李扬

一

2012年，由我、中国银行首席经济学家曹远征博士、德意志银行大中华区首席经济学家马骏博士分别牵头的三支研究队伍，几乎同时展开了对中国国家资产负债状况的研究，并先后发表了长篇分析报告。在中国研究界，多支研究队伍不约而同地对一桩纯属“帝王之术”的枯燥论题展开探讨，实属罕见。那是因为，自2011年年底开始，很多国外研究机构和投资银行，借中国地方政府融资平台债务问题浮出水面且经济增长率有所下滑之机，此起彼和地唱衰中国;少数国际评级机构甚至据以调降了中国的主权级别。中国经济学家自然不能坐视瓦缶长鸣。编制中国的国家资产负债表(特别是政府资产负债表)，深入剖析中国各级政府债务的源流、现状、特征及发展前景，评估主权债务风险，我们责无旁贷。

二

资产负债表原本是企业实施科学管理不可或缺的基本工具。基于权责发生制，资产负债表通过一套精心设计的平衡表，在负债方，反映企业某一时点的负债总额及其结构，揭示企业现今与未来需要支付的债务数额、偿债紧迫性和偿债压力大小;在资产方，反映企业资产总额及其构成，揭示企业在某一时点所拥有的经济资源、分布情况及盈利能力。将负债和资产结合起来，可据以评估企业的绩效，分析其财务的弹性和安全性，考量其偿债能力及经营的稳定性。

上世纪中叶，美国经济学家哥德施密斯开始尝试将资产负债表的独特分析功能引入国家治理(见Goldsmith and Lipsey，1963; Goldsmith，1982)，并试编了分部门及综合的国家资产负债表。其后，发达经济体纷纷效法。至今，大部分OECD成员国家都公布了不含有实物资产的金融资产负债表。

国家资产负债表在国家治理乃至经济分析领域中令人刮目相看，还是在上世纪90年代拉美危机之后。与过去的危机不同，拉美危机主要因过度借债引发，因而显现出债务危机的典型特征。如此，资产负债表作为一种能准确刻画一国债务风险、评估其偿债能力的分析框架，理所当然地获得了国际社会的青睐。

资产负债表被作为主流分析工具引入之后，便迅速取得了一系列新成果。其中尤其令人耳目一新者，在于对过去的危机的重新解释，特别是对危机的传导过程以及恢复过程中若干特别现象的解释。在这方面，日本野村综合研究所首席经济学家辜朝明的研究最为著名(辜朝明，2008)。在辜朝明看来，主流经济学对上世纪大萧条和90年代以来日本“失去的20年”的原因的解释不得要领。他认为，危机的问题不在货币的供给方，而在货币的需求方。经济的衰退，是由于股市以及不动产市场泡沫破灭之后，市场价格的崩溃造成在泡沫期过度扩张的企业资产大幅度缩水，致使其资产负债表失衡，负债规模严重超过其资产规模。因此，企业即便仍然运作，也已陷入了技术性破产的境地。重要的问题在于，在这种情况下，多数企业将自己的经营目标从“利润最大化”转向“负债最小化”，即:企业在减少乃至停止借贷的同时，倾向于将其能够利用的所有现金流都用于偿还债务，即不遗余力地“修复资产负债表”。倘若很多企业都奉行这种“负债最小化”对策，整个社会就会形成一种不事生产和投资、专事还债的“合成谬误”，于是，即便银行愿意提供贷款，也不会有企业前来借款。全社会的信用紧缩局面，就此形成。危机的恢复过程，也因此延缓。

此次“百年不遇”的全球经济危机再次彰显了资产负债分析的魅力。此次危机，依然归因于发达国家的居民、企业和政府都负债经营或消费，金融机构则对应地进行高杠杆化运作。病因在此，危机的恢复，显然就以“去杠杆化”为必要条件。然而，去杠杆化至少涉及两个问题。其一，去杠杆化需要大量储蓄，需要大量资金投入;而储蓄率不易提高，资金更难寻觅。其二，去杠杆化作为经济恢复的主要路径，将全面引发“修复资产负债表”过程。在这个过程中，各经济主体获得新增资金后，其优先选择不是从事消费、生产和投资等货币当局希望产生的正常的经济活动，而是将之用于充实资本，减少债务，“修复”资产负债表。因此，在相当长的时期内，向经济注入资金，反而会产生消费停滞、投资不振，以及信贷市场萎缩的效果。

