Wooden carvings of two elephants and an eagle, meant to symbolise wisdom and prosperity, flank the entrance to the Chinese chemical producer Yunwei. Today, they suggest a very different interpretation: a lumbering debt load and scavengers picking over the company’s scraps.

中国化学品生产商云维股份(Yunwei)的大门两旁放有木雕的两只大象和一只雄鹰，本意是象征智慧和繁荣。可如今，这组工艺品似乎传递出大不一样的涵义：沉重的债务负担以及对公司剩余资产挑挑拣拣的秃鹫。

“Lots of Chinese companies rushed to expand, to be the biggest in the world. This was a source of great pride. Now we see it as a headache,” says a soft-spoken Yunwei executive, back from a business trip where he was trying to sell more of the hard black coking coal piled high in the company’s storage facility in Qujing in the southwestern province of Yunnan.

云维股份一名语调温和的高管表示：“很多中国企业都急于扩张，力争在规模上做到世界第一。这曾经是使我们倍感自豪的原因。而现在则成为了令我们头痛的问题。”他刚刚出差归来，出差是为了销售硬焦煤；在该公司位于中国西南部云南省曲靖市的贮存场地上，硬焦煤堆积如山。

The Shanghai-listed company never quite cracked the top tier of the chemical industry in China, let alone the world, but it was not for a lack of trying. It increased its assets 30-fold over the past decade in a spree of investment, building an ethyl acetate factory, a calcium carbide production line, a coal distillation plant and lots more.

这家上交所上市公司从未真正跻身于中国化工行业的第一梯队，更不用说走向世界了，但这并不是因为该公司缺少尝试。云维股份在过去十年中通过大力投资将资产规模扩大了29倍，建起了一座醋酸乙酯厂、一条电石生产线、一家煤焦油蒸馏厂以及很多其他设施。

The problem is that its rivals did the same thing.

问题在于，该公司的竞争对手也采取了同样举措。

As the Chinese economy has slowed, demand for chemicals has dropped and laid bare Yunwei’s excesses. It lost Rmb1.2bn ($196m) last year, at times using just two-thirds of its production capacity. It has avoided large-scale lay-offs but only by enforcing a system of extended, unpaid holidays. Borrowing cash to stay afloat, its debt-to-asset ratio has tripled from 10 years ago to 90 per cent today, making it one of the country’s 100 most debt-laden companies, according to Chinese data provider Wind.

随着中国经济增长放缓，对化学品的需求下降，云维股份过度扩张的问题暴露了出来。该公司去年亏损12亿元人民币（合1.96亿美元），产能利用率有时仅为三分之二。该公司迄今避免了大规模裁员，但只是通过实行无薪长假制度才勉强做到这一点。为保持正常周转，云维股份不断借入资金，资产负债率在过去的十年间增长了两倍，达到目前的90%。来自中国数据供应商万得(Wind)的数据显示，该公司现已成为中国100家债务负担最重的企业之一。

It is a trajectory of rising indebtedness that has been repeated across the chemical industry. Companies had been mistaken in their optimism about the Chinese economy, says Ren Jianxin, general manager of ChemChina, the country’s biggest chemical producer.

这种负债率不断攀升的趋势在化工企业中到处可见。中国最大化工企业——中国化工(ChemChina)的总经理任建新表示，企业错误地对中国经济抱有过于乐观的预期。

And this is just the tip of corporate China’s debt woes. Chemicals are a crucial feedstock for everything from steel to paint and plastic to textiles, so the distress of chemical companies reflects financial troubles spreading throughout China.

而这仅仅是中国企业债务问题的冰山一角。对于钢材、涂料、塑料、纺织品等各类产品来说，化学品都属于关键原料。因此，化学品企业所面临的压力，反映出财务麻烦已经传导到中国的各行各业。

The rise in Chinese government debt levels has gathered more attention in recent years, but the increase in corporate debt has been even bigger. The money owed by Chinese companies shot up from 90 per cent of gross domestic product in 2007 to 124 per cent of GDP, or Rmb64tn, at the end of last year, according to JPMorgan.

