《时代周刊》
作者：Bill Powell
译言fukuda 译
上海外滩闷热的周六下午，Zhang Yi置身于通用汽车公司舒适凉爽的汽车展厅内，打量着通用公司的最新款轿车，为他的下一笔投资做基本考察。他可不是来这儿避暑，而是他嫌目前他开的德国大众轿车太小，想换一辆。作为一家国有钢铁厂中层干部，Zhang Yi丝毫不为他的工作和中国经济担忧，他一面说“一切都相当顺利”一面朝旁边闪着亮光的一排崭新别克轿车扬起下巴：“我现在完全买得起它们中任意一款。”
On a steamy saturday afternoon just outside Shanghai, Zhang Yi is in a blessedly cool General Motors showroom, kicking the tires of the company’s newer models. He’s not there to beat the heat. He drives a small Volkswagen now and wants to upgrade. A middle manager at a state-owned steel company, Zhang has no worries about his job or China’s economy. “Things are still pretty good,” he says. “I have no problem now affording one of these,” nodding toward the array of gleaming new Buicks nearby.
除了中国，世界其他地方当下很难找到说话如此豪气干云的消费者了。美国、日本和整个欧洲都陷入30年来最严重的全球性衰退的时候，中国却已显示出复苏的实力，而在半年前这样的复苏还曾饱受质疑。去年底出口行业毁灭性的衰退让经济增长大受打击，但在5860亿美元政府刺激计划（约占国内生产总值的13 ％，分两年实施）的扶持下，中国迅速恢复元气，第二季度经济增长为7.9%，现在看来今年更有可能达到或超过8%。几乎每天都出现证明增长势头的迹象，工厂开工开始逐步回升，中国消费者的消费继续保持稳定也是原因之一；汽车销售受到政府对购置小型轿车进行补贴的明显推动，在4月份创下有史以来最高销售记录，今年将轻松超过美国的汽车年销量；中国的零售业今年总体增长了16 ％。
There aren’t a lot of places in the world these days where consumers speak with that kind of confidence. With the U.S., Japan and all of Europe mired in the worst global recession in 30 years, China has shown a restorative strength that six months ago many doubted it had. A devastating slump in exports crippled growth late last year, but on the back of a $586 billion government stimulus program — about 13% of GDP, spread over two years — China has snapped back. The economy grew 7.9% in the second quarter and will now probably expand 8% or more this year. Evidence of increasing momentum appears almost every day. Factory production has begun to edge up, in part because Chinese consumers continue to spend money at a healthy pace. Auto sales, helped significantly by government subsidies for small-car purchases, hit an all-time record in April and will easily surpass those in the U.S. this year. Overall, retail sales in China this year are up 16%.
仅仅数字还不足以让人感受到全球经济实力的天平正向东方倾斜，还有多个场合看上去都可以体现这股时代洪流，不过没一个比得上美国财长盖特纳（Timothy Geithner）今年6月当着有“中国哈佛”之称的北京大学的天之骄子们作的演讲更令人难忘。北大学子刚才还是最恭敬最有礼貌的听众，然而当盖特纳试图向一名发问者保证说中国投资于美国国债的资产“非常安全”时，他得到了可能正好说明新经济秩序出现朕兆的回应：学生们哄笑起来。
Numbers alone do not capture the sense that the balance of global economic power is shifting eastward. There have been several moments that seemed to crystallize the zeitgeist, none more memorable than U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s speech in June before the best and the brightest at Peking University, the Harvard of China. Not long ago, students there would have been the most respectful and polite of audiences. Yet when Geithner tried to reassure one questioner that China’s investments in U.S. government debt were “very safe,” the response was perhaps an indication of the onset of a new economic order: the students laughed.
美国，毫无疑问的全球经济领头羊，现在正迷失在经济政策的转型中，远离了实施近30年的自由发展资本主义模式，转向对经济领域实行更公开的政府控制和监管。目前尚不能断言此举是否明智，但这种做法无疑在美国成了逐渐升级的激辩素材，但在中国却全然没有这样公然的怀疑，在那里政府对经济危机的反应是如此积极迅速，而经济状况也以同样的方式予以回报。
The U.S., the unquestioned leader of the global economy, is now in the midst of a disorienting shift in economic policy, away from the let-it-rip form of capitalism that has guided it for almost 30 years and toward more overt government control and regulation of huge swaths of the economy. No one yet can safely say whether this is wise, but in the U.S. it is certainly the stuff of increasingly fierce debate. No such doubts are evident in China, where the government reacted to the crisis with alacrity and the economy is now responding in kind.
