【英语中国】中国的消费自由

The Chinese might not have the freedom to get involved in politics. But the ruling communist party has given its subjects one freedom since opening the economy to the world since 1979, and especially since China joined the WTO in 2000 - that’s the freedom to consume.

The stories about the booming Chinese consumer market strike a discordant note on one level. After all, the dominant global political debate about the Chinese economy is about how the country is a chronic under-consumer.

And yet, a day rarely goes by without an announcement by a western consumer company putting the China market at the front and centre of its future plans. Levi Strauss, the iconic US jeans company, launched a new global brand in Shanghai in mid-August, the first time the company said it had done so outside of the US.

As Robert Reich laid out in a Huffington Post blog, China continues to grow its productive capacity much faster than its rate of consumption.

Reich’s blog displays the ignorance of someone who doesn’t seem to have travelled far into China in recent years. His comment that ordinary Chinese cannot afford the mobile phones that their workers assemble for export to the rest of the world could be disproven by a quick visit to almost anywhere in the country, rich or poor, where everyone seems to be wielding a device. But his broader point holds. As a percentage of economic output, Chinese consumption is low and falling - it is just under 40 per cent of GDP, compared to over 70 per cent in the US - largely because household incomes in China are so paltry. Aside from the growing ranks of billionaires, it is the state and state companies that have got rich from China’s boom.

As my recent book on the communist party noted the country’s political leaders could bolster their legitimacy by giving their citizens a better deal. But that would mean taking on the many vested interests - big and politically well-connected state companies, for starters - that benefit from the present political set-up.

Such a move would be risky, because it would mean devolving power from the state to the grassroots, with unknown political ramifications.

Top Chinese leaders have been saying for nearly a decade that China should change its growth model away from an over-reliance on investment and consumption towards stronger domestic demand. But implementing the policy has been problematic for numerous reasons.

Like every government, Beijing has trouble pushing through difficult reforms. The big state companies, which were meant to begin paying real dividends to the government, have fought the measure for years.

The export sector has resisted a solid appreciation of the currency. The cheap cost of capital and industrial inputs, such as electricity, continues to provide incentives for investment.

As in most industrialised countries, the global financial crisis has also been important in delaying change. China launched a massive stimulus program in late 2008. As a result, in 2009, investment was responsible for about 80 to 90 per cent of economic output, exactly the opposite of what the government wants to achieve in the long-term.

China is so big that both assertions - about over- and under-consumption - can be true. With the industrialised world in a slump, the country and its 1.3bn population still represents the best global opportunity for multinationals that need to sell more of their goods. Equally, the expansion of productive capacity can still outsprint rising consumption if it continues to grow at a faster rate than GDP.

In short, warns Wang Tao, the chief China economist at UBS, don’t hold your breath for radical change in the China model. “China is in the early stage of changing its economic growth model and many structural reforms will take time and strong political determination,” she said in a research note. “In all, real consumption can still grow at 8-10 per cent a year, in line with or slightly faster than real income growth. Do not expect China’s trade surplus to disappear quickly, or to rebound back to 8-10 per cent of GDP in the heydays.”

中国人或许不拥有参与政治的自由。但自从1979年改革开放、特别是2000年加入世界贸易组织(WTO)以来，执政的共产党赋予了国民一项自由——那就是消费的自由。

一定程度上，有关中国消费市场日益繁荣的报道发出了一种不协调的声音。毕竟，围绕中国经济的全球政治辩论的焦点，是中国长期消费不足。

可是，几乎每天都有西方消费公司宣布将把中国市场作为未来计划的核心。标志性的美国牛仔裤企业Levi Strauss今年8月中旬在上海发布了新的全球品牌，该公司表示，这是其首次在美国之外发布新品牌。

正如罗伯特?赖克(Robert Reich)在《赫芬顿邮报》(Huffington Post)一篇博客中所言，中国生产能力的增速仍远远高于消费速度。

赖克的博客，显示出了一个最近几年似乎没有深入中国者的无知。他谈到，普通中国人无力购买本国工人组装出口到全球其它地区的手机。只需匆匆探访中国的几乎任何地区，无论贫富，就能证明他的说法是错误的——中国几乎人手一部手机。但他更广泛的观点有其道理。中国消费在经济产出中所占的比例很低，并且在不断下滑——目前略低于国内生产总值(GDP)的40%，而美国为逾70%。这在很大程度上是因为中国家庭的收入太低。除了日益壮大的亿万富翁阶层，从中国经济繁荣中致富的是政府和国企。

正如我最近一本有关共产党的书中所指出，通过让国民获得更好的待遇，中国政治领袖能够增强其合法性。但这将意味着挑战许多受益于当前政治体制的既得利益——首先是与政府关系密切的大型国企。

这样的举动存在风险，因为它意味着政府把权力下放给草根阶层，有可能造成未知的政治影响。

近10年来，中国最高领导人一直在表示，中国应该改变增长模式，从过度依赖投资和消费，转向增强国内需求。但出于多种原因，该项政策在实施上一直存在问题。

与所有国家一样，中国政府也一直难以推动艰难的改革。多年来，本应开始向政府支付像样股息的大型国企，一直在抵制此项举措。

出口行业一直反对人民币大幅升值。低廉的资金和工业投入（例如电力）成本，继续为投资提供着激励。

与大多数发达国家的情况相同，此次全球金融危机在推迟（中国的）变革方面也起到了重大作用。2008年末，中国推出了大规模刺激计划。其结果是，2009年，大约80%至90%的经济产出来自于投资——这与中国政府希望实现的长期目标恰恰相反。

中国的规模太大，以至于（有关消费过度和消费不足的）两种说法都可能是正确的。由于发达国家经济低迷，对于需要销售更多产品的跨国公司而言，中国及其13亿人口，仍代表着全球最佳机遇。同样，如果产能扩张继续以高于GDP的速度增长，那么产能扩张仍将超过消费增速。

瑞银(UBS)首席中国经济学家汪涛警告称，简言之，不要屏息期待中国增长模式的根本性变革。“中国的经济增长模式的转型正处于初期阶段，许多结构性改革仍需要时间和强大的政治决心，”她在一份研究报告中指出，“总体上，实际消费增速每年仍能达到8%至10%，与实际收入增幅同步或稍快。别指望中国的贸易顺差会迅速消失，也别指望恢复到鼎盛时期8%至10%的GDP增速。”

译者/何黎