中国政府负债水平的上升近年来受到了较多关注，但中国企业债务的增幅其实更大。摩根大通(JPMorgan)提供的数据显示，去年中国企业债务高达64万亿元人民币，占国内生产总值(GDP)的比重达到124%，远高于2007年的90%。

The International Monetary Fund calculates that the average debt-to-equity ratio of Chinese companies increased to nearly 110 per cent last year, making China’s corporate sector more highly leveraged than those of all other big emerging markets. Corporate Brazil’s debt-to-equity ratio was less than 100 per cent, India’s was closer to 80 per cent and Russia’s was 60 per cent.

国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)的测算显示，去年中国企业的平均债务股本比升至约110%，这使中国企业部门的杠杆水平高于其他所有大型新兴市场国家。巴西企业的债务股本比低于100%，印度接近于80%，俄罗斯则为60%。

The stimulus unleashed by Beijing to counter the global financial crisis was seen as the salvation of companies at the time, but many now blame it for the increase in debt and excess capacity. “It was unavoidable. We were dragged into it by the government,” says the Yunwei executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

中国政府为对抗全球金融危机而出台的刺激政策，在当时被视为对企业的救助，但现在很多人责怪此举导致了企业负债率的上升以及产能过剩。上文提到的云维股份高管在匿名的前提下表示：“这是不可避免的。我们被政府拖上了借债扩张之路。”

The race to invest and get bigger took on a momentum of its own. Too much steel was being made, but so long as too many factories and homes were also being built, there was an artificially inflated market for it. The result has been a steady build-up of leverage that is eroding the strength of corporate balance sheets, says the International Monetary Fund.

竞相投资以扩大规模的努力形成了自己的势头。虽然钢材产量严重过剩，但只要还有那么多的工厂和住宅在建造过程中，就有人为扩大的市场吸纳这些钢材。国际货币基金组织指出，由此产生的结果是，企业的杠杆水平被不断抬高，侵蚀了企业资产负债表的稳健性。

Debt is widespread and it is hard to avoid. Fang Peiwen runs a car parts company on the outskirts of Shanghai, his office permeated by the smell of grease and the screech of metal cutters. His business is too small to be able to borrow from China’s banks, which favour bigger, typically state-owned enterprises. But over the past two years, the debt on his books swelled in a form unusually popular in China.

债务问题传播广泛，难以避开。方佩文（Fang Peiwen，音译）在上海市郊经营一家汽车部件企业，他的办公室里充斥着油脂气味和金属切割机发出的刺耳声音。他的企业规模太小，无法从中国的银行获得贷款，银行通常青睐规模较大的国有企业。但近两年来，方佩文企业账目上的债务也以一种在中国普遍得不寻常的形式扩张起来。

His clients, some of the biggest Chinese carmakers, began paying him less and less cash. Instead, they gave him bankers’ acceptances – a promissory note guaranteed by a bank and redeemable for cash at maturity, usually in about six months. Mr Fang says the acceptances account for two-thirds of the payment his company receives.

方佩文的客户（其中一些是中国规模最大的汽车生产商）向他支付的现金款项变得越来越少。相反，他们给他银行承兑票据(bankers’acceptance)——这是一种由银行担保的本票(promissory note)，能在到期时兑换成现金，期限通常为6个月。方佩文表示，银行承兑票据占到了公司所收账款的三分之二。

And that means he does not have enough cash on hand to pay his suppliers, unless of course they too are willing to accept IOUs in lieu of money. “Some companies refuse bankers’ acceptances and insist on cash. I’m too small; I have no choice,” he says, shrugging.

而这意味着他手头没有足够的现金给自己的供应商付款，除非他们同样愿意接受债务凭证而非现金。他耸耸肩说：“有些企业拒绝接受银行承兑票据，他们坚持要求现金付款。我的企业规模太小；我别无选择。”

His accountant flashed one acceptance note, worth a little more than Rmb1m. It originated from a car company in Jilin in the northeast and had already been used as payment twice – each time, a different company had stamped its official seal on it – before it wound up in Mr Fang’s hands. For China as a whole, these bankers’ acceptances were just 3 per cent of GDP in 2008; they rose to more than 11 per cent last year.

