【08.12.12路透社】改革开放30年后：中国经济处在十字路口
【原文标题】China economy at crossroads after 30 years of reform
【中文标题】改革开放30年后：中国经济处在十字路口
【刊登媒体】英国 路透社
【来源网址】http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4B94K420081212?virtualBrandChannel=10341
【原文】
China economy at crossroads after 30 years of reform
By Alan Wheatley, China Economics Editor
BEIJING (Reuters) - Who would have thought a few months ago that China might end up remembering 2008 not for the Beijing Olympics or May's Sichuan earthquake but for the demise of the country's model of economic development?
Might is the operative word. China's attachment to investment, exports and heavy industry runs deep.
After all, these have been the drivers of the remarkable growth of 10 percent a year that China has enjoyed since it embarked on market reforms 30 years ago this month, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the process.
Weaning the economy off exports in favor of domestic consumption driven by services is easier said than done.
But the closure of thousands of factories as export demand evaporates has dealt a serious blow to China's confidence. President Hu Jintao has gone so far as to say that turning the challenges posed by the global credit crisis into opportunities would be a test of the Communist Party's capacity to govern.
China, in short, realizes it needs to stand on its own feet.
So expectations are running high that a meeting starting on Monday of China's top leaders to chart economic policy for 2009 will finally get serious about boosting home-grown spending.
The scale of the task is daunting. Household consumption last year made up just 35.3 percent of China's gross domestic product, a record low for a major country in peacetime. In the 1980s, it was over 50 percent.
By comparison, the U.S. ratio last year was 72 percent. If America spends too much for the sake of global economic balance, China has taken thrift to new extremes. That needs to change.
Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist with Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong, cites the pending nationwide expansion of a scheme offering a 13 percent tax break to rural buyers of televisions and washing machines as evidence that China is already looking to tap its own potential.
The initial pilot program in a handful of provinces led to a 40 percent increase in sales of household appliances.
"The fact manufacturers are turning to Chinese villagers rather than American consumers is a symbolic milestone in the global rebalancing story," Simpfendorfer said.
"This is a slow burn story. It won't save the global economy from its current problems. But it may help to shape the global economy over the next decade," he added.
GETTING READY
Raising the income tax threshold; pay rises for state workers; increases in housing subsidies and minimum income support; and extra outlays on health, pensions and education are among other ideas this week's strategy sessions will examine to get people to spend more freely.
But, skeptics ask, if Beijing is so serious about increasing disposable incomes, why is the state budget for health care and education so puny? These are the two largest out-of-pocket expenses for most Chinese.
Public spending on health care and education comes to just 1.8 percent and 2.5 percent of GDP respectively, well below the global average. And only 1 percent of China's new 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus plan is earmarked for the two sectors.
One of the rationalizations is that China has not had the bureaucracy in place to ensure extra money is used wisely.
It's easy to pour concrete to build a clinic. It's tougher to train doctors and nurses and administer a medical insurance scheme across a sprawling, developing country -- to say nothing of making sure the money is not siphoned off.
But Calla Wiemer, a visiting scholar at the University of California-Los Angeles Center for Chinese Studies, says China has made notable progress in recent years by shifting responsibility for the delivery of social services from towns and villages to the county level, where personnel are better trained.
By last year, 86 percent of rural counties had established cooperative medical schemes, she said in a recent opinion piece.
"While these have not been ambitious in terms of the dollar amounts -- the level of coverage is typically under $10 per person per year -- they've contributed importantly to administrative capacity building," Wiemer wrote.
SPENDING, NOT STEEL
David Dollar, head of the World Bank office in Beijing, makes a similar point.
"The institutional structures are in place so that the government could increase spending quite significantly and quite effectively," he said. "It would be both good fiscal stimulus and it would help with the whole social development agenda."
That sounds like common sense, but some scholars wonder whether China has the political set-up needed to accommodate a switch from infrastructure to social spending.
Zhiwu Chen, a finance professor at Yale School of Management, argues that returning money to the people -- through lower taxes or spending on social programs -- is not a priority in China because its leaders do not have to stand for election.
This explains not only why democracies such as Brazil and India lag behind China in infrastructure but why China's economic stimulus package is concentrated on road and rail building.
"In a non-democracy, officials are held accountable to their superiors, not voters. And for one's superiors, tangible projects are the easiest to recognize," Chen said in a syndicated column.
For 30 years, concentrating resources in the hands of the government through state ownership and taxes has served China well. But the private consumption needed to power self-sustained growth is lacking. For that, Chen argues, China must boost incomes and increase people's sense of financial security.