绝妙的例证发生在美国。虽然，几年来，由美联储和财政部放出的美元已经达到造成美国乃至全世界流动性泛滥的程度，但美国的信贷市场却仍在萎缩，以至于美联储的量化宽松操作不断加码，其资产负债也前无古人地扩张了三倍。

我们要特别指出的是，这一次，中国也实实在在地感受到了资产负债的冲击。一方面，企业债务、各级政府债务不断攀升，其严重性已经达到可被居心叵测者利用的程度;另一方面，货币和信贷供给巨额扩张，但实体经济仍然感觉“贷款难，贷款贵”。诸如此类的复杂问题，都需要迅速回答。编制中国的国家资产负债表，首先做到“心中有数”，显然是回答一切问题的基础和前提条件。

三

中国社会科学院“中国国家资产负债表研究”课题组成立于2011年，首批成果形成于2012年。当时，我们已经编制完成中国国家主权资产负债表(2000—2010年)，主要成果于2013年发表于《经济研究》第6—7期。185561课题组的研究成果多次被国际货币基金组织(IMF， 2013)、中国人民银行研究局、国内外一些知名投资银行引用。此外，关于中国主权资产负债表研究的英文论文，已经被收入国际货币基金组织出版的专著中185562。2012年9月，课题组召开了“中国国家资产负债表分析国际研讨会”，来自中国人民银行、国家统计局、世界银行、国际货币基金组织的专家及相关领域的60余位知名学者与会。专家们自然不吝溢美之词，但也尖锐地提出了进一步完善和推展的建议。这些建议，指导了本书的写作。

本书在2012年研究成果的基础上，全面更新了数据，并增加了中国国家资产负债表的编制与分析。

本书的重要发现可概括如下:

1.2011年，中国的国家净资产(非金融资产加上净额对外资产)超过300万亿元。

2007—2011年，中国国家资产负债表急剧扩张:国家总资产从284.7万亿元增加到546.5万亿元;总负债从118.9万亿元增加到242万亿元;而净资产则从165.8万亿元增加到304.5万亿元。这三个指标在5年内均几近翻番，且增长速度均快于同期名义GDP的增幅。

国家整体的资产负债率，即总负债与总资产之比，总体呈上升趋势，特别是在受到金融危机影响较大的2009—2010年两年间，上升幅度较大;此后，在2011年虽有轻微回落，但仍旧远高于2007年的水平。这一结构变化表明，在国家资产形成中，对债务融资的依赖有所上升，进而造成债务风险相应提高。

2.国家净资产增加额持续小于当年GDP，表明并不是全部的GDP都形成了真正的财富积累。换言之，在我们产出的GDP中，有一个相当大的部分是无效的。这是因为，GDP指标存在某些先天性缺陷:一些无效投资(对应的是产能过剩)甚至破坏资源环境的活动都被计入GDP了，从而在财富形成中须将这些部分剔除。以2010年为例，净资产增加额与GDP的差距高达7.5万亿元，占当年GDP的18.7%。虽然不能断言这7.5万亿元都被浪费或损失了，但至少表明这一年GDP的质量大有问题。

3.近年来，总资产中存货占比急增，表明产能过剩问题非常严重。关于存货及其变化，向来可有两种解释:这既可能反映了企业对经济复苏的预期(更多地表现为主动补充库存，可理解为一种积极型存货增加)，也可能同中国当下普遍存在的严重产能过剩有关(更多地表现为被动累积库存，可理解为一种消极型存货增加)。我们倾向于认为，后一方面原因，即产能过剩，可能是存货占比急增的主要因素。这值得高度警惕。

