【中文标题】中国胜过美国的地方
【原文标题】Where China Outpaces America
【登载媒体】纽约时报
【原文作者】NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
【原文链接】http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01kristof.html?_r=1&ref=china
中国有一个事实你或许不知道：今天，上海居民的平均寿命比美国人要长。
上海人的平均寿命是82岁，而美国人的这个数字还不到79。（就整个中国而言，包括农村地区，平均寿命要低一些，大约73岁——但是这个数字还在稳步上升。）
近期中国严厉的镇压行动理所当然地占据了媒体的头条，但是健康数据反应了这个国家的另外一面，而且这些数据不会那么复杂、富有争议。
人们对四分之一个世纪之前的上海的记忆还停留在一个破烂的城市上，农民每天早上用简陋的设备挨家收集粪便。而现在，上海常住居民的婴儿死亡率为千分之2.9，比纽约的千分之5.3死亡率低很多。（如果更加公平地比较，要算上农民工等流动人口，那么上海的这个数字要稍高于纽约。）
上海儿童在公立学校中享受着世界级的教育——在近期针对65个国家的调查中，中国的教育系统位列榜首。尽管中国的学校也有其自身的问题，比如无处不在的作弊行为和扼杀创造性的教育模式。
根据联合国儿童基金会的统计，从1990年开始，中国把新生儿的死亡率降低了54％。就中国人口规模来看，这表示每年挽救36万名婴儿的性命。
这个现象让中国成为一个迷人又具有争议的国家。其它国家，从埃及到朝鲜，人民不但遭受压制，而且一贫如洗。但是改革年代的中国共产党虽然在政治上极为残暴——甚至近期更加变本加厉，动用了二十年来最严厉的镇压手段——但其人民变得相当富有。
胡锦涛主席和其它党内高层官员都是专制者，没错，但或许是少见的、能力极强的专制者。调查显示，按照国际标准，中国人对他们的命运相当满意，尽管会有人质疑这样的调查有多大的意义。我的直觉认为，如果共产党同意进行全民选举，它还是会以压倒性优势获胜——尤其是在农村地区。
一位哈佛的学者曾经对我说，今天的中国在矛盾中前进，这句话甚合我意。我在上一篇文章中对镇压行动表现出的痛惜是真真切切的，同样令人扼腕的还有官员惊人的腐败程度。但是，就是这样一个把少数不同政见者丢入监狱的政府，却给数亿人提供了崭新的生活。
监禁一名杰出的诺贝尔和平奖得主小波波，和通过改良的医疗政策每年拯救数百万新生婴儿的性命，这两件事的平衡点在哪里？根本就没有，中国的两幅面孔是无法相比的。这就是21世纪中国的阴阳两面。
美国人愿意用二元论的方式分析中国——要么是扫除贫穷、明智地投资替代能源的经济庞然大物，要么是拷打不同政见者的达斯•维达（译者注：《星球大战》中黑暗绝地武士的代表人物）。实际上，这都是对的。同样，中国肆意践踏贸易条款，但是却一直让其货币升值（主要通过通货膨胀），幅度甚至超过美国人的期望。
我们在面对一个中美关系呈紧张状态的时代，这种状态在美国总统大选和中国领导层2012年变革的背景下更加恶化，当然其中还有我上一篇文章中提到的镇压行动。
当我在80年代和90年代在中国生活的时候，我和我的中国朋友们的经济状况总是令人尴尬地不平衡。我有一辆汽车，他们只有自行车。吃饭的时候总是我付费，因为我的经济能力实在比他们强很多。
现在的情况是颠倒过来的不平衡：还是那些朋友，有些人坐在有专职司机的豪华汽车中出行，而我去那里都是打出租车。他们带我去一些高档的餐厅，那里的价格让我头痛。
一个中国朋友邀请我去他家做客，他有自己的室内篮球场和私人影院，这完全是在赞颂这个国家生活水平惊人的提升。但同时，这也表明了中国收入水平差距不断加大。根据官方的数据，中国有3.2亿农村人口依然没有安全的饮用水。
而且，经济蓬勃发展的部分原因在于经济泡沫，尤其是房地产泡沫。一些巨额资产与政府官员的腐败有关。我的一个朋友是一位政治局委员的儿子，他告诉我，一家中国公司每年付给他数十万美元，仅仅是要求他同意自己的名字被列在公司的董事会中。这样，公司就可以说服地方政府以低廉的价格向其转让土地。
我们到底应当怎样看待这个国家？
这其中包含的多方面的因素。在中美关系持续紧张的关头，任何非黑即白的观点或许有其正确的以免，但也必然是不完整、具有误导性的。
原文：
Here’s a fact about China that you may not know: people in Shanghai today have a longer life expectancy than Americans.
