【大西洋月刊20120228】了解中国经济挑战并理解为何这很重要

aliciayang

【中文标题】了解中国经济挑战并理解为何这很重要

【原文标题】Understanding China's Economic Challenge and Why It Matters                                               【登载媒体】大西洋月刊
【原文作者】Evan A. Feigenbaum                                
【原文链接】http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/understanding-chinas-economic-challenge-and-why-it-matters/253710/

中国的领导人必须减缓增长并转变经济增长方式。

中国官员参加华西一个数千英尺摩天大楼的落成典礼/路透。

有多少国家在经历了将近20年的两位数增长后，看着镜子说：“这种方式是不是不再有用了？”

我敢说，并没有几个国家。

但是这正是一些中国的领导人看起来正经历的事情。

去年暑假，我为这个博客写了很多评论，主要是针对一份由欧亚大陆组写的《中国的伟大重塑行动》的报告。我和我的同事Nicholas Consonery, Damien Ma, Michal Meidan, and Henry Hoyle合作，我们的主题很简单：中国的增长模式已经不能再继续维持，中国机智的领导人也知道这一点。并且，我们指出他们在原则上承诺重塑中国经济，因为资本密集型和以出口为导向的方式造成收益日益萎缩，并且在政治上也成为一个薄弱点。

但是，我们接着指出，要想转变是非常困难的。要做到这一点，中国的领导人不得不针对国家的政治经济的很多方面进行一些严肃且深入的改革。他们将不得不客服惯性和“改革乏力”，客服来自强大的国企和牢固的经济利益集团的反对，针对能源政策引进一种基于市场的方案，降低补贴（例如对土地和能源），改革金融市场以释放资金来支持企业和私人经济的发展，刺激内需等等。简而言之，他们将不得不转变中国的政治经济结构。

这里的关键词是“政治”经济。这样的改革听起来可怕吗？应该是的，而且大部分是基于政治上的原因。

Nick, Damien, Michal, Henry和我对中国有能力进行深入的改革持怀疑态度。坦率的说，我们认为北京最终“缺少政治肚量和时机去完成一个复杂而雄心勃勃的重整议程。”

所以，世界银行发布的新的重要报告，《中国2030》，提供了很好的时机去再审查这些提议。

让我们回到关于中国领导人在镜子中审视他们的国家的这个论点。《中国2030》，呼应了我们在《中国伟大的重塑行动》中指出的一些主题。但是这份报告写的更为深入、更为广泛，并不仅仅是简单的分析。并且，有趣的是，这份报告吸引了中国的领导人。《华尔街日报》报告上周一些中国的未来高级领导人与这份报告有着间接的联系。

《中国2030》项目是从世界银行总裁罗伯特佐利克给中国领导人的提议发展来的。他建议共同研究中国中期发展面临的挑战。正如报告的前言指出，“这份研究是中国财政部、国务院发展研究中心和世界银行共同组织的。该报告是由国务院发展研究中心和世界银行作为平等搭档撰写和发布的。”

因此，中国一些政治和经济精英参与了研究。

国务院发展研究中心主任李伟，以前的工作经历包括分管建立国有资产监督委员会，监管中国120家国企，与佐利克在前言联合署名。但是《杂志》报告他的书记刘鹤可能是个关键人物，至少因为他帮助起草了中国的“十二五”规划（2011-2015），许多报告（包括我们的报告）认为该规划提供了一个蓝图——至少在理论上，涉及了重塑议程的许多方面。

并不意外的是，世界银行一份重要的报告成为了众多媒体的头条。中国的领导人清楚地意识到中国的增长方式，即过度依靠出口和固定资产投资是并不能持续发展的。并且他们在反思怎样（以什么程度）去改变这种现状。

你可以阅读世界银行的报告，还有一些支持数据和技术研究。

你也可以看一段由佐利克介绍这份报告的视频。

世界银行得出的其中一个重要结论是私人企业需要更大的空间来成长繁荣。在中国，产业、金融和政治资源严重倾向于国有企业。例如，银行给个人储户负利率，却给国家支持的企业贷款。这是中国需要进行金融改革的其中一个原因。