4.主权部门(或广义政府部门，包括中央政府、地方政府、国有非金融企业、行政事业单位、中央银行，以及国有金融企业)的资产大于负债，净资产额为正。这表明，在相当长的时期内，中国发生主权债务危机的可能性很低。

2000—2011年，中国主权资产和主权负债都呈扩张态势。在主权资产方，非金融企业国有资产以及储备资产的增长最为迅速。在主权负债方，政府债务(中央及地方)、国有企业债务以及处置不良资产形成的或有负债的增长非常迅速。

由于12年来我国主权资产的增幅均高于主权负债，我国主权资产净值的规模一直处于不断增长之中。从2011年的情况看，按宽口径匡算，中国主权资产净值为87万亿元。但考虑到行政事业单位国有资产流动性很差(因为要履行政府职能)，以及国土资源性资产的使用权的流动性亦差，且也不可能一次性全部转让(事实上，最近每年的土地出让金只有两三万亿元)，因此，窄口径的主权资产净值为21.6万亿元。

5.2012年，中央政府与地方政府加总的债务接近28万亿元，占当年GDP的53%。如果将非金融企业、居民部门、金融部门以及政府部门的债务加总，那么全社会的债务规模达到111.6万亿元，占当年GDP 的215%。这意味着全社会的杠杆率已经很高。为了给经济发展创造一个长期稳定的环境，去杠杆化在所难免。

分部门看，截至2012年年末，企业部门杠杆率(企业债务占GDP比重)已达113%，超过OECD国家90%的阈值，值得高度警惕。这些指标，在所有统计国家中高居榜首。这构成了中国债务结构的突出特点。这种状况与中国的经济发展方式和金融体系以间接融资为主的特点密切相关。

住户部门未偿的贷款余额16.1万亿元(其中，消费性贷款10.4万亿元，经营性贷款5.7万亿元)，占GDP的31%。

非金融企业部门债务余额72.12万亿元，占GDP的139%。考虑到非金融企业部门债务在相当程度上包括地方政府融资平台这一有政府背景的实体债务，为防止交叉重复，需要剔除地方政府融资平台债务规模，由此得到的非金融企业部门债务余额58.67万亿元，占GDP 的113%。

将中央政府债务和地方政府债务加总，得到2012年年末政府债务总额27.7万亿元，占GDP的53%。

仅以金融部门发行的债券余额作为其债务，2012年年末，金融机构债券余额合计9.13万亿元，占GDP的18%。

将上述四个部门加总，得到中国经济整体的债务规模为111.6万亿元，全社会杠杆率为215%。

从总量看，中国的总债务水平低于大多数发达经济体，但比其他金砖国家(不包括南非)都高，属于比较适中的水平，尚处于温和、可控的阶段。不过，鉴于中国的债务水平近年来上升较快，我们应当对此保持警惕;如果将地方债务或者更宽口径的主权债务考虑在内，中国的政府(主权)债务将有较大增长并带动总债务水平较大幅度提高。对此，我们绝不可坐视不管。

6.进入新世纪以来，中国国家和主权部门资产负债表均呈现出快速扩张之势。其中，在资产方，对外资产、基础设施，以及居民房地产资产迅速积累，构成资产扩张的主导因素。这记载了出口导向发展战略之下中国工业化与城镇化加速发展的历史进程。在负债方，各级政府以及国有企业等主权部门的负债规模以高于私人部门的速度扩张。这凸显了政府主导经济活动的体制特征。

7.国家资产负债表近期的风险点主要体现在房地产信贷、地方债务，以及银行不良贷款等项目上，而中长期风险则更多地集中在对外资产、企业债务，以及社保欠账等项目上。无论哪一类风险，都与当前的发展方式与经济结构密切相关。因此，应对或化解风险的最佳途径，还是转变发展方式，调整经济结构，实现健康、高效率、高质量、可持续的增长。