A child in Shanghai is expected to live 82 years. In the United States, the figure is not quite 79 years. (For all of China, including rural areas, life expectancy is lower, 73 years — but rising steadily.)
The harsh repression in China these days rightly garners headlines, but health data reflect another side of a nation that could scarcely be more complex and contradictory.
For those who remember Shanghai a quarter-century ago as a dilapidated city where farmers would collect night soil from families without sanitation, it’s extraordinary that among permanent residents of Shanghai, infant mortality is 2.9 deaths per 1,000 births. That is well below the rate of 5.3 in New York City. (Include migrant laborers living in Shanghai, perhaps a fairer comparison, and the rate climbs to a bit higher than in New York.)
That Shanghai child enjoys a world-class education in a public school — the best school system of any in a recent 65-nation survey, although it’s also true that Chinese schools have their own problems such as widespread cheating and stifling of creativity.
Since 1990, the country has reduced infant mortality rates by 54 percent, according to Unicef statistics. On a Chinese scale, that represents more than 360,000 children’s lives saved each year.
That’s what makes China such a fascinating and contradictory place. Other countries, from Egypt to North Korea, oppress and impoverish their people. But the Chinese Communist Party in the reform era has been oppressive politically — even worse lately, with the harshest clampdown in two decades — while hugely enriching its people.
President Hu Jintao and other top Communist Party officials are autocrats, yes, but unusually competent autocrats. Polls show Chinese citizens pretty happy with their lot by international standards, although there’s some doubt about how meaningful these polls are. My hunch is that if the Communist Party did hold free elections, it would win by a landslide — especially in rural areas.
A Harvard scholar once told me that today’s China is best approached with ambivalence, and that seems about right to me. The crackdown that I deplored in my last column is real, and so is the stunning level of official corruption. But the same government that throws small numbers of dissidents in prison also provides new opportunities to hundreds of millions.
What’s the trade-off between imprisoning a brilliant Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident like Liu Xiaobo and saving hundreds of thousands of babies’ lives each year through improved health care? There isn’t one. The two sides of China are incommensurate. They are the yin and yang of 21st-century China.
The United States tends to perceive China through a Manichaean lens — either the economic juggernaut overcoming poverty and investing brilliantly in alternative energy, or the Darth Vader that tortures dissidents. In fact, both are equally real. Likewise, China abuses trade pacts, but it has also been appreciating its currency (mostly through inflation) much more than Americans give it credit for.
We face a period in which Chinese-American tensions are likely to rise, aggravated by the American presidential election and the Chinese leadership transition in 2012, as well as by the crackdown that was the topic of my last column.
When I lived in China in the 1980s and ’90s, there was always an awkward economic imbalance between me and my Chinese friends. I had a car, and they had bicycles. I paid for our meals together because I was so much better off.
Now there’s a new imbalance: Some of those same people ride around in chauffeured limousines while I get around in taxis. They take me to fancy restaurants whose prices give me headaches.
One Chinese friend took me to a home with private indoor basketball court and personal movie theater. It was a tribute to the stunning improvement in the country’s standard of living. But it also speaks to growing income gaps at a time when, by official figures, 320 million rural Chinese do not even have access to safe water.
Moreover, some of the economic boom appears attributable to a bubble, particularly in real estate. And some of the grand fortunes are linked to corruption by government officials. One friend, the son of a Politburo member, once told me that he was being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by a Chinese company just to be on its board. That way, the company could persuade local governments to give it land at reduced prices.
What are we to make of such a country?
That it contains multitudes. And that at this time of rising China-United States tensions, any simplistic black or white view of it may well be right — but also incomplete and misleading. |
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发表于 2011-5-1 22:08
