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【中文标题】中国和美国，谁才是“千年老二”？
【原文标题】China vs. the U.S.: The Case for Second Place
【登载媒体】商业周刊
【原文作者】Charles Kenny
【原文链接】http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/china-vs-the-us-the-case-for-second-place-10132011.html
中国很快将超过美国，成为世界第一大经济体，美国人需要担心吗？
一个尽人皆知的事实是，中国经济很快将成为世界第一。据世界银行提供的数据，以购买力平价（调整了汇率以消除人们在国内购买商品和服务的价格差异）来看，中国的经济总量是10.1万亿美元，而美国是14.6万亿美元。中国在迅速缩小其中的差距。过去十年中，中国GDP年均增长10.5％，美国的年均增长为1.7％。中国在2011年前半年的经济增长较去年同期增加了9.6％，而美国还不到1％。对美国的最好评价是，全球领头羊的位置时日不多了。
我们需要为此担心吗？Thomas Friedman和Niall Ferguson等人都在引用世界经济首位排名即将发生的变化来佐证美国经济必将全面崩溃的理论。Friedman在《纽约时报》专栏中抱怨：“我们是‘年久失修合众国’，中国是‘喜怒不形于色人民共和国’。他们储蓄、投资、建设；我们消费、借贷、修补。”夺取世界经济头号地位并非是中国的唯一目的，你只需要看看中国和美国的历史就会了解到这一点。中国经济不断膨胀的现实令中国人无比骄傲，但是美国依然是公认的生活最舒适的国家，这种状态在未来很长一段时间都不会发生变化。
尽管一些经济学家对于中国是否有能力保持目前的增长趋势持怀疑态度，但是大多数人认为，中土帝国的13亿人口比美国的3.1亿生灵创造出更大的财富，仅仅是几年的时间问题。这意味着历史又将重演。美国成为世界最强大的经济力量开始于1890年之前，它取代了原世界巨人中国的地位。据荷兰格罗宁根大学已故经济历史学家Angus Maddison提供的数据，中国在过去1500年中一直是世界最大的经济体。直到20世纪，它世界第一的地位仅在1700年前后短暂地被印度取代过。
在长达5个世纪保持世界经济第一的时代里，中国却远非世界上最富有的国家。意大利在1500年富有程度是中国的两倍；荷兰在1700年是中国的三倍；英国在1870年是中国的六倍。今天，尽管中美GDP总量几乎相等，中国的人均收入只能买到美国人均收入的16％的商品和服务，这个差距恐怕还需要几十年的时间才能弥合。如果你是一个对失去世界经济第一位置感到失落的美国人，我建议你到中国西部贫困省份贵州去度个假。那里的收入水平只有美国的四十分之一，你肯定会感到好受一些。
然而，依然有悲观主义者在警告，失去领头羊的位置会对美国造成各种各样的负面影响。他们认为，世界第一经济大国的地位是美国繁荣富强的重要保障。原因是自从二战结束之后，美元成为国际金融储备的主要货币，这让美国可以用自己的货币来进行结算和贸易。彼得森国际经济研究机构的Arvind Subramanian预测，如果中国的经济规模超过美国，那么人民币的相对重要性也会超过美元。他认为，在未来10年里，人民币有可能取代美元，成为世界最大的储备货币。
但是这种影响并不具有毁灭性。或许的确如此，如果美元失去统治地位，美国公司将不得不开始警惕汇率变化的风险，政府借贷的成本也将提高。但是外国公司一直在应对汇率变化风险呀，而且它们的竞争力也不错。而且，从中期来看，少借贷对于美国来说不啻为一件好事。持续升值的人民币——如果它成为储备货币，升值是必然的——其实有利于平衡美中之间的贸易差距。
中国很快会发现的一件事情是，成为世界上最大的经济体并且手握钟爱的储备货币，其实与一个国家的实际经济状况没有太大的关系。证据就是美国自身。在美国成为世界最大经济体的1890年到2008年之间，美国年人均收入增长比中国低四分之一个百分点。据格罗宁根大学的Maddison提供的数据，美国在这118年间的经济增长幅度在37个国家中仅排第15位，落后于丹麦、加拿大、瑞典和（很快会出现的）希腊。哪怕是一些小国都比美国做得要好。卢森堡的经济规模还不到美国的百分之一，大约只相当于特拉华州的产出，但是其人均财富是美国的两倍。
40年代的一段时间中，美国展示出作为世界上最大经济体和最富有国家的力量所在：它在战争中勇敢地击败了两个世界强敌，还依据自己的意愿营造出和平的世界环境。但或许是受到世界最大规模经济体这个事实的驱使，美国认为自己有义务扮演世界警察的角色，即使在最顽固的新自由主义者看来，这也是一项福祸并存的工作。事情还不仅如此，瑞典乌普萨拉大学的数据显示，这导致美国去年海外士兵牺牲的数量超过了任何一个国家。与此同时，美国军费支出占了全世界军费支出的五分之二以上，它消耗的GDP比例超过了世界经济合作发展组织的任何一个成员国。
如果说至高无上的地位能带来一些利益的话，那么这些利益相比于一个世纪之前也已经缩水了很多。由美国所倡导的战后国际秩序决定，在世贸组织的框架下，任何一个国家试图采取不公正贸易行为的能力受到了严格的限制。而中国就更加束手束脚了，因为其经济严重依赖出口，它比美国更加需要世贸组织的多边供给条款。
当然，作为20国集团中人人争相与之攀谈的对象，奥巴马总统的感觉一定非常惬意。同样，坐在联合国安理会牢牢钉在桌子上的名牌后面的美国大使，胸中也一定充满了自豪感。但同时，当老大就意味着你是别人谴责和批判的对象，或许退居二线的美国会更受人欢迎呢。BBC每年主办的美国海外形象调查显示，2007年美国的海外形象排名仅略高于朝鲜和伊朗。而在2007年之后，有大幅度的提升，当然还是落在一些不那么强大的国家之后，比如加拿大和德国。与此同时，中国海外形象的排名自2005年开始一直下降，或许这可以部分地反应它雄壮的经济实力带来的负面效果。