8.如果继续执行现行养老保险体系，到2023年，全国范围内职工养老保险就会出现资金缺口;到2029年，累积结余将消耗殆尽;到2050年，职工养老金累计缺口占当年GDP的比例将达到91%。另外，到2050年，中国全社会总养老金支出(包括职工和居民养老保险)占GDP的比例将达到11.85%，这一水平与当前欧洲一些高福利国家的水平大致相当。

我们还在多种情境下分析了某些政策措施和养老金制度设计对养老保险财务的可持续的影响。发现，提高退休年龄和提高领取居民基础养老金年龄，可以起到很强的作用，能够大幅降低养老金缺口程度。同时，提高养老保险的投资收益率对降低养老金缺口也有一定的帮助，但作用相对较小。而维持高的养老保险替代率将明显提高养老保险潜在债务水平。我们更偏向于提高退休年龄和提高领取居民基础养老金年龄的对策，同时，我们主张提高投资收益率，并保持高的养老保险替代率。当然，通过国有资产的股息积累或者出售国有资产的方式，以及通过提高税收、发行债券并对养老保险进行财政补贴来为养老保险融资，也是解决或缓解养老金缺口问题的可行选择。

四

中共十八届三中全会通过的《关于全面深化改革若干重大问题的决定》，明确提出了“加快建立国家统一的经济核算制度，编制全国和地方资产负债表”的战略任务。在国家最高层面上推动国家资产负债表的研究和编制工作，在当今世界实属罕见。这充分显示了中国政府努力“推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化”的决心和智慧。

作为国家设立的最高社会科学研究机构的学者，我们将响应三中全会的号召，继续用我们的努力，做好国家资产负债表的研究和编制工作，为完善和发展中国特色社会主义制度，推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化，贡献绵薄之力。

