更糟糕的是，中国不仅戏剧性的绩效低下，而且是在令人难以置信的活力下做到效率低下。

In discussing these findings with Mr. Folk, he suggested that this might be due to the fact that Chinese public companies available in 1993 were inefficient state-owned enterprises that suffered in the intervening transformation of China's economy.

在与FOLK先生讨论这些研究数据时，他提示，这可能是由于1993年中国上市公司是那些低效的，并深受中国经济转型期干扰的国有企业。

And that might well be the case.

那很有可能是如此。

Even so, this is a very big warning sign for anyone contemplating putting a significant part of their portfolio in China. The prospects for growth in China are inarguable – what's less clear is how much of that growth is already built into the price of Chinese stocks and whether outside investors will benefit from that growth in the same way as that country's citizenry.

即便如此，对任何想把自己大块投资组合投在中国的投资者而言，这是一个大警示牌。中国（经济）的成长前景无可非议——令人感到模糊不清的是：这种成长有多少已经涵盖在中国上市股票的价格内；境外的投资者是否能像该国公民一样从其经济增长中受益。