【英语中国】如何重塑中国模式？

Shooting down the multi-lane highway from Qingdao airport to the centre of the coastal city this week, I had the usual impressions of a visitor to China. The roads were immaculate, the drive into town took a long time because of the sprawl of what is only a medium-sized Chinese city – only 8m or so people in the metropolitan area – and buildings sprouted on all sides.

I also noticed that I, the sole westerner in the Audi cruising in from the airport, was the only passenger wearing a seatbelt.

That is a metaphor for China itself in the week when Barack Obama paid a visit. It is travelling rapidly along the path of development into one of the world's largest economies, without much room for error.

The US president's visit this week has focused minds on the tensions in the US-China relationship in the wake of last year's financial crisis. America relies on China to finance its trade deficit, while China needs the US to buy its goods in order to keep export-led growth on track.

Trade spats between the two, US pressure for China to allow the revaluation of its currency against the dollar and Chinese criticism of US economic policy (as a major holder of US Treasury bonds) led to some frosty body language between President Obama and President Hu Jintao at the summit.

Even if the US had no stake in the outcome, China would still want to reduce its reliance on exports, and perhaps allow its currency to appreciate. Unless it makes its pattern of growth more balanced, it risks being unable to sustain growth at between 8 and 10 per cent.

That involves changing course from relying on export-oriented companies to produce growth and encouraging the private sector to become more capital-efficient, pay workers more and shift from manufacturing into services.

It also means allowing job losses and getting municipalities that control corporate investment in local enterprises to step back and let a liberalised financial sector take over. It is, in short, a risky business.

Qingdao, where the FT Chinese website this week held its annual forum, is a good place from which to see the changes because it is, although prettier than many, a typical export-oriented Chinese city. A former German and Japanese colony, it is home to electronics groups including Haier and Hisense, and to Tsingtao beer. It is the ninth biggest Chinese city ranked by gross domestic product, relies on manufacturing and basic industries such as textiles for wealth creation, and has an ageing population, with 1.6m over-60s and 210,000 over-80s.

Qingdao thus encapsulates both China's achievement and its future challenge. How does an economy with an average GDP of $3,200 per head, which relies heavily on trade, become more self-sufficient?

Michael Spence, the Nobel prize-winning economist, told the forum that China is in “a very complex and perilous transition phase” as it tries to transform from a middle-income, high-growth, very big developing economy into an advanced economy with a diversified industrial base.

The world is not big enough to keep on absorbing China's export growth, and it faces the waning of what Arthur Kroeber, a managing director of Dragonomics, the economic consultancy, calls its “demographic dividend”.

The surge in young people eager to move from rural areas to coastal cities to work in textile and manufacturing plants is ending. China needs better-paid citizens to consume more of its output. Many, including the Chinese government itself, have focused on the need for better social and medical benefits to dissuade people from saving as much of their income, but employees also need to earn more in the first place.

The problem with the Chinese economic system is that municipalities such as Qingdao encourage local companies to expand by directing capital towards them. Bureaucrats have incentives to fund growth rather than to ensure companies achieve high margins and pay their workers well.

To ensure the latter, China must cultivate financial institutions and investors that demand higher returns on capital. It could do this by liberalising the financial sector so that decisions pass from state-controlled banks to capital markets. One difficulty with this is that it means loosening the grip of technocrats on how capital flows. The threat is not simply that somebody else gets to make the decisions, but that local jobs will be lost as low-value manufacturing is squeezed or a company from another province acquires a local one.

“This is the hard part of creative destruction – the destruction,” says Prof Spence. In China's case, it would have an impact not only on people who lost their jobs but on the balance of power between central and local government.

In the long term, however, it would allow higher value enterprises to emerge, and create higher paid jobs. Mr Kroeber compares it to the liberalisation of China's state-owned enterprises between 1998 and 2003, which led to job losses but then unleashed a wave of wealth creation.

Ultimately, China may not have a choice. Its unequal trade relationship with the US has led to the complaints that soured the atmosphere at this week's summit and, even if it wanted to keep going down the same road, export-led growth would eventually hit its limits. A better balance is in China's interests as well as the US. China cannot keep going this fast along its current road, with so little protection against an economic collision.

