Xu Zhong, director of the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China, bombarded that fiscal transparency is insufficient, information disclosure is generalized, and there is a lack of public supervision.(Internet)
Early, a new tune with a sea accent, Yang Danxu
As the Sino-US trade war lingers and the domestic economy is facing downward pressure, instead of joining forces to resist risks, China's two core economic sectors have turned against each other.
The reason is that last Friday (13th) the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences released the fiscal blue book of China's fiscal policy report, saying that the active fiscal policy in 2017 has achieved remarkable results.On the same day, Xu Zhong, director of the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China, published an article criticizing the proactive fiscal policy as being either really positive and not increasing the deficit or playing hooliganism.
Not only that, but the article also made a big start to the Ministry of Finance, saying that it has allocated some hidden debts to the government debt, and has pushed the financial risk to the financial sector.Compared with the Ministry of Finance, it emphasizes that its rights are too small.
Xu Zhong unceremoniously bombarded that financial transparency is not enough, information disclosure is large and generalized, and there is a lack of public supervision. He also complained about financial data, saying, not to mention that NPC deputies can't understand financial statements, and I can't understand them either.
The sharp pen and hot words immediately aroused thousands of waves, and the article was widely reprinted on the Internet, especially the criticism of China's unsound public financial system, which aroused likes in the circle.
The Ministry of Finance, which was pushed to the forefront, responded strongly the day before yesterday.An official of the financial system signed by Qing Chi issued an article to refute, and jokingly pointed out that financial institutions played the role of accomplices or accomplices in the local debt chaos to a large extent, and they are by no means fools who only produce hallucinations and weakness, implying that the central bank is duty-bound.
The article did not forget to expose the shortcomings of the central bank, pointing out that the international status of the renminbi lags behind the international status of the Chinese economy. Interest rates, the level of exchange rate marketization, and domestic and foreign expectations still have a long way to go. The decision-making thinking still belongs to the characteristics of the central bank of a small country, and there is a lot of criticism between the lines.Look at yourself in the mirror first.
The central bank and the Ministry of Finance are the two most important departments in the economic governance of a modern country, and they respectively master the two basic policy means of regulating the macroeconomy, namely currency and finance.
It is not uncommon for monetary policy and fiscal policy to go in opposite directions, or to work poorly together.After the global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve implemented quantitative easing policies to stimulate economic growth. At that time, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke criticized the US Treasury Department for standing idly by because of insufficient supporting fiscal policies, hindering economic recovery and job creation.
Various departments in China's financial system and fiscal system have always been in charge of their own pools and participated in economic governance from different angles. It is not surprising that there are differences in departmental interests.It's just that in China's political environment, incumbent officials place more emphasis on consistency in their external stances and arguments, and it is extremely rare for ministries and commissions to speak out at intervals, blame each other, and tear things apart.The publicization of the conflict between the central bank and the Ministry of Finance has exposed to the outside world the intensification of conflicts of interest among departments behind financial deleveraging.
The credit crunch is causing China's domestic economy to experience labor pains. Many local governments have recently reported that they cannot pay wages and require financial institutions not to draw on loans and other debt problems.Criticisms are being heard that the deleveraging has gone too far. Some advocates of the central bank’s release of water have even warned that over-tightening deleveraging may lead to the collapse of the Chinese economy.Against such a background, the PBOC is faced with a dilemma. It neither wants to bear the historical charge of causing the Chinese economy to collapse, nor is it willing to release water to let deleveraging efforts go to waste.
As the main department promoting deleveraging, the central bank has unspeakable difficulties.Due to the lagging reform of the fiscal system, local governments in China have long relied heavily on debt. Although the source of the problem lies in fiscal policy, the resulting debt risks are ultimately passed on to the central bank, which is responsible for maintaining financial stability.Some analysts pointed out that the nominally active fiscal policy in the past 10 years was actually asking for money from banks and turned into monetary expansion.The central bank turned the fire on the Ministry of Finance this time. To put it bluntly, it is tired of lsquo;watering rsquo; status and does not want to bear the blame of lsquo;watering rsquo;.
At the same time, the Ministry of Finance, which holds the keys to the government, also has its own interests to seek.Although fiscal revenue has repeatedly hit new highs in recent years, in order to maintain a beautiful deficit, the Ministry of Finance would rather shift the responsibility for the downward pressure on the economy to the central bank's deleveraging actions than pay for the debts of local governments.
The promotion of many reforms in China is often hindered by various issues such as the departmentalization of power and the benefit of departments.China established the Financial Stability and Development Committee last year, and launched the institutional reform of the State Council in March this year. Behind these actions are the ideas of breaking the pattern of departmental interests.However, judging from the scuffle between the central bank and the Ministry of Finance, the work of breaking the sectoral interest structure still has a long way to go, and requires greater determination from China's top management.