这就是为什么对跨国公司像通用汽车而言，中国的意义不在将来而在现在。作为全球10个最大经济体之一，中国是唯一一个经济仍保持增长的国家，并有可能很快超越日本成为世界第二大经济体。今年上证指数疯涨超过80%，是到目前为止主要证券交易市场中表现最好的。依赖于产品制造业的国家，比如澳大利亚和巴西，在过去半年里收益颇丰，原因就在于中国对产品的需求推动了原材料价格上涨；受益于和中国进行的贸易，亚洲的出口驱动型经济体也在快速恢复生机。总的看来，国际货币基金组织(IMF)预计从2008到2010的三年内，中国的经济增长将会惊人地占到世界经济增长的近3/4，中国现在成为正在找路走出泥潭的世界经济的焦点就毫不稀奇了，正如上海经济学家Andy Xie所指出的，“大家都想知道同一件事：中国能否拯救世界？”
That’s why, for global companies like General Motors, China is no longer the future. It’s the present. Of the world’s 10 biggest economies, China’s is the only one that is growing, and it could soon surpass Japan’s to become the world’s second largest. The Shanghai exchange has soared more than 80% this year, by far the best performance among major markets. Nations that depend on producing commodities, such as Australia and Brazil, have benefited immensely over the past six months as demand from China has driven up the price of raw materials. Helped by trade with China, Asia’s export-driven economies are sputtering back to life. Overall, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that in the three years from 2008 to 2010, China will, astonishingly, account for almost three-quarters of the world’s economic growth. Not surprisingly, China has now become the focus of a world that is looking for a way out of the swamp. As Shanghai-based economist Andy Xie puts it, “Everyone wants to know the same thing: Can China save the world?”
颠倒乾坤
Trading Places
几年前，中国能否推动全球经济发展的疑问显得挺荒唐，毕竟中国经济依赖于制造业，而制造业反过来又依赖于美国的消费需求，而美国才是世界无可争议的经济火车头。但现在经济火车头的引擎让机车偏离了正常轨道，国际货币基金组织预计今年美国经济将萎缩2.6%，美国部分城市的房价将继续下跌，而失业率将攀升到9.5%，达到1983年以来最高；被美国大肆宣传的经济刺激计划到目前除了在股市重新弄出点儿上扬的火花外几乎没产生任何可考量的经济利益，缺乏真正的复苏迹象使华盛顿开始讨论新一轮刺激消费计划的可行性，全然顾不上膨胀的联邦预算赤字。
A few years ago, that question — and the notion that China could drive global growth — would have seemed absurd. After all, China’s economy was dependent on manufacturing, which was in turn dependent on demand from the U.S., the world’s undisputed economic locomotive. But that engine remains sidetracked. The IMF predicts the U.S. economy will contract 2.6% this year. American home prices continue to fall in some cities, while the unemployment rate has soared to 9.5%, the highest since 1983. The U.S.’s much ballyhooed stimulus plan has so far yielded little measurable benefit, save putting some spark back in stock markets. The absence of real signs of recovery has Washington discussing the possibility of yet another round of stimulus spending, despite a ballooning federal budget deficit.
迄今为止中国的刺激计划成效可谓相当显著，跟美国的情况形成了鲜明对比。根据最近世界银行的一份研究报告，今年中国的政府支出将产生超过80%的该国总体经济增长效益，部分是因为当经济衰退袭来时中国已经在实施一个全国性基础设施建设计划，紧急支出措施只是补充到已在进行计划中，换而言之，项目早已准备就绪，所需资金也正好就此到位——大笔大笔的到位。例如，去年新建铁路的花费是410亿美元，今年则会是880亿美元。一名财富500强的高级经理人说：“在美国，地区性自我保护主义现今仍然大行其道，然而在中国情况恰恰相反，他们可以在任何时间任何地点建设他们想要的东西，因此他们总走在其他人前面。
The speed and relative success so far of China’s stimulus stands in stark contrast with that of the U.S. According to a recent study by the World Bank, Beijing’s government spending will generate more than 80% of the country’s overall economic growth this year. This is partly because China was already in the midst of a nationwide infrastructure program when the recession hit. Emergency spending measures simply added to existing schemes already under way. In other words, the projects really were shovel-ready, and the money hit the streets quickly — and in large dollops. Outlays on new railway construction, for example, were $41 billion last year. They will be $88 billion this year. Says one senior FORTUNE 500 executive: “In the U.S., NIMBY [not in my backyard] is still the order of the day, whereas in China it’s more like IMBY. They build where they want, when they want. And they move fast.”