总而言之，美国应当放弃永远第一的执念的最好原因是，在那些真正重要的方面，我们做得并不怎么样。在广义的生活质量方面，例如一个健康指标——寿命，美国在经合组织富裕国家中的排名靠后。据世界价值观调查机构的Jaime Díez Medrano提供的数据，在认为生活幸福的人口比例排名中，美国列第15位。前面是一连串的小国——挪威、冰岛、新加坡、瑞士和（再一次出现的）卢森堡。
从好的一面来看，美国在任何一项你能想到的生活质量指标上依然远远高于中国，包括幸福指数（中国排名地70位）。美国人的平均寿命比中国人的平均寿命长5年；美国5岁以下儿童的死亡率比中国低一半。尽管你可以对国会和总统整治经济的能力持悲观态度，甚至怀疑他们到底在干什么，但选民依然可以决定他们的命运。这在共产党领导的中国还是一件完全不能提及的事情。所以，美国人不要再面对着相对缩小的经济规模苦恼踌躇了，而应当记起国父的教诲，去关注国家在生活、自由和追求幸福的优势上来。
原文：
It is now a foregone conclusion that China’s economy will become the biggest in the world sometime very soon. According to the World Bank, the size of China’s economy is $10.1 trillion, compared with $14.6 trillion for the U.S., based on purchasing power parity (which adjusts exchange rates to account for the different prices people pay for goods and services across countries). But China is narrowing the gap in a hurry. Over the past 10 years, the annual real growth of China’s gross domestic product averaged 10.5 percent, compared with 1.7 percent in the U.S. The Chinese economy increased at an annual rate of 9.6 percent in the first half of 2011, vs. a rate of less than 1 percent in the U.S. America’s days as top dog of global output are numbered, at best.
Should we care? People from Thomas Friedman to Niall Ferguson cite the looming change at the top of the world economic rankings as a bellwether of broader American decline. “We are the United States of Deferred Maintenance. China is the People’s Republic of Deferred Gratification. They save, invest, and build. We spend, borrow, and patch,” complained Friedman in a recent New York Times column. And yet having the world’s largest economy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be—and you need look no further than the history of China and the U.S. to see that. The swelling size of China’s economy may be a source of pride to the Chinese people, but America is still by far the better place to live—and will remain so for a long time.
Although economists are skeptical about China’s ability to sustain its current levels of growth, most agree it is only a matter of a few years before the Middle Kingdom’s 1.3 billion or so people produce more than the 310 million living in the U.S. That means history is repeating itself. The U.S.’s reign as the largest world economic power began a little before 1890, when it supplanted the previous global giant: China. According to data from the late Angus Maddison, an economic historian at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, China boasted the largest economy in the world all the way back to 1500. Prior to the 20th century, its run at No. 1 was interrupted only for a brief period around 1700, when India took a turn at the top.