方佩文的会计拿出了一张银行承兑票据，金额略微超过100万元人民币。出票方是中国东北部省份吉林的一家汽车企业，并且在辗转到方佩文这里之前已经两次被用于支付——每一次就会有一家不同的企业在票据上加盖公章。就中国整体而言，2008年这类银行承兑票据的金额仅占GDP的3%，去年它们所占比重上升到了11%以上。

The government is trying to contain the risks. It long ago ordered banks to stop lending to sectors with excess capacity, but 'shadow banks’ such as trust companies filled the gap; regulators have recently made it harder for them to access financing. Beijing has also started to crack down on the issuance of bankers’ acceptances and lenders have signed off on far fewer of these since May.

政府在试图控制风险。它在很久之前便命令银行停止向产能过剩的领域放贷，但信托公司等“影子银行”填补了空缺。监管机构近期加强了这些实体获得融资的难度。中国政府还开始限制银行承兑票据的发放，自5月以来，银行签发的承兑票据数量已大幅减少。

The combined effect of these tightening measures has been a rising cost in financing. That is forcing companies across sectors ranging from sports apparel to heavy industry to reduce their debt loads, often by downsizing their operations.

这些收紧措施的效果结合起来，引起融资成本上升，进而迫使从体育服装到重工业的各行各业的公司开始减少负债——往往通过缩减经营规模。

The executive at Yunwei, the chemical producer, says local banks have demanded it pay interest rates as high as 8 per cent, or about 30 per cent above the benchmark level. It is a tough new reality. “We used to get our loans at benchmark because the creditworthiness of listed state-owned companies was seen as very good,” he says.

化工企业云维的那名高管表示，当地银行要求它支付高达8%的利息，高于基准利率约30%。这是严峻的新现实。该高管称：“过去我们以基准利率得到贷款，因为上市国有公司的信誉一直受到好评。”

In July, Yunwei announced it hoped to raise Rmb870m by selling a set of its facilities. Some of the assets it put on sale had been built just a few years earlier, when cash was easy and optimism abounded. “Of course, we knew that the economy had cycles, that there would be declines and troughs. But when times were good, I can’t say we expected that it would get this bad,” says the executive.

云维今年7月宣布，它希望出售一系列设施，筹集8.7亿元人民币。被挂牌出售的一些资产几年前才刚刚建成，当时资金成本低，乐观情绪高涨。“当然，我们知道经济有周期，有衰退和低谷。但我要说，我们在景气时期没有料到情况会这么糟，”这位高管表示。

As things deteriorate, Yunwei at least has a cushion to fall back on. Its parent company is owned by the Yunnan provincial government and officials in China have shown repeatedly that they are extremely reluctant to see their local champions fail. Rongsheng, shipbuilder, Shandong Helon, textile maker, and Suntech, solar panel producer, are three high-profile cases of companies that have received crucial government support since the start of last year.

随着形势恶化，云维至少还有可以依赖的缓冲层。它的母公司为云南省政府所有，而中国官员也三番五次表态，他们极其不希望本地的龙头企业破产。造船厂商熔盛(Rongsheng)、纺织品生产商山东海龙(Shandong Helon)和太阳能电池板制造商尚德(Suntech)是去年年初以来获得政府支持的三个令人瞩目的案例。

Yet this does not solve the problem. With the steady stream of bailouts, what is nominally classified as corporate debt very quickly becomes government debt. This allows China to avoid the pain of defaults, but the debt remains in the system, just in a slightly different guise.

但这解决不了问题。随着越来越多的企业获得纾困，名义上的企业债务很快成为政府债务。这可以让中国避免违约的痛苦，但债务仍然存在于体系中，只是披上了略微不同的外衣罢了。

A Chinese executive with a big international chemicals company says the day of reckoning is not far off. “Winter is approaching. You can still take your coat off and pretend it’s warm, but actually it is beginning to bite.”

某家跨国大型化学品公司的一名中国高管表示，问题大爆发的日子不远了。“冬天即将到来。你可以脱掉大衣，假装天气还暖和，但事实上已是寒冷刺骨。”