但是总的来说，清楚的是中国正处在经济的十字路口。世界银行的报告给出了原因。

我们去年自己做的研究中，我和同事列举了一些背景需要解决的问题：

生产过量消费不足

中国经济过度依赖固定资产投资和出口。消费占GDP的35%，这比其他的发展中国家例如印度要低得多。并且现存的生产密集型经济模式是基于低效的资金分配。这种情况是由非自由、政治化的经济体制以及扭曲的投入成本包括能源补贴和土地价格造成的。

富人越来越富

中国资本密集型的增长模式造成的不良后果是以牺牲中国普通居民为代价，公司（和政府）控制了过去三十年创造出的巨大财富。这在一方面扩大了政府、商业精英和居民的差距，而且抑制了消费。不完善的社会福利体系不能有效提供例如养老金和医保等公共用品，同时进一步抑制消费、鼓励储蓄。

发达国家/发展中国家的悖论

从繁华的上海到平穷的宁夏，中国在生活水平和平均收入方面存在着巨大的贫富差距，这种差距被比喻成是世纪的差距。政策制定者面对着一个特殊的难题：要同时处理21世纪中等收入国家和20世纪发展国家的问题。 这些不平等在有一个州面积的国家同时上演：富裕的沿海和由贫穷的西部省份和少数民族聚居区构成的内陆之间的强烈的反差。中国降低贫困的努力是显著的，但是城市居住限制和土地改革乏力加剧了地区不平等。

低效、过多的能源利用

资本密集的增长已经造成严峻的环境污染和资源浪费。能源补贴和土地价格鼓励公司去掠夺自然资源，忽视了能源的低效率利用问题。北京试图在短时间内完成工业化，但是在匆忙追赶发达工业经济体的过程中，中国已经发现已经处于涉及环境恶化和能源安全，不能持续发展的轨道上。

接下来的问题主要是政治上而不是智力上的问题：即使中国的领导人知道他们必须进行必要的改革，他们能够克服既得利益受损者全力的反对吗？

对于世界银行新发布报告的回应应该能提供一些暗示。但是真正的挑战会在下一年到来。一旦中国的政治过渡结束，中国的领导人会将注意力放在经济结构带来的挑战上。他们的选择会影响中国接下来的10年或者更长的时间。