"Building a nation demands more than steel and concrete," he wrote.
改革开放30年后：中国经济处在十字路口
北京（路透社）——几个月以前，谁会想到中国留在2008年的记忆不是2008年奥运会，不是五月的四川地震，而是这个国家经济发展模式的终结！
关键词是能力，中国重视投资、出口和工业化。毕竟，这是中国自30年前开始改革后每年以惊人的10%的速度增长的原因，这使中国成千上万的人脱贫致富。
但是，让国内消费需求代替出口作为经济发展的动力说起来比做起来容易啊。伴随着全球市场的需求低迷，中国许多加工企业陷入破产境地沉重地打击了中国的自信心。胡主席竟然说，把全球信用危机带来的挑战转变成一个机遇是对共产党执政能力的考验。
总之，中国现在明白了，只能依靠自己了。
所以，对于周一的中国高层经济会议，外界是寄予了很高的期望的；这次会议重点研究了扩大内需的方法。
这个任务是令人畏惧的。家庭消费支出只占中国GDP总量的35.3%，这比和平时期的大多数国家都要低。而在上世纪80年代，这个比例超过50%。
作为对比，美国去年的这一比例是72%。如果美国在全球经济平衡花费太多的话，那么中国必须在节俭方面做到一个极致。这需要改变。
本·辛菲德费尔，苏格兰皇家银行香港分行的经济学家，引用即将到来的扩大内需的计划说，中国对于农村居民购买洗衣机和电视机时给予13%的税收优惠，这表明中国正在激发自己的潜能。最近在一些省份的试验计划使得家用电器的销量增加了40%。
本·辛菲德费尔说：“中国家电企业从美国消费者转向中国农村居民的事实是在全球经济平衡上的重要里程碑。”他补充说，这是一个缓慢的过程，它不会把全球经济从当今的低迷状态解救出来，但是它会对全球经济产生深远的影响。
做好准备
提高所得税起征点，给国家工作人员加薪，提高住房补贴和最低收入支持，额外的卫生，养老和教育的支出都是这次战略会议的要点，目的就是让人们在花费方面有更大的自由。
但是怀疑者发出疑问，如果北京是这么急切的想要提高人们可支配收入，为什么国家预算在医疗保健和教育的支出会这么少？这是中国大多数人的两个最大的支出项目。
在医疗保健和教育公共支出只分别占GDP的1.8%和2.5%，远远低于全球平均水平。并且中国最新的4万亿（5860亿美元）经济刺激计划中只有1%的是用在这两方面的。
一个合理的解释是中国目前没有专门的机构来保证这额外的钱明智地花出去。
办一个诊所是很容易的，但是培训医生和护士，管理医疗保险计划是很困难的——发展中国家，很难保证这笔花费不被挪用。
但是卡勒·威尔莫，加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶中心中国研究的访问学者，认为中国近年来在城乡居民收入分配方面取得很大的进步，这些部门的人员受到很好的培训。但是去年，86%的农村居民已经加入合作医疗计划中，她在最近的一个调查中说。
威尔莫写到，尽管从金钱数额方面上来说，这还不够雄心勃勃——一级的覆盖面每人每年还不到10美元——这已经对行政能力建设方面做出重要的贡献。
支出，不只是在建设
大卫·道拉，世界银行北京办事处的头儿，提出了类似的观点。“在体制状态下，政府可以明显有效地增加支出，”他说：“它是一个双赢的财政刺激计划，对社会发展都有好处。”
这就像是一个常识，但是有些学者不知道中国是不是具有这种政治机构来适应这种从基础设施建设到社会计划开销的转变。陈志武（音），耶鲁大学管理学院金融教授，认为把钱返回给人民——尽管降低税收或者在社会计划的花费——在中国不是重点，因为她的领导不是由选举产生的。
这个也是为什么民主国家，例如巴西和印度在基础设施建设方面落后于中国；这也是中国的经济刺激计划中这么关注公路和铁路建设。
“在非民主国家，官员对他的上级负责，而不是选民。而对于上级，明确的工程是最容易产生政绩的。”陈在一个专栏写到。
30年来，通过税收和国有化使得资源集中在政府手里，给中国带来很大好处。但是，需要自我维持的私人消费是缺失的。因此，对于中国来说，中国必须提高国民收入，增加人们金融安全的意识。
“建设一个国家不仅仅需要钢铁和混凝土”，他写到。
[ 本帖最后由 妩人少将 于 2008-12-16 12:38 编辑 ]
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