And yet during those five centuries when its economy was the world’s biggest, China was never even close to being the world’s wealthiest country. Italy was almost twice as rich in 1500, the Netherlands almost three times as rich in 1700, and the U.K. six times as rich by 1870. Today, though the GDPs of the U.S. and China are roughly equal, the average person in China lives on an income that can buy only 16 percent of the goods and services of the average person in the U.S., and it will take decades for that gap to close. If you’re an American feeling down about losing top economy status, go take a holiday in Guizhou, a poor western Chinese province where incomes are about one-fortieth as high as the U.S. average. You’ll feel a lot better.
Nevertheless, pessimists warn that being knocked off the top spot could still have all sorts of ill effects for the U.S. Being the biggest economy, they argue, has been vital to American prosperity because, since the close of World War II, the dollar has been predominant in international financial reserve holdings, allowing the U.S. to borrow and trade in its own currency. Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute for International Economics predicts that as China’s economy overtakes the U.S.’s, so too will the relative importance of the renminbi. He argues that within 10 years, the renminbi could replace the dollar as the world’s largest reserve currency.
But the impact of that change might be less than dramatic. It’s probably true that if the dollar loses its dominance, American companies will have to start hedging against exchange rate risk, and government borrowing might become a little more expensive. But foreign companies already have to hedge currency risk and yet still manage to compete, while less borrowing would surely be a good thing for the U.S. in the medium run. And a renminbi whose value rises—as it will have to if it is to become a reserve currency—should help even up the U.S.-China trade balance.
What China will soon discover is that being the world’s biggest economy and holding its favored reserve currency have little bearing on a country’s actual economic performance. For proof, just look at the U.S. Between 1890, when America became the world’s largest economy, and 2008, the U.S.’s annualized per capita income growth was about a quarter of a percentage point lower than China’s. America’s growth performance during those 118 years ranked just 15th out of 37 countries for which the University of Groningen’s Maddison has data—behind economies including Denmark, Canada, Sweden, and (wait for it) Greece. Even a number of really small countries have done better than America. Luxembourg has a GDP four-tenths of a percent the size of the U.S. economy, about the same output as the state of Delaware. And yet it is more than twice as rich per person as the U.S.
For a while in the 1940s, the U.S. showed that the combination of being the biggest and richest power can yield dividends—it was decisive in defeating two other world powers in war and making a global peace largely of America’s own design. And yet being the planet’s largest economy encouraged, or perhaps obliged, the U.S. to try to act as the world’s policeman, which even the most unrepentant neoliberal would acknowledge has been a burden as much as a blessing. Not least, it meant that more American soldiers died abroad last year than troops from any other nation, according to data from Sweden’s Uppsala University. Meanwhile, U.S. military spending now accounts for more than two-fifths of the world total, and it sucks up a larger percentage of GDP than any other member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
If anything, supremacy confers even fewer benefits on the world’s dominant power than it did a century ago. Thanks in large part to the postwar international system the U.S. drove to create, any country’s ability to use size to strike unfair trading arrangements is considerably constrained by the requirements of the World Trade Organization. And China will likely be even more limited—because its economy is so reliant on exports, it needs the multilateral provisions of the WTO even more than does the U.S.
Of course, it must be nice for President Barack Obama to still be the guy at the Group of 20 afterparty who everyone wants to talk to. And it’s surely a boost to the ego for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to sit behind a country nameplate that is permanently screwed to the table in the Security Council. At the same time, being No. 1 makes you a target of abuse and criticism. Perhaps an America that is No. 2 would be more popular. Country polls conducted for the BBC suggest that America’s image abroad has improved markedly since 2007, when it came out only marginally ahead of North Korea and Iran, though it’s still way behind less powerful countries such as Canada and Germany. Meanwhile, China’s popularity ratings have been falling since 2005, perhaps in part a reflection of its growing economic muscle.
Ultimately, the best argument for Americans to let go of the idea of being No. 1 is that in the areas that really matter, we aren’t. When it comes to measures of the broader quality of life, the U.S. ranks in the bottom half of the OECD club of rich countries on such health indicators as life expectancy. It ranks around 15th worldwide in terms of the proportion of people who say they are happy, according to Jaime Díez Medrano, director of the World Values Survey archive. That puts the U.S. behind a bunch of small economies, including Norway, Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, and (once again) Luxembourg.
On the bright side, the U.S. still outperforms China on almost every conceivable quality-of-life indicator, including happiness polls (where China is in 70th place). The average American lives five years longer than the average Chinese person, while under-five mortality rates are less than half the Chinese levels. And though you may take a dim view of the abilities of Congress and the President to manage the economy—or even manage their way out of a paper bag—they remain the voters’ to throw out. The same cannot yet be said of the leadership of the Communist Party of China. So rather than wring their hands over the decline of the U.S.’s relative economic weight, Americans should remember the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and focus on preserving the country’s advantages in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness instead.
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