In 2012, three research teams led by me, Dr. Cao Yuanzheng, Chief Economist of Bank of China, and Dr. Ma Jun, Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank Greater China, carried out research on China's national assets and liabilities at almost the same time, and successively published long analysis reports. In the Chinese research community, it is rare for multiple research teams to discuss a dry topic that is purely "imperial art". That's because, since the end of 2011, many foreign research institutions and investment banks have taken advantage of China's local government financing vehicle debt problems to surface and the decline in economic growth rate, and have been singing down China. A handful of international rating agencies have even downgraded China's sovereignty on that basis. Naturally, Chinese economists cannot sit idly by. It is our duty to compile China's national balance sheet (especially the government balance sheet), deeply analyze the source, status, characteristics and development prospects of China's government debt at all levels, and assess sovereign debt risks. Second, the balance sheet is originally an indispensable basic tool for enterprises to implement scientific management. Based on the accrual basis, the balance sheet reflects the total liabilities and its structure at a certain point in time on the debtor side, revealing the amount of debt that the enterprise needs to pay now and in the future, the urgency of debt repayment and the pressure of debt repayment; On the asset side, it reflects the total assets of the enterprise and its composition, revealing the economic resources, distribution and profitability of the enterprise at a certain point in time. The combination of liabilities and assets can be used to evaluate the performance of enterprises, analyze their financial resilience and security, and consider their solvency and operational stability. In the middle of the last century, the American economist Goldschmies began to attempt to introduce the unique analytical capabilities of balance sheets into national governance (see Goldsmith and Lipsey, 1963; Goldsmith, 1982) and piloted the sub-sectoral and integrated national balance sheet. Since then, advanced economies have followed suit. To date, most OECD countries publish financial balance sheets that do not contain physical assets. The impressive balance sheet of the state in the field of national governance and even economic analysis was after the Latin American crisis of the 90s. Unlike past crises, Latin American crises are characterized by debt crises that are typically characterized by excessive borrowing. In this way, the balance sheet has naturally won the favor of the international community as an analytical framework that can accurately depict a country's debt risk and assess its ability to repay its debt. After the introduction of the balance sheet as a mainstream analysis tool, a series of new results were quickly achieved. What is particularly refreshing is the reinterpretation of past crises, in particular the transmission process of crises and the interpretation of a number of particular phenomena in the process of recovery. In this regard, the research of Koo Chaoming, chief economist of the Nomura Research Institute in Japan, is the most famous (Koo Chaoming, 2008). In Koo's view, mainstream economics lacks the essence of explaining the causes of the Great Depression of the last century and Japan's "lost 20 years" since the 90s. He believes that the problem of the crisis is not on the supply side of money, but on the demand side of money. The economic recession is due to the collapse of market prices after the bursting of the stock market and real estate market bubbles, which caused the assets of enterprises that overextended during the bubble period to shrink significantly, resulting in an imbalance in their balance sheets and a serious increase in the scale of liabilities exceeding their assets. As a result, the enterprise, even if it is still operating, has fallen into technical bankruptcy. The important problem is that, in this case, most companies shift their business objectives from "profit maximization" to "debt minimization", that is, while reducing or even stopping borrowing, they tend to use all the cash flow they can to pay down debt, that is, spare no effort to "repair the balance sheet". If many companies pursue this "debt minimization" strategy, society as a whole will form a "synthetic fallacy" that does not produce and invest and focuses on debt repayment, so even if banks are willing to provide loans, no companies will come to borrow. The credit crunch situation in the whole society has taken shape. The recovery process from the crisis has thus been delayed. The "once-in-a-century" global economic crisis has once again highlighted the charm of asset-liability analysis. The crisis is still due to the fact that households, companies, and governments in developed countries are operating or consuming in debt, and financial institutions are correspondingly highly leveraged. The cause is this, and the recovery of the crisis is obviously a necessary condition for "deleveraging". However, deleveraging involves at least two issues. First, deleveraging requires a lot of savings and a lot of capital investment; The savings rate is not easy to increase, and the capital is even harder to find. Second, deleveraging, as the main path for economic recovery, will fully trigger the process of "repairing the balance sheet". In this process, when economic agents receive additional funds, their preference is not to engage in normal economic activities that monetary authorities want to generate, such as consumption, production and investment, but to use them to replenish capital, reduce debt, and "repair" the balance sheet. Thus, for a long period of time, injecting money into the economy will have the effect of stagnant consumption, sluggish investment, and a contraction in credit markets. A brilliant illustration of this happens in the United States. Although the dollar released by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury has reached the level of flooding liquidity in the United States and the world for several years, the credit market in the United States is still shrinking, so much so that the Fed's quantitative easing operation has increased and its balance sheet has expanded three times as never before. In