中国的经济复苏和与日俱增的经济地位让人感到一些全球性组织比如美国、英国、加拿大、法国、德国、意大利、日本和俄罗斯参与的G8峰会变得过时，未来唯一真正有意义的对话是 “ G – 2” 对话：中国和美国。7月27日总统奥巴马在两国间的高级别会谈中向与会者演讲时显然也意识到了这一点，他说华盛顿和北京的关系将“塑造21世纪”。在最近几个月里，北京已经开始充分运用其影响力了，中国要求——并几乎肯定会很快在国际货币基金组织中得到更大的投票权；今年6月，中国统一购买国际货币基金组织发行的多达500亿美元债券以促进国际货币基金组织应付全球金融危机的能力；今年早些时候，中国领导人担心美元会贬值，危及他们投资于美国财政部的七千六百三十五亿美元国债的安全而要求建立一种新的全球储备货币替代美元；最近，北京已经暗示打算逐渐建立自己的货币——人民币，通过向中国公司提供补贴并以人民币为出口产品定价的方式，在国际贸易中取代美元地位。香港汇丰银行一位经济学家Qu Hongbin甚至断言到2012年中国总贸易量的40 ％至50 ％将全部采用人民币结算（尽管没多少经济学家相信这样的事情会发生得那么快），这种愿意公开自己的立场并使其他国家政府都看到中国的行事方式的态度，德意志银行香港分部的经济学家马骏说 “和10年前有很大的不同，当时的北京政府做事更加低调不张扬。”
China’s recovery and growing economic importance have led some to suggest that global institutions such as the Group of Eight — the U.S., the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia — are becoming obsolete; that the only dialogue that really matters going forward is the conversation between the “G-2”: China and the U.S. On July 27, President Barack Obama appeared to acknowledge this when, addressing participants in high-level talks between the two countries, he said Washington’s relationship with Beijing would “shape the 21st century.” In recent months, Beijing has started to throw its weight around. China seeks — and will almost certainly soon get — greater voting rights in the IMF. In June, China agreed to buy up to $50 billion in bonds issued by the IMF to boost the fund’s capacity to deal with the global financial crisis. Earlier this year, Chinese leaders, worried about the strength of the U.S. dollar and the safety of their own $763.5 billion investment in U.S. Treasury Department debt, called for the creation of an alternative to the greenback as a global reserve currency. More recently, Beijing has signaled an intention to slowly establish its own currency, the renminbi, as a dollar alternative in international trade by providing subsidies for Chinese companies to price their exports in renminbi. One economist, Qu Hongbin of HSBC in Hong Kong, goes so far as to say that 40% to 50% of China’s overall trade flows could be settled in renminbi by 2012 (though few other economists believe this will happen anywhere near that fast). This willingness to make its positions known publicly and push other governments to see things China’s way “is very different from 10 years ago, when Beijing was much quieter and more low-profile,” says Jun Ma, an economist at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong.
确实，鉴于其作为美国最大的外国债权人，中国正日益公开表明其报负和对美国经济政策的担忧。北京从没签署过从上世纪90年代末广为人知的有关全球经济政策的华盛顿共识，即要求自由贸易、私有化、宽松监管，审慎的财政政策和——至少做了无数次解读的共识——资本自由流动。美国财政部在信贷危机发生后马上提出了一项旨在加强其自身资本市场监管的计划，但是这不大可能阻止北京继续推动其在国际货币基金组织中对制定全球市场政策方面发挥更大作用，其核心，尽管也包容市场经济的方方面面，但中国仍在运作一种自上而下的指挥和控制型经济模式，迄今它相对干净利落地安然度过经济危机，其成功方面将会鼓舞其他发展中国家采纳这种打上北京烙印的资本主义模式。
Indeed, China is increasingly open about both its ambitions and its concerns over U.S. economic policy, given its position as Washington’s largest foreign creditor. Beijing never signed on to what became known in the late 1990s as the Washington Consensus on global economic policy, which called for free trade, privatization, light-touch regulation, prudent fiscal policies and — at least as many interpreted the consensus — free capital flows. The U.S. Treasury, in the wake of the credit meltdown, has put forward a plan to enhance regulation of its own capital markets, but that is unlikely to prevent Beijing from continuing to push for the IMF to take a greater role in policing global markets. At its core, despite embracing many aspects of the market, China runs a top-down, command-and-control economy, and its success so far in skating through the recession relatively cleanly may encourage other developing countries to adopt its brand of capitalism.
