时代周刊 中国寻找适当的平衡

2008年01月18日 星期五 下午 09:54
来源： 美国《时代》杂志
几年前，大问题是：中国的经济增长是真的吗？现在的问题是：它可以持续多久？尽管美国经济放缓，人们不是很担心中国将会耗尽维持高速增长的资源或市场，而是担心经济失衡会变得过于严重。
简单地讲，中国投资太多太快，特别是在出口主导型的制造业。最明显的证据是中国消费者在经济中的角色相对小。2006年，家庭消费占GDP的份额下降到36%，可能是世界最低的了。另一极端是美国，其家庭消费占GDP的份额为72%。多年来，美国消费太多储蓄太少。中国的问题则相反。
中国的失衡可能恶化。这很大程度上是因为该国壮观的经济热潮是由快速的生产率和不断增加的盈利飞轮所驱动，生产和盈利产生的过剩资本反过来投资更多制造能力，令这个飞轮可以自我维持。因此中国与世界其他地方的贸易顺差以惊人的步伐增长，去年增长近50%，达破纪录的2620亿美元。由于许多中国公司充斥着现金，传统的放缓投资政策，例如提高利率等，似乎失去了很多应有的功效。
意识到增长失衡的危险，中国政府如今试图提高增长的质量，而不强调增长的速度。北京希望通过促进更公平的收入分配，并通过提高农业津贴和其他措施促进消费（包括房产的消费）将有助于减缓社会紧张。政府最近还允许汇率升值稍快以及征收一些出口税来强化它的重新平衡努力。
汇率仍然是一个有争议的问题。中国的货币人民币自2005年7月停止与美元挂钩以来，它已经对美元升值大约14%。然而，由于美元在国际上走软，人民币对欧元贬值了大约6.4%。这令欧洲人非常不高兴。他们的对华贸易赤字如今仍然非常大。
中国曾以担心人民加快升值会放缓经济和减少就业为由抵制外国的压力。但决策者也知道他们的姿态助长贸易摩擦，而且汇率的升值并非总是破坏就业。更强势的货币可能减轻贸易顺差，并对付国内的通胀。它也可能帮助国家减少对低端制造业的依赖；更强大的人民币将鼓励高附加值企业和服务业的发展，它们滞后于制造业，但为长期的就业创造带来更大的希望。
为了重塑平衡和维持和谐，需要更多的改革，包括政府在社会基础设施，例如教育与卫生，以及环境清洁方面显著增加投资。由于财政状况大为改善，政府有钱做这些事情。而且它还有其他工具，可能比决策者意识到的还要多。例如，中国公司的生产力在猛增，让制造商可以消化成本的增长而不削减就业。事实上，在中国的国际竞争力方面，高生产增长是一个比汇率或政府津贴更重要的因素。纽约市经济咨商局的研究员最近计算出，从 1995年到2003年，中国制造业的生产增长率为年均20.4%，这是一个惊人的数字。那速度几乎比欧美的快六倍。
中国表现出几乎是前所未有的意愿，允许活力的竞争提高经济的效率，包括国有企业的效率。但是，作为过去三十年世界增长最快的经济体，中国的挑战是果断地对付经济失衡，维持未来的增长。（作者 Pieter Bottelier，Gail Fosler）
英文原文：
Finding the Right Balance
Until a few years ago, the big question was, is China‘s growth for real? Now the question is, How long can it last? Even with the U.S. economy slowing, the concern is not so much that China will run out of resources or markets to sustain high growth, but that economic imbalances are becoming too severe.
Put simply, China has been investing too much, too fast, particularly in its export-oriented manufacturing sector. The most striking evidence of this is the relatively small role Chinese consumers play in the economy. Household consumption as a percentage of GDP fell to 36% in 2006, perhaps the lowest such ratio in the world. At the other end of the scale is the U.S., with a household consumption–GDP ratio of 72%. For years the U.S. has been consuming too much and saving too little. China has the opposite problem.
China‘s imbalances are likely to get worse. This is largely because the country‘s spectacular economic boom is driven by a self-sustaining flywheel of rapid productivity gains and increasing profits, which generates excess capital that is in turn invested in more manufacturing capacity. This is why the country‘s trade surplus with the rest of the world has been rising at an alarming pace, growing nearly 50% to a record $262 billion last year (although the trade gap narrowed in the final three months of 2007). Because many Chinese companies are awash with cash, traditional policies aimed at slowing investment growth, such as raising interest rates, seem to have lost much of their effectiveness.
Recognizing the danger of growing imbalances, China‘s government is now trying to improve the quality of growth, while de-emphasizing the rate of growth. Beijing hopes this will help reduce social tensions by promoting more equity in income distribution and access to consumer goods, including housing, through increasing rural subsidies and other measures. The government also has recently intensified its rebalancing efforts by allowing somewhat faster exchange-rate appreciation and imposing some export taxes.
The exchange rate remains a contentious issue. Since China‘s currency, the yuan, was delinked from the U.S. dollar in July, 2005, it has appreciated about 14% against the greenback. However, because of the declining international value of the dollar, the yuan has depreciated by some 6.4% against the euro. This has made the Europeans very unhappy. Their trade deficit with China is now also very large.
China has resisted foreign pressure for faster appreciation of the yuan out of concern that such action will slow the economy and reduce employment. But policymakers also know their stance is fueling trade frictions and that exchange-rate appreciation is not always bad for job creation. A stronger currency could ease the trade surplus and fight domestic inflation. It could also help the country reduce its reliance on low-end manufacturing; a mightier yuan would encourage the development of higher value-added businesses and service industries, which have lagged manufacturing but hold greater promise for long-term job creation.
To restore balance and maintain harmony, more reforms will be needed, among them a significant increase in government spending on social infrastructure, such as education and health care, and on environmental cleanup. With its vastly improved fiscal situation, the government has the money to do these things. It has other tools at its disposal as well, perhaps more than policymakers realize. For example, productivity in Chinese companies is soaring, enabling manufacturers to absorb cost increases without cutting employment. Indeed, high productivity growth is a more important factor than the exchange rate or government subsidies in explaining China‘s international competitiveness. Researchers for the Conference Board in New York City recently calculated average annual productivity growth in China‘s manufacturing sector at an astonishing 20.4% from 1995 through 2003. That‘s almost six times faster than productivity growth in Europe or the U.S.
China has shown an almost unprecedented willingness to allow dynamic competition to force greater efficiency on the economy, including state-owned enterprises. Still, having been the world‘s fastest-growing economy during the past three decades, China‘s challenge is to tackle economic imbalances decisively to make its growth sustainable for the future.
With reporting by Pieter Bottelier is a professor of China studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; Gail Fosler is president and chief economist for the Conference Board