particular, we would like to point out that this time, China has also really felt the impact of assets and liabilities. On the one hand, corporate debt and government debt at all levels are rising, and their seriousness has reached a level that can be exploited by malicious actors; On the other hand, the supply of money and credit has expanded dramatically, but the real economy still feels that "loans are difficult and expensive". Complex questions like these need to be answered quickly. Preparing China's national balance sheet, first of all, "knowing the situation" is obviously the basis and prerequisite for answering all questions. The research group of "China National Balance Sheet Research" of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was established in 2011, and the first batch of results was formed in 2012. At that time, we had already compiled China's sovereign balance sheet (2000-2010), the main results of which were published in Economic Research Journal No. 6-7 in 2013. The research results of 185561 research group have been cited by the International Monetary Fund (IMF, 2013), the People's Bank of China Research Agency, and some well-known investment banks at home and abroad. In addition, English-language papers on China's sovereign balance sheet research have been included in monographs published by the International Monetary Fund 185562. In September 2012, the research group held the "International Seminar on China's National Balance Sheet Analysis", attended by more than 60 well-known scholars from People's Bank of China, the National Bureau of Statistics, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and related fields. The experts naturally did not hesitate to praise, but also sharply put forward suggestions for further improvement and development. These suggestions guided the writing of this book. This book builds on the results of the 2012 study, comprehensively updates the data, and adds the compilation and analysis of China's national balance sheet. The key findings of this book can be summarized as follows: 1. In 2011, China's national net assets (non-financial assets plus net external assets) exceeded 300 trillion yuan. From 2007 to 2011, China's national balance sheet expanded sharply: the total national assets increased from 284.7 trillion yuan to 546.5 trillion yuan; Total liabilities increased from 118.9 trillion yuan to 242 trillion yuan; Net assets increased from 165.8 trillion yuan to 304.5 trillion yuan. All three indicators have nearly doubled in five years and have all grown faster than nominal GDP over the same period. The country's overall asset-liability ratio, that is, the ratio of total liabilities to total assets, showed an overall upward trend, especially in the two years from 2009 to 2010, which were greatly affected by the financial crisis. Since then, although it has fallen slightly in 2011, it is still well above the level of 2007. This structural change suggests an increase in reliance on debt financing in the formation of national assets, which in turn leads to a corresponding increase in debt risk. 2. The increase in national net worth continues to be less than that of GDP in that year, indicating that not all GDP has formed a real accumulation of wealth. In other words, a significant portion of the GDP we output is ineffective. This is because GDP indicators have certain inherent flaws: some ineffective investment (corresponding to overcapacity) and even activities that destroy resources and the environment are included in GDP, so these parts must be excluded from wealth formation. Taking 2010 as an example, the gap between the increase in net assets and GDP was as high as 7.5 trillion yuan, accounting for 18.7% of GDP in that year. While it cannot be asserted that all 7.5 trillion yuan was wasted or lost, it at least suggests that the quality of GDP for the year is very problematic. 3. In recent years, the proportion of inventory in total assets has increased sharply, indicating that the problem of overcapacity is very serious. There have always been two explanations for inventories and their changes: they may reflect enterprises' expectations of economic recovery (more in the form of active replenishment of inventories, which can be understood as an active inventory increase) or they may be related to the serious overcapacity that is currently prevalent in China (more in the form of passive accumulation of inventories, which can be understood as a passive inventory increase). We tend to believe that the latter cause, namely overcapacity, may be the main factor in the surge in the share of inventories. This is worthy of high vigilance. 4. The assets of sovereign departments (or government departments in the broad sense, including the central government, local governments, state-owned non-financial enterprises, administrative institutions, central banks, and state-owned financial enterprises) are greater than liabilities, and the net assets are positive. This suggests that the likelihood of a sovereign debt crisis in China is low for a long time. From 2000 to 2011, China's sovereign assets and liabilities both expanded. On the sovereign asset side, the state-owned assets of non-financial enterprises and reserve assets grew the fastest. On the sovereign debtor side, government debt (central and local), state-owned enterprise debt, and contingent liabilities arising from the disposal of non-performing assets have grown rapidly. Since the growth rate of China's sovereign assets has been higher than that of sovereign liabilities in the past 12 years, the scale of China's sovereign net assets has been growing. Judging from the situation in 2011, China's net sovereign assets were 87 trillion yuan. However, considering that the state-owned assets of administrative institutions are very illiquid (because they have to perform government functions), and the liquidity of the right to use land and resource assets is also poor, and it is impossible to transfer all of them at once (in fact, the recent annual land transfer fee is only two or three trillion yuan), the narrow diameter of sovereign assets is 21.6 trillion yuan. In 2012, the combined debt of the central government and local governments was close to 28 trillion yuan, accounting for 53% of GDP that year. If the debts of non-financial enterprises, residential sectors, financial sectors and government departments are summed up, the