不应操之过急
Not So Fast
仍旧，对中国能否拯救世界这个问题最可能的回答是：时机未到。大量经济学家怀疑中国的经济发展是否真像外表那样健康，或者是否真的走在一条持续复苏的道路上。更多的人为中国扮演世界救星的讨论作澄清，认为为时过早，指望不上。
still, the best possible answer to the question of whether China can save the world is: Not yet. Plenty of economists doubt that China’s economy is as sound as it appears or truly on the road to a sustained recovery. And many more dismiss the chatter about China as the world’s economic savior as hopelessly premature.
中国的整体经济活力将继续对世界产生影响，但围绕其经济发展质量的疑问并未断过。作为中央银行的中国人民银行在中央政府的大力支持下向国有银行发放大量货币，以方便它们贷款给国有公司参与基础设施建设，怀疑人士为如此巨量的现金额投入感到担忧，央行最近宣布6月份新增贷款总计2224亿美元，超过上个月贷款额的两倍，使今年上半年的新增银行贷款达到将近1.1万亿美元，超过2008年全年总和。
China’s overall economic vigor may continue to impress, but there are questions surrounding the quality of its performance. The People’s Bank of China, the central bank, is giving great gobs of money to state-owned banks that, with Beijing’s forceful encouragement, are lending to state-owned companies participating in infrastructure construction. Skeptics are frightened by the amount of cash being shoveled out the doors. The central bank recently announced that new loans in June totaled $224 billion. That was more than double the previous month’s amount and brought new bank lending in the first six months of the year to nearly $1.1 trillion, exceeding the total for all of 2008.
对乐观者来说，6月份的数据显示中国政府对实施有效的货币政策对抗经济衰退是很有决心的，正如北京大学金融学教授Michael Pettis所言，中国政府“动用了一切它能动用的手段”来处理这个难题。毫无疑问由于巨额融资，很多中国人有了原本没有的工作机会，但，正如最近一期有影响力的华尔街通讯《格兰特利率观察家》所指出的，“大量货币和信贷注入…总是让市场先涨后跌。”通讯提出了充满疑虑的比较：中国目前的信贷繁荣和当年美国贷款潮的关系——正是后者制造了美国房市泡沫，泡沫崩溃导致金融部门损失惨重，并引发全球信贷危机和当前的经济衰退。
To optimists, the June data showed just how determined the Chinese government is to implement effective monetary countermeasures to fight the downturn. As Peking University finance professor Michael Pettis says, China is “throwing everything including the kitchen sink” at the problem. There is no question that as a result of the flood of financing, a lot of Chinese have jobs they otherwise wouldn’t. But, as Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, an influential Wall Street newsletter, points out in its latest issue, “Massive injections of money and credit … are always bullish before they are bearish.” The newsletter draws worrying parallels between China’s current credit boom and the gush of lending that produced the U.S. housing bubble, the collapse of which devastated the financial sector and triggered the global credit crisis and current recession.
的确有迹象表明在某些方面中国的复苏是短暂的，中国股票市场暴涨的一个原因是不少中国公司得到大量低息贷款，在缺乏更好的投资渠道情况下不得不倾其所得投入到股本市场。康涅狄格州纽黑文市的投资研究机构Research Edge的亚洲战略问题专家Andrew Barber估计今年有30%的新增银行贷款直接或间接流到股市，为什么这些钱没有跑到新的投资领域呢？有证据显示一些经济增长的关键领域仍然缺乏造血功能，特别是重要的出口制造业，一直深受全球订单减少的打击。根据美国的惠誉国际评级(Fitch Ratings)的一份报告，即使公司利润整体萎缩，中国的银行贷款仍会继续增长——表明中国可能会酝酿自身的金融危机，并有可能会在经济刺激计划的鸡血效应衰退时引爆。
There are certainly signs that some aspects of China’s recovery are ephemeral. Part of the reason China’s stock market has soared is that Chinese companies have received so much cheap financing that they have dumped proceeds into the equity market for lack of better alternatives. Andrew Barber, Asia strategist at Research Edge, a New Haven, Conn., investment-research firm, estimates that up to 30% of new bank lending this year has wound its way into equities. Why isn’t the money going into new businesses? The evidence suggests that in key parts of the economy growth remains anemic, particularly the important export-manufacturing sector, which continues to suffer from the reduction in global demand. According to a report from Fitch Ratings in the U.S., Chinese lending continues to accelerate even though corporate profits overall are shrinking — suggesting that China may be incubating its own financial crisis that could be triggered when the adrenal rush of the stimulus wears off.
中国不可小看
Little Big China
这些告诫是重要，但中国的统治精英们非常了解他们正在运作的风险。Andrew Barber说：“在这场危机中他们每一步都小心翼翼”，认识到在相对疲软的经济形势下发放