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标题: [中国新闻] 中国的天没有塌下来 [打印本页]

作者: 日月光 时间: 2007-3-6 16:07 标题: 中国的天没有塌下来

经济学家和分析家一直想知道什么会令金融市场恐惧。战争、政变、物价飞涨、能源成本上涨、房市松弛——似乎什么都不能。上周我们得到了一个答案：中国。上海股市的大幅下跌引起全世界的神经过敏。这种反应显示中国在全球经济中重要性日增，同时也凸显了围绕中国周围的困惑与误解。
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可能是时候承认我们真的不了解中国了。这个国家根本不符合我们在国家成长需要方面的最基本信仰。秘鲁学者索托（Hernando de Soto）曾有说服力地指出清晰有力的财产权是经济增长的前提。中国是例外，这个人类历史上发展最快的国家却有着极其不清晰和虚弱的财产权体系。格林斯潘曾辩称法治是市场经济的关键。然而中国的法律缺点多多，执法也不均衡。世界银行和国际货币基金组织在全球兜售的“华盛顿共识”宣称如果货币不自由浮动，经济将产生巨大的扭曲。中国拒绝了这个建议，然而依然繁荣。因此，与其学习事实和修改理论，我们不如猜想事实是错的，中国是大字谜。

在政治领域，这种自相矛盾就更大了。学者检验中国的政治体系——一个列宁主义党继续完全垄断权力——他们肯定它在崩溃。然而这个政权25年来都在挑衅这个崩溃预言。我们肯定中国人民一定恨他们的政府，然而我们的民调却显示恰恰相反。九十年代末，学者Jie Chien的调查显示80%的受访者支持该政治体系。去年皮尤全球民意调查（Pew Global Attitudes Survey）有一个提问：“你对你的国家的状况满意吗？”表示满意的美国人少于30%。中国位列榜首，有81%的受访者回答“是”。可能中国的受访者在撒谎，但在几个民调中这些数字都是一致的，而且中国人确实常常表达对腐败、环境恶化和其他具体政策的反对意见。4 s' C2 d! K+ z3 W- R% Q

公民对他们政府的感觉是一个文化、历史和情感态度的复合体。美国人大体上不明白这个，因为美国民族主义的基础是意识形态。我们认为有着恶劣意识形态的政权必然很不受欢迎。因此我们猜想伊朗的毛拉们不会支持他们的政府，普京会被他的人民视为独裁暴徒，萨达姆必然遭到唾骂，甚至他在伊拉克的逊尼派同胞们也会唾骂他。

关于北京政府的脆弱性的书籍得到传播，而且批评往往是非常聪明的。但考虑到该政权面临的重大挑战，它年复一年处理得越来越娴熟——尽管有时是残忍的。在每个关头，它都能对付一些看似无法战胜的问题，推迟其他的问题并躲开一些子弹。中国领袖已经设法处理涌入城市的两亿农民工的问题，以及国有企业倒闭而引起的大规模失业问题。他们定期放缓经济防止过热。他们计划历史上最大和最快的程式化，并控制这种轻率增长孕育的社会不满。他们的任何一个举措都不是完美的，但跟世界其他国家相比，中国已经管理好自己的问题。

理解中国人为什么对他们的现状满意有这么困难吗？在过去一个世纪，该国几乎每十年就经历混乱动荡——帝制的崩溃、战争、日本入侵、内战、共产党接管、大跃进、文化大革命。但在过去三十年，中国享受了稳定和最快的增长率。大约三亿五千万人摆脱赤贫。该国在全世界有一个新的、光辉的形象。如果你是中国人，你可能也会为此感到自豪。
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The Sky Isn't Falling in China
The day after the Shanghai stock market fell, we saw again all the same warnings about the Chinese system and the odds of its collapse.' r' Z! E2 R0 c/ V- b0 @/ q/ F. }

March 12, 2007 issue - For some years economists and analysts have been wondering what it would take to scare financial markets. Wars, coups, soaring commodity prices, increased energy costs, unwinding housing markets—nothing seemed to do it. Last week we got one answer: China. The sharp plunge in the Shanghai stock market caused jitters around the world. But while the reaction pointed to the increased importance of China in global economics, it also highlighted the confusion and misunderstanding that surround the Middle Kingdom.

