部分债券市场观察人士认为，中国通过加拿大账户持有数千亿美元证券，掩盖了其持有美国债务的全部规模。加拿大一家主要银行的研究认为，这一观点站不住脚。
Some bond-market watchers believe China is disguising the full extent of its ownership of US debt by holding hundreds of billions of dollars of securities through accounts in Canada. That idea is off base, according to research from one major Canadian bank.
加拿大国民银行金融部的三名分析师在本周的一份报告中针对中加关联提出质疑，称对于数据显示加拿大持有的美国债务急剧上升而中国持有量下降这一现象，存在更合乎逻辑的解释——包括加拿大金融机构的快速增长。
Three analysts at National Bank Financial took aim at the China-Canada link in a report this week, saying there are more logical explanations for figures that show Canada’s holdings of US debt rising sharply while China’s fall — including the rapid growth of Canadian financial institutions.
美国官方数据显示，过去十年左右，中国将其持有的美国国债减半。市场上流传的理论认为，中国实体实际上选择通过其他国家（包括加拿大）的托管人分散持有，以掩盖其真实持有规模。
Official US data suggest that China has cut its holdings of US Treasuries in half over the past decade or so. The theory circulating in the market is that Chinese entities, in fact, are choosing to obscure how much they own by spreading them around through custodians in other nations, including Canada.
“谁不爱一个好的阴谋论呢？”国民银行的 Warren Lovely、Taylor Schleich 和 Ethan Currie 在报告中写道。
“Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory?”National Bank’s Warren Lovely, Taylor Schleich and Ethan Currie said in their report.
如果属实，这将意味着中国占美国债务的份额并非如预想那样迅速缩减，加拿大对美债的胃口被大幅高估，且后者的金融系统被用于隐瞒全球最重要债务证券的最终所有权。
If true, it would mean China’s share of US debt isn’t shrinking as rapidly as thought, that Canada’s appetite for it is significantly overstated, and that the latter’s financial system is being used to conceal the ultimate ownership of the world’s most important debt securities.
但加拿大数据指向一个更简单、不那么惊人的解释，国民银行分析师称。
But Canadian data point to a simpler, less exciting explanation, the National Bank analysts said.
通过梳理加拿大统计局关于资金流向和资产负债表账户的数据，他们指出，截至今年第二季度，加拿大实体持有的外国债券价值超过 1.1 万亿加元。其中大部分集中在几大群体：银行、保险公司、养老金计划、共同基金、其他私募基金以及社会保障计划（如加拿大养老金计划）。
Combing through Statistics Canada data on financial flows and balance sheet accounts, they note that Canadian entities held foreign bonds worth more than C$1.1 trillion as of the second quarter of this year. Most of that is concentrated in several groups: banks, insurers, pension plans, mutual funds, other private funds and social-security plans such as the Canada Pension Plan.
加拿大统计局数据显示，过去五年，加拿大投资者持有的外国债务价值增加了近 5000 亿加元。
The value of foreign debt held by Canadian investors has risen by nearly C$500 billion over the past five years, Statcan data show.
分析师在报告中表示，该增幅中约有一半反映了净购买。其余部分来自“重估效应”，包括货币变动——这意味着加拿大报告的持仓增幅也高估了实际流入外国债券的新增资金量。
About half of that increase reflects net purchases, the analysts said in the report. The rest came from “revaluation effects,” including currency movements — meaning the increase in Canada’s reported holdings also overstates the amount of new money actually flowing into foreign bonds.
据洛夫利、施莱希和柯里称，投资者有多种理由想要持有更多美国国债，包括更高的收益率、资产负债表扩张以及对地域多元化的需求。
Investors have a number of reasons to want to hold more US Treasuries, including higher yields, balance sheet growth and a desire for geographic diversification, according to Lovely, Schleich and Currie.
分析师表示，加拿大银行是近年来外国债券持仓增幅最大的来源，“部分是不断增长的负债池的另一面”，因为它们吸引了更多外币存款。
Canadian banks are responsible for the largest portion of the increase in foreign bond holdings in recent years, which the analysts said is “partly the flip side of a growing pool of liabilities” as they attract more foreign-currency deposits.
他们写道：“要暗示加拿大受到严格监管的银行以某种方式串通掩盖中国美国国债持仓的真实性质，似乎有些牵强。”
“It would seem a stretch to suggest that Canada’s heavily regulated banks are somehow complicit in masking the true nature of China’s US Treasury holdings,” they wrote.
加拿大国民银行的分析师测算，加拿大非银行金融公司是外国债券持仓增长的另一大来源。这一群体包括监管较宽松的对冲基金，其持仓在两年内激增了630亿加元。
Non-bank financial firms in Canada are another big source of growth in foreign bond holdings, the National Bank analysts calculated. This group, which includes lightly regulated hedge funds, has seen those holdings jump C$63 billion in two years.
推动这一现象的原因尚不完全清楚，但加拿大国民银行的分析师指出，此类基金规模在扩大，且有充足证据表明对冲基金已迅速成为加拿大政府债券市场的更大参与者。
It’s not totally clear what’s driving that, but the National Bank analysts noted that such funds are getting bigger and that there’s ample evidence that hedge funds have quickly become larger players in Canada’s government bond market.
加拿大国民银行的分析师写道：“对于杠杆参与者而言，美国国债提供的卓越流动性可提升相对价值交易策略的效率。” “这一深度流动性论据有助于解释为何外国对冲基金在加拿大自家主权债券市场的参与度日益加深。”
“For leveraged players, the superior liquidity afforded by Treasuries can enhance the efficiency of relative-value trading strategies,” the National Bank analysts wrote. “This deep-liquidity argument helps explain the growing involvement of foreign hedge funds in Canada’s own sovereign bond market.”