经济学人下载:中国当小心中等收入困境

Mr Wen himself is no touter of a China model. His previous five-year plan, which took effect in 2006, was also intended to shift the economy away from too much reliance on exports and investment. It set a target of 7.5% annual growth in GDP for the plan period, against 8% for the previous one. Instead, the rate accelerated to about 11% a year, compared with an average of 9.5% in the first half of the decade. Household consumption as a proportion of GDP fell sharply. And China’s 4 trillion yuan stimulus programme (about $620 billion at current exchange rates), launched in November 2008, allowed banks to lend almost at will, mostly to state-owned enterprises, raising the prospect of a flood of new bad debt.

温总理自己并不标榜中国的经济增长模式。自2006年开始实行的上一个五年计划也试图改变过分依赖出口和投资的经济增长模式。它设定了国内生产总值每年增长7.5%目标，而不是前一个五年计划的8%的目标。但是，对比前一个五年计划期间的9.5%的经济增长，2006年开始的五年计划期间经济年增长率上升到大约11%。家庭消费占国内生产总值的比重大幅下降。2008年11月中国开始实施4万亿人民币的经济刺激计划（按当时汇率计算大约是6200亿美元），银行几乎可以随意贷款，大部分贷款借给了国有企业，有可能形成大量新的不良贷款。

Despite Mr Wen’s calls for more evenly shared prosperity, the gap between rich and poor and between cities and countryside has continued to widen. Since he took office in 2003, absolute poverty has dropped markedly. But the number of people in relative poverty (with 50% or less of the median income) grew from 12.2% of the population to 14.6% between 2002 and 2007, according to research by Terry Sicular of the University of Western Ontario and Li Shi and Luo Chuliang of Beijing Normal University. By the end of the plan period the goal of establishing a “harmonious socialist society”, a favourite catchphrase of Mr Wen’s and Mr Hu’s, appeared even more remote than at the beginning. Protests over local injustices, already running at tens of thousands a year, were becoming ever more frequent.

尽管温总理呼吁财富实现更为平均的分配，但是城乡贫富差距依然不断扩大。自2003年他上任以来，绝对贫困人口已经大幅减少。但是，根据西奥特兰大学的特里.希库勒以及北京师范大学的李实和罗楚亮的研究，相对贫困人口（收入为国内中等收入的50%或更少）在2002年到2007年间从12.2%增加到14.6%。到新五年计划末，建设一个“和谐的社会主义社会”（胡锦涛主席和温家宝总理喜欢使用的新词）的目标看上去比预期的要更为遥远。每年针对地方不公正的抗议事件已经增加到数万起，而且正在变得更加频繁。

The new five-year plan adopted in March notes that the “external environment” for China’s development has become “more complicated”. In other words, markets abroad do not look promising. It calls for a “strategic readjustment” in China’s growth model, putting even more emphasis than its predecessor on domestic demand, especially consumption. It still envisages big investments, but in the hope that these will boost household consumption in the longer term. It promises 36m new “affordable housing” units, more than Britain’s entire housing stock. The hope is that cheaper homes will make it easier for the Chinese to get into the housing market without having to save quite so much. And the government has pledged to ramp up spending on health, education and other social-welfare programmes. Eventually too this could encourage people to save less and consume more.

3月出台的新五年计划指出中国发展的“外部环境”变得“更为复杂”。换句话说，国外市场看起来不是很光明。它要求中国增长模式实现“战略性调整”，将比前一个五年计划更加重视国内市场，尤其是消费。新五年计划仍然构想了大规模的投资，不过只是希望这在更长远的未来能够带动家庭消费。政府保证建设3600万套新的“保障性住房”，这多于英国住房的总存量。政府希望比较便宜的房子能使国民更容易进入住房市场而不必为此进行大量储蓄。政府还保证增加医疗、教育和其它社会福利项目投入。最终，这可能鼓励人们减少储蓄，增加消费。

The government also wants the high-speed railway network, already the world’s longest at 8,300km, to quintuple in length by 2015. Beijing, having completed one of the world’s largest airport terminal buildings in 2008, will get a whole new airport. So will 54 other cities, increasing the total number with airports by nearly one-third. These investments, officials hope, will help to boost urban growth, and with it consumption. Infrastructure targets are usually met in China because governments have little trouble with not-in-my-backyard protests.

政府还希望已经是世界上最长的8300公里的高速铁路网到2015里程能够增长为目前的五倍。2008年北京已经修建了一座全世界最大的航站楼，它还将修建一个全新的机场。另外54个城市也将修建机场，这将使机场总数增加近1/3。官方希望这些投资将有助于促进城市的发展，进而带动消费。在中国，基础设施建设的目标常常能够实现，因为政府不会遭遇什么麻烦，不会遭遇“远离我家后院的抗议”。