【英语中国】FT社评：中国劳资纠纷是健康迹象

There's trouble in the assembly plant of the world. Chinese workers in several plants are bypassing state-controlled trade unions and confronting management. Consumers across the globe face a cost hike at a key stage in the thousands of supply chains that bring them electronics, clothes and toys.

And about time too. Although the details of events in such a closed society are never clear, the protests seem simply to be seeking out the path taken by every successful east Asian country. The only real risk posed by labour unrest is if the Chinese authorities overreact, inflame a pay negotiation into a political confrontation and so damage China's reputation as a reliable part of the global production chain.

The rise in pay looks like a natural consequence of the country's development and of the operation of labour markets, such as they are allowed to function. Productivity has risen over the decades, partly because of more capital per employee but also as a result of higher skill among workers. It is entirely natural for pay – whose share of gross domestic product has fallen steadily – to rise to reflect those returns. Moreover, economic growth more oriented towards domestic consumption by a growing middle class is precisely what China, and the unbalanced world economy, requires.

Wage rises on the scale being sought will have little effect on the world's consumers. Labour costs are only about 5 per cent of the retail price of China's main exports – electronics and other consumer goods. The Chinese pay claims are not going to price an iPad out of anyone's reach.

As for China's own competitive position, higher wage inflation may push some low-value business to India or Vietnam – or poorer parts of China, which have plenty of room to develop basic industries – but this is unlikely to cause too much disruption. The pay claims so far have in any case been concentrated, as one would expect, in higher-value production.

A bigger risk to the Chinese economy would be an authoritarian overreaction by the state. Some western companies have reportedly shortened their supply chains recently, European businesses moving production from east Asia to eastern Europe or north Africa. But they seem mainly concerned with reliability and speed, not pure cost. The worst thing China could do is to introduce higher political risk into such a calculus. Indeed, it would help if workers could be represented through genuinely free collective bargaining rather than a trade union movement controlled by the state.

Pressure for higher pay in China, as long as it reflects higher productivity, is a feature, not a bug. China was preceded down the development path by Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. It will be followed by Vietnam, hopefully Laos, perhaps one day Burma, and, who knows, eventually even North Korea. Chinese workers are not racing to the bottom. They are beginning to rise towards the top.

中国的“世界工厂”目前有点麻烦。多家工厂的工人撇开官方工会，向管理层发起挑战。为全球消费者带来电子产品、服装和玩具的成千上万供应链，在关键一环面临成本上升的局面。

是时候发生这些变化了。虽然在这样一个封闭的社会，事件的细节从来都不明朗，但这些抗议似乎只是在寻觅东亚每一个成功国家已经走过的道路。劳资纠纷所构成的唯一真正风险在于，中国政府反应过度，使一场薪资谈判升级为政治对抗，由此损害中国作为全球生产链可靠一环的声誉。

薪资上升看上去像是中国经济发展和劳动力市场运行（比如市场被允许发挥作用）的天然后果。生产率数十年来一直在增长，部分原因是平均每个雇员的资本投入更高了，但也是工人技能提高的结果。提高薪资以反映上述成果完全是自然的（近年来，薪资在中国国民生产总值(GDP)中所占份额一直在稳步下降）。再进一步说，在更大程度上以国内消费为导向的经济增长，正是中国乃至失衡的全球经济所需要的。

从中国工人正在争取的加薪幅度看，这种加薪对全球消费者将不会有什么影响。在中国主要出口（电子产品和其它消费品）的零售价格中，劳动力成本仅占大约5%。中国工人的加薪要求，不至于让任何人买不起iPad平板电脑。

就中国本身的竞争地位而言，较高的薪资上涨，可能把某些低价值业务推向印度或越南，或中国较贫穷的地区（这些地区有充分空间发展基本产业），但这不太可能引起太大扰乱。无论如何，正如人们会预料的那样，迄今加薪要求集中于较高价值的生产。

对中国经济来说，更大的风险将是政府作出独断的过度反应。有报道称，一些西方企业近期缩短了自己的供应链，如欧洲企业将生产从东亚迁往东欧或北非。但这些企业主要关心的是可靠性和速度，而非单纯的成本。中国能做的最糟糕的事，就是将更高的政治风险引入这样的考量。的确，如果工人能够由真正自由的集体谈判（而非政府控制的工会）代表，那会有所帮助。

只要是反映了更高的生产率，中国要求加薪的压力就是一项“功能”，而非缺陷。在中国之前，日本、新加坡、韩国、印尼、马来西亚和泰国都走过这条发展道路。在中国之后，将会是越南，希望还有老挝，有朝一日也许还有缅甸，最终，没准朝鲜也会加入。中国工人们没有投入恶性竞争。他们正开始向顶峰攀登。

译者/和风