debt scale of the whole society reaches 111.6 trillion yuan, accounting for 215% of GDP that year. This means that the leverage ratio of the whole society is already very high. In order to create a long-term stable environment for economic development, deleveraging is inevitable. By sector, by the end of 2012, the leverage ratio (corporate debt to GDP) of the corporate sector had reached 113%, exceeding the 90% threshold of OECD countries, which is worthy of high vigilance. These indicators are at the top of all statistical countries. This constitutes a prominent feature of China's debt structure. This situation is closely related to China's economic development mode and the characteristics of the financial system that are dominated by indirect financing. The outstanding loan balance of the household sector was 16.1 trillion yuan (including 10.4 trillion yuan in consumer loans and 5.7 trillion yuan in operating loans), accounting for 31% of GDP. The debt balance of the non-financial corporate sector is 72.12 trillion yuan, accounting for 139% of GDP. Considering that the debt of the non-financial corporate sector includes to a considerable extent the entity debt of local government financing vehicles, which have a government background, in order to prevent cross-duplication, it is necessary to exclude the scale of local government financing vehicle debt, resulting in a debt balance of 58.67 trillion yuan, accounting for 113% of GDP. Summing up the central government debt and local government debt, the total government debt at the end of 2012 was 27.7 trillion yuan, accounting for 53% of GDP. Taking only the balance of bonds issued by the financial sector as its debt, at the end of 2012, the balance of bonds of financial institutions totaled 9.13 trillion yuan, accounting for 18% of GDP. Summing up the above four sectors, the debt scale of China's economy as a whole is 111.6 trillion yuan, and the leverage ratio of the whole society is 215%. In terms of aggregate, China's total debt level is lower than that of most developed economies, but higher than that of other BRICS countries (excluding South Africa), which is a relatively moderate level and is still in a moderate and controllable stage. However, given the rapid rise in China's debt levels in recent years, we should be vigilant about this; If local debt or broader sovereign debt is taken into account, China's government (sovereign) debt will increase significantly and lead to a large increase in the total debt level. We must not sit idly by. 6. Since the beginning of the new century, the balance sheets of China's state and sovereign sectors have shown a rapid expansion trend. Among them, on the asset side, the rapid accumulation of external assets, infrastructure, and residential real estate assets constitutes the leading factor of asset expansion. This records the historical process of China's accelerated industrialization and urbanization under the export-oriented development strategy. On the debtor side, the scale of indebtedness of sovereign sectors such as governments at all levels and state-owned enterprises has expanded at a higher rate than that of the private sector. This highlights the institutional character of government dominance of economic activity. 7. The recent risks of the national balance sheet are mainly reflected in real estate credit, local debt, and bank non-performing loans, while medium and long-term risks are more concentrated in external assets, corporate debts, and social security arrears. Whatever the type of risk, it is closely related to the current development mode and economic structure. Therefore, the best way to deal with or resolve risks is to change the mode of development and adjust the economic structure to achieve healthy, efficient, high-quality and sustainable growth. 8. If the current endowment insurance system continues to be implemented, by 2023, there will be a funding gap for employee endowment insurance nationwide; By 2029, the accumulated balance will be depleted; By 2050, the cumulative gap in employee pensions will account for 91% of GDP in that year. In addition, by 2050, China's total pension expenditure (including employee and resident pension insurance) will account for 11.85% of GDP, which is roughly the same level as some high-welfare countries in Europe. We also analysed the impact of certain policy measures and pension system design on the financial sustainability of pension insurance in a variety of contexts. It is found that raising the retirement age and raising the basic pension age of residents can play a strong role and can greatly reduce the degree of pension gap. At the same time, improving the investment rate of pension insurance also helps to reduce the pension gap, but the effect is relatively small. Maintaining a high pension insurance replacement rate will significantly increase the potential debt level of pension insurance. We prefer measures to raise the retirement age and the basic pension age for residents, and at the same time, we advocate increasing the rate of return on investment and maintaining a high pension replacement rate. Of course, financing pension insurance through dividend accumulation of state-owned assets or the sale of state-owned assets, as well as by raising taxes, issuing bonds and providing financial subsidies to pension insurance, is also a viable option to solve or alleviate the pension gap. The Decision on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform adopted by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly puts forward the strategic task of "accelerating the establishment of a unified national economic accounting system and compiling national and local balance sheets". Promoting the research and compilation of national balance sheets at the highest level of the country is rare in today's world. This fully demonstrates the determination and wisdom of the Chinese government to strive to "promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity". As scholars of the highest social science research institution established by the state, we will respond to the call of the Third Plenum, continue to use our efforts to do a good job in the research and compilation of the national balance sheet, and contribute to the improvement and development of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics, and the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity.（AI翻译）