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 “大国崛起”云乎哉？（二） |
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“大国崛起”云乎哉？（二） -- 芦笛 - (3247 Byte) 2012-6-30 周六, 上午5:20 (1608 reads) |
njin180
加入时间: 2010/04/28
文章: 128
经验值: 5625
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作者：njin180 在 驴鸣镇 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
When it comes to prognosticating the future of China’s economy, critics swing from starry-eyed wonder to end-of-days doom. The truth is surely somewhere in between. No matter what, China’s emergence will not be smooth. It faces many challenges: rising inflation; skyrocketing commodity prices; wage increases that weaken its position as a low-cost manufacturer; bureaucratic conservatism that militates against bold, and necessary, structural reforms; an urban-rural income gap that threatens social harmony; and an education system that squelches creativity and innovation.
Not overheating.
In the short-term, China’s economy is not overheating. Although postfinancial crisis investment skyrocketed, few believe the banks are critically overextended, especially at the national level. GaveKal-Dragonomics, a Chinese-focused research house, estimates that government debt amounts to about 80 percent of GDP—a sustainable level, even after accounting for central and local government projects, bank restructuring costs, and other liabilities. Investment in infrastructure is yielding lower productivity gains than several years ago, but as a nation, China has not overbuilt. The Economist notes that China’s accumulated investment in fixed assets is still low and real wages have been rising strongly, which should help boost consumption in the medium term. Despite unaffordable property in major cities, talk of popping bubbles is confined to high-end neighborhoods in coastal capitals.
An enduring model.
In the long term, China’s growth model still has legs. There are various components, including aggressive attraction of foreign technology and management expertise; integration with international financial institutions to improve compliance with global standards of governance; top-down management of strategic industries; minimal interference in private enterprises, many of which are dynamic but starved for capital; ruthless control of capital flows; a gradual shift to domestic consumption, one that has not yet begun in earnest; and regional specialization. Different regions now specialize in different sectors, facilitating the formation of supplier-and-producer clusters that slash operating costs. What’s more, the emergence of China’s middle class completes a successful investment-production-consumption circle, the same one that allowed America to become an industrial powerhouse in the twentieth century.
The grand urbanization and job creation paradigm.
The most important element, however, is rapid (but steady) urbanization, the ultimate catalyst for higher productivity and disposable incomes. In 1990, China’s urbanization rate was 26 percent. By 2010, it had reached approximately 50 percent, and, if all goes according to plan, by 2035, more than 70 percent of the country’s population will live in cities and towns. In many respects, the past two decades have been a successful Great Leap Forward. (Mao’s 1958–1962 utopian folly was the most disastrous misallocation of capital in human history. Peasants, herded into collectives, focused on forging backyard furnaces, not rotating crops. By some estimates, thirty million people perished from starvation.) The countryside is becoming industrialized and urbanized. Boosted by infrastructural investment, towns have sprung up on what used to be farmland. Peasants, once toiling in fields, now work in factories, on construction sites and in hospitals, hotels, and airports. As people leave low-productivity agriculture jobs for higher-productivity ones in the manufacturing and service sectors, human capital is liberated. As a result, 250 million people have been rescued from poverty. Immense productivity gains mitigate inefficiencies, including poor innovation, creaky distribution networks, rampant corruption, excessive savings encouraged by frayed safety nets, and patchy tax collection. Urbanization is a rising tide that lifts many boats, even ones with holes in the bottom.
Political wherewithal?
Does China have the political flexibility required to sustain the paradigm? No one can say for sure. But policy makers are not naive—they know that reform is imperative. Without it, labor mobility, already slowing, as evidenced by rising wages, will stop. What does the party need to do? There must be a massive reallocation of wealth from the cities to the countryside so peasants feel secure enough to leave villages and settle in urban areas. This will require two fundamental changes: reform of the hukou system, which keeps migrant workers from collecting the generous benefits only city residents receive; and land reform. Regarding the latter, genuine change would involve gradually allowing farmers to buy, and cash in on, the farmland they do not yet own and relocate permanently to cities.
Real reform on both fronts has barely begun, impeded by left-wing dogma and fears of upsetting a middle class whose tax bills would have to rise to fund restructuring. But the world should not underestimate the technocratic savvy of Beijing mandarins. Rationalism, it can be hoped, will lead to a new deal between the party and the peasantry. When reform does come, it will be microscopically incremental, barely noticeable to outsiders. The Chinese are adept at experimentation. (Currency and interest rate reform seem to be further along the test-and-refine track than hukou and land reform; that said, Chengdu and Chongqing do appear to be laboratories for the latter.) It is unclear how much time remains before the rural-urban express train comes to halt, but there are legions of underemployed peasants out there. Farmers’ incomes are approximately one-sixth that of factory workers. And infrastructural reform, plus the growth of inland cities, minimizes migrant dislocation. Peasants still have plenty of incentive to head for the bright lights; the party still has several years before the clock runs out.
The extraordinary Chinese.
Perhaps the most powerful, albeit qualitative, argument in favor of sustained expansion is the uniqueness of the Chinese people. They harbor no illusions about challenges confronting the nation. They have experienced the agony of disintegration and will accommodate tough choices with more grace than the Communist Party supposes—or, indeed, than we in the West seem able to muster ourselves. During the past eighty years, the masses have persevered through Japanese invasion, civil war, revolution, the nightmare of a hundred flowers blooming, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping theory, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the uncomfortable debut of global China, head-spinning urbanization, a digital big bang, and apartment price vertigo. Through it all, the Chinese have adapted. They survey the horizons for threats and opportunities and, mostly, thrive. They are still optimistic—and with good reason. Despite the tumult and awkwardness of economic adolescence, China is more stable, more integrated into a multinational framework, than at any time in history. The people crave stability and will, to a point, suffer in order to sustain the nation’s precarious balance.
China has emerged, at all levels of society, as a nation of realists. What I observed in my last book, Billions, still holds true:
The Chinese boast a broad (albeit ethnocentric) worldview and are fascinated with anything new. Anti-individualism fuels a patriotic fervor that unifies the nation behind a common goal of national advancement. A profound respect for intelligence, the ultimate weapon in a dog-eat-dog world, has created a country that reveres the scholar. Their mindset emphasizes knowledge over might, defense over offense, skill over brute force, and concentration over impulse. As a result, Chinese are analytically and tactically brilliant. While creativity is not China’s forte, dazzling application is. The Chinese are, simply put, the most striving, ambitious yet clear-eyed people on the planet and that counts for a lot. They are pragmatic yet human, wary yet hopeful, patient yet quick to respond. They are the hope of their future. I’m betting on them.
I still am.
作者：njin180 在 驴鸣镇 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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