裴敏欣中國原色thecolorofchina

1、The The Color Color of of China ChinaThe Color of Chinaby Minxin Pei and Jonathan Anderson03.03.2009 EMAIL ARTICLE | PRINTER FRIENDLYChina’s meteoric economic rise has created its share of admirers and its share of d

2、etractors, not to mention an equal measure of fear that Beijing may either succeed or fail. Can China harness the strengths of its economy for the good or will its deep societal ills rise to the surface? Pei argues that

3、the effects of severe environmental degradation, an unruly populace and a diseased infrastructure cannot be underestimated. Anderson believes China’s GDP juggernaut will continue going strong. It may even break

4、world records.Looming Stagnation by Minxin Pei FORECASTERS OF the fortunes of nations are no different from Wall Street analysts: they all rely on the past to predict the future. So it is no surprise that China’s rapid

5、economic growth in the last thirty years has led many to believe that the country will be able to continue to grow at this astounding rate for another two to three decades. Optimism about China’s future is justified by t

6、he state’s apparently strong economic fundamentals—such as a high savings rate, a large and increasingly integrated domestic market, urbanization and deep integration into the global trading system. More importa

7、nt, China has achieved its stunning performance in spite of the many daunting economic, social and political difficulties that doomsayers have pointed to as insurmountable obstacles to sustainable growth in th

8、e past. With such a record of effective problem solving, it is hard to believe that China will not continue its economic rise.Yet, while China may sustain its growth for another two to three decades and vin

9、dicate the optimists, there are equally strong odds that its growth will fizzle. China’s economic performance could be undermined by the persistent flaws in its economic institutions and structure that are the result of

10、half-finished and misguided government policies. A vicious circle exists in which the Communist Party’s survival is predicated on the neglect of fundamental aspects of society’s welfare in favor of short-term economic gr

11、owth. And many of the same social, economic and political risk factors the government has thus far sidestepped—heavily subsidized industries, growing inequality, poor use of labor—remain. Some are becom

12、ing worse.Because the party relies on growth for legitimacy, Beijing invests in tangible signs of progress—factories, industrial parks and the like. This emphasis on “visible” gains has in turn led

13、 to huge social deficits. By focusing on short-term growth globalization dividend (which enabled integration into the world market) and considerable efficiency gains from the liberalization of an enormously inef

14、ficient planned economy. However, while these fundamentals have contributed to rapid economic growth since the 1980s, they unfortunately also allowed the Chinese government to avoid undertaking effective measures that wo

15、uld further liberalize the economy, establish robust regulatory institutions and dramatically reduce the role of the state in the economy. This does not mean that Beijing has not taken important reform measures. It has—b

16、ut it did so, almost without exception, only when compelled by a serious economic crisis (as was the case with mass bankruptcies of state-owned enterprises at the end of the 1990s).Such behavior is costly because it igno

17、res the fact that benefits from investment in capital, demographic advantages and growing trade neither solve all problems nor remain static. Today, as China’s export growth plummets and domestic consumption r

18、emains anemic, it is quite evident that economic and societal imbalances have not only undermined China’s sustainable growth but also have weakened its ability to weather the current economic crisis. To be sure,

19、these imbalances have been building up since the early 1990s. Their principal symptoms consist of excessively high investment in fixed assets (i.e., capital-intensive industries) and low household consumption, rising

20、 dependence on exports as a growth driver and the underdevelopment of the service sector. For example, from 1992 to 2005, investment rose from 36.6 to 42.6 percent of GDP while household consumption declined

21、from 47.2 to 38 percent of GDP. In 2007, household consumption fell to 35 percent of GDP, a historical low. Consequently, export growth assumed increasing importance as a key driver of GDP growth. By 2007, export growth

22、 contributed roughly 25 percent of GDP growth.Because the bulk of China’s investment goes into the manufacturing sector, particularly capital-intensive heavy industries, persistently high investment has exacerbated the i

23、mbalance between too much manufacturing and too little growth in the service sector. Compared with its developing-country peers, China stands out for having an underdeveloped service sector.Besides creating excessive dep

24、endence on exports and industry, too much investment in fixed assets has begun to yield decreasing economic benefits. Between 1991 and 1995, RMB 100 million in additional investment yielded RMB 66.2 million in

25、 additional GDP, 400 new jobs and RMB 10.4 million in additional wages. Between 2001 and 2005, the same amount of extra investment yielded only RMB 28.6 million in additional GDP, 170 new jobs and RMB 3.7 m

26、illion in additional wages.Such structural imbalances threaten growth sustainability because they create massive economic distortions, subjecting the Chinese economy to chronic excess capacity, low consumer welfare, risi