几天前，当我乘车沿着多车道高速公路，从青岛机场疾驶向这座海滨城市的市中心时，我的印象与其他来华游客一样。路修得非常好，但进城花了很长的时间，因为整个城市毫无章法地向外蔓延，各色建筑遍地开花——而青岛在中国只是座中等城市，城区大约只有800万居民。

我还注意到，作为从机场进城的奥迪(Audi)轿车上唯一的西方人，我也是唯一系着安全带的乘客。

在巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)首次访华之际，这可以视为对中国自身情况的隐喻：中国正沿着发展道路快速前行，成长为全球最大的经济体之一，没有太多犯错误的空间。

奥巴马本周访华的重点，是缓和中美之间自去年金融危机爆发以来的紧张关系。美国要靠中国为其贸易逆差提供融资，而中国则需要美国购买其商品，以维系出口驱动型的增长。

双方之间的贸易纠纷，美国向中国施压、要求人民币兑美元升值，而中国则（以美国国债主要持有者的身份）指责美国的经济政策，凡此种种，令奥巴马与中国国家主席胡锦涛在峰会上的肢体语言显得有些冷淡。

即便结果对美国无关紧要，中国还是会希望降低对出口的依赖，或许也会允许人民币升值。除非中国能让自己的增长模式更为均衡，否则就可能无法维持8%至10%的经济增速。

这需要改变发展轨迹，停止依赖出口型公司实现增长，同时鼓励私人部门提高资金效率，为工人加薪，并从制造业转向服务业。

这还意味着允许失业，同时让支配本地企业投资的市政当局退居次要位置，转而让开放的金融业接手。简言之，这是一项颇具风险的任务。

作为英国《金融时报》中文网本周年度论坛的举办地，青岛是一个观察上述变化的好地方，原因在于，尽管它比中国许多城市都更加漂亮，但仍是一个典型的出口型城市。青岛曾经是德国和日本的殖民地，如今是海尔(Haier)和海信(Hisense)等电器集团的总部所在地，也是青岛啤酒(Tsingtao beer)的老家。按本地生产总值(GDP)计算，青岛是中国第九大城市，依靠纺织业等基础行业和制造业来创造财富，同时也面临着人口老龄化问题——60岁以上的人口160万，80岁以上人口为21万。

因此，青岛集中国的成就和未来的挑战于一身。这个人均GDP 3200美元、并严重依赖贸易的经济体，如何能更为独立呢？

诺贝尔经济学奖得主迈克尔•斯宾塞(Michael Spence)在论坛上表示，中国正处于“一个非常复杂和危险的转型阶段”，试图从一个中等收入、高增长、规模庞大的发展中经济体，转型为一个拥有多元化工业基础的发达经济体。

当今世界的规模，已不足以继续消化中国的出口增长，中国面临着经济咨询公司龙洲经讯(Dragonomics)董事总经理葛艺豪(Arthur Kroeber)所说的“人口红利”的逐渐减少。

年轻人渴望从农村地区迁至沿海城市、在纺织厂和制造厂工作的浪潮已逐渐平息。中国需要收入更高的民众，来消费更多的本国产出。包括中国政府在内的许多人，一直重点关注改善社会及医疗福利的需求，以劝阻人们将大部分收入存入银行，但首先，还必须增加民众的收入。

中国经济体系的问题在于，像青岛这样的地方政府，通过引导资金流向本地公司，来鼓励它们的扩张。政府官员的动机是为增长提供资金，而非确保企业实现高利润率，以及为员工提供良好的待遇。

要确保后者的实现，中国必须培养要求提高资本回报率的金融机构和投资者。手段可以是开放金融业，将决定权从国有银行交给资本市场。这方面的一个难题是：这意味着放松技术官僚对资本流动的控制。这样做的风险不仅在于决定权要落在别人手里，同时，由于低价值制造业受到挤压，或外省公司收购本地公司，还会造成本地就业岗位的流失。

斯宾塞教授表示：“这是创造性破坏中棘手的那一面——破坏。”对于中国而言，这不仅会影响到那些失业的民众，还会影响中央与地方政府之间的权力平衡。

然而，长远来看，这将使价值更高的企业脱颖而出，并创造收入更高的工作岗位。葛艺豪将其与1998年至2003年间的中国国企改革进行了对比。后者曾造成大量失业，但随后催生了一波财富创造的浪潮。

从根本上讲，中国可能别无选择。中美之间不平等的贸易关系已招致不满，影响了本周峰会的气氛。此外，即使中国希望继续走这条老路，出口驱动型增长最终也会达到极限。更好的平衡符合中美双方的利益。对于经济冲突几乎没有什么保护措施的中国，无法在当前的道路上，保持如此迅速的增长。

译者/陈云飞