原文：

How many countries with nearly two decades of double-digit growth under their belt would look in the mirror and say, "hey, it's just not working anymore?"
I daresay, not many.
But that is precisely what some Chinese leaders appear to be doing.
Last summer, I wrote a lot for this blog about a report from Eurasia Group called China's Great Rebalancing Act. I wrote the report with my colleagues Nicholas Consonery, Damien Ma, Michal Meidan, and Henry Hoyle, and our punchline was simple: China's growth model is no longer sustainable and the country's savvy leaders know it. And, we argued, they are committed in principle to rebalancing China's economy because their capital-intensive, export-oriented approach is delivering diminishing returns and threatens to become a major political vulnerability for the government.
But, we continued, making these changes will be incredibly difficult. To do so, China's leaders will have to make serious and deep reforms to many elements of their country's political economy. They will have to overcome inertia and "reform fatigue," fight through the opposition of powerful constituencies among state-owned enterprises and entrenched financial interests, introduce a more market-based approach to energy policy, roll back subsidies (for example on land and energy), reform financial markets to free up capital for entrepreneurs and private business, boost domestic consumption, and so on. In short, they will have to alter the underlying structure of China's political economy.
The operative word here is "political" economy. Do such reforms sound daunting? They should--and mostly for political reasons.
Nick, Damien, Michal, Henry, and I were skeptical of China's ability to undertake such deep reforms. Put bluntly, we argued that Beijing ultimately would "lack the political stomach and sense of the moment to implement a comprehensive and ambitious rebalancing agenda."
So the release of an important new World Bank report, China 2030, makes this an especially good time to reexamine these propositions.
Let's go back to my point about Chinese leaders looking at their country in the mirror. China 2030, echoes some of the themes we touched on in China's Great Rebalancing Act. But it does so at greater depth and in a more prescriptive, not simply analytical, way. And, very interestingly, it does so with the apparent buy-in of China's leaders. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that some of China's incoming crop of top leaders has been loosely or indirectly associated with the report.
The China 2030 project emerged from a proposal to China's leaders from the World Bank's president, Robert Zoellick, who suggested a joint study on China's medium-term development challenges. As the report's preface lays out, "the research was organized jointly by China's Ministry of Finance, the Development Research Center of the State Council (DRC), and the World Bank. The report was written and produced by a joint team from DRC and the World Bank who worked together as equal partners."
So, some political and economic elites in China have taken ownership of this study.
The DRC's president, Li Wei--whose prior career includes stints at such pillars of the entrenched establishment as the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), which oversees China's 120-odd central state-owned enterprises--co-signed the foreword with Zoellick. But the Journal reports that his deputy, Liu He, may be the key figure, not least because he helped to author China's 12th Five Year Plan, which runs from 2011-15, and which many (including our report) argue offers a blueprint--at least on paper--for many aspects of the rebalancing agenda.
Not surprisingly, then, the World Bank's important new report is getting a lot of headlines. China's leaders clearly recognize that their growth model, which depends disproportionately on exports and investment in fixed assets, isn't sustainable. And they appear to be self-reflective enough to weigh how (and how deeply) to change it.
You can read the World Bank report here, along with supporting data and technical studies.
And you can watch a video of Zoellick introducing the report here.
One of the Bank's most important conclusions is that private enterprise needs more space to thrive. Industrial, financial, and political resources are heavily skewed toward state-owned enterprises in China. So the major banks, for example, give household depositors a negative return on their savings while bankrolling industrial policies through state-backed firms. This is one of many reasons for deeper financial reform in China.
But more broadly, it's clear that China is, therefore, at an economic crossroads. And the Bank's report shows why.
In our own study last year, my colleagues and I outlined some of the problems Beijing will need to overcome:
Producing too much and consuming too little
China's economy is overly dependent on fixed asset investment and exports. Consumption is about 35% of GDP, a figure well below those of developing countries such as India. And the perpetuation of a production-intensive economic model owes much to inefficient capital allocation. This condition is buttressed by an illiberal and politicized financial system, as well as distorted input costs including subsidized energy and land prices.
The rich are getting richer
One of the more troubling consequences of China's capital-intensive growth model has been that companies (and the government) have captured much of the enormous wealth generated in the last three decades at the expense of Chinese households. This dynamic is not only exACerbating an already yawning gap between the government and business elite on the one hand and average Chinese citizens on the other, it is also repressing consumption. A broken social welfare system, which cannot adequately deliver public goods such as pensions and healthcare, constrains consumption and encourages saving further.
The developed/developing country paradox
China's vast regional disparities in living standards and average incomes--from booming Shanghai to impoverished Ningxia--are often likened to the contrast between different centuries. Policymakers in Beijing face the unique problem of having to deal with issues typical of both 21st-century middle-income countries and 20th-century developing countries. And these inequalities play out across a continent-sized economy: the wealthy coast contrasts starkly with the continental hinterlands, which comprise poor western provinces and regions populated by ethnic minorities. While China's efforts to reduce poverty have been impressive, barriers to urban residency and the lack of progress on land reform have exacerbated regional inequality.
Inefficient and excessive energy use
Capital-intensive growth has exacted steep environmental and resource costs. Subsidized energy and land prices have encouraged companies to exploit China's natural resources and ignore debilitating energy inefficiencies. Beijing sought to industrialize in a compressed timeframe, but in China's haste to catch up to the advanced industrial economies, the country has found itself on an increasingly unsustainable trajectory from both an environmental degradation and a natural resource-security perspective.
The question, then, is largely a political one, not principally an intellectual one: Even if China's leaders know they must implement necessary reforms, can they overcome the entrenched constituencies that will fight hard to block them?
The reaction to the World Bank's new report should offer some interesting hints. But the real tests will come next year once China's political transition is settled and China's leaders refocus on underlying economic structural challenges. Their choices will shape China's next decade and beyond.