When a market has gone up 150 percent since 2006, as Shanghai's had, one doesn't need to search for grand explanations to recognize that it's bound to retreat at some point. More important, there is little linking the Shanghai stock market with the overall Chinese economy. It simply doesn't play the role that the stock market does in the United States or Britain. Most Chinese companies raise money through banks, not equities. Indeed, for the past 10 years, Chinese stocks have gone down while the economy has boomed. And yet the day after the market fell, we saw yet again all the same warnings about the hollowness of the Chinese system, the perils it faces and the imminent possibilities of its collapse.

It might be time to admit that we really don't understand China. The country simply does not conform to our most basic beliefs about what makes nations grow. Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian scholar, has argued persuasively that clear and strong property rights are the prerequisite for economic growth. Except that China, the fastest-growing country in human history, has an extremely unclear and weak system of property rights. Alan Greenspan has argued that the rule of law is the linchpin of market economics. Except that China has a patchy set of laws, unevenly enforced. The Washington Consensus that the World Bank and the IMF have peddled across the globe claims that if currencies don't float freely, they will produce huge distortions in the economy. China has declined that advice and yet prospers. So, instead of learning from facts and revising theory, we assume that the facts are wrong, that China is one grand charade.& X$ l# M" j$ `, z4 b
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This paradox is even greater in the political realm. Scholars examine China's political system—a Leninist party that maintains a total monopoly on power—and they are sure that it is crumbling. Yet the regime has defied predictions of its collapse for 25 years. We're sure that the Chinese people must hate their government, except that the only polls we have suggest exactly the opposite. Surveys conducted in the late 1990s by the scholar Jie Chien showed 80 percent support for the political system. Last year's Pew Survey on Global Attitudes has a little-noticed question: "Are you satisfied with the state of your nation?" Less than 30 percent of Americans said they were. China topped the list, with 81 percent of those surveyed answering "yes." Perhaps people lie to pollsters in China, but these numbers are consistent in several polls, and people in China do regularly express their opposition to corruption, environmental degradation and other specific policies.) U! t: }$ }$ ? g
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Citizens' feelings about their governments are made up of a complex mix of cultural, historical and emotional attitudes. Americans, by and large, don't understand this because the basis of American nationalism is ideology. We believe that regimes with bad ideologies must be deeply unpopular. So we assume that the Iranian mullahs have no support in their society, that Vladimir Putin is viewed by his people as a dictatorial thug and that Saddam Hussein must have been reviled even by his Sunni brethren in Iraq.

Books proliferate about the fragility and weakness of the Beijing government—and the critiques are often extremely intelligent. But considering the massive challenges that it has faced, the regime has handled them quite skillfully year after year—though sometimes with a brutal edge. At every juncture, it's been able to tackle some seemingly overwhelming problems, postpone others and dodge bullets. Chinese leaders have managed the migration of 200 million peasants into cities and the mass unemployment caused by shutting down state-owned factories. They've periodically slowed the economy to stop its overheating. They've planned for the largest and fastest urbanization in history, and controlled the social discontent bred by such headlong growth. None of their moves has been perfect, but compared with any other country in the world, China has managed its problems well.* N8 u& C" B# h* ]" L- f
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Is it so difficult to understand why the Chinese people might be satisfied with their current situation? Over the past century the country has gone through chaotic turmoil almost every decade—the collapse of the monarchy, warring states, the Japanese invasion, civil war, the communist takeover, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution. But in the past 30 years, China has enjoyed stability, as well as the fastest growth rate of any country ever. Some 350 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. The country has a new, sparkling image across the world. If you were Chinese, you might take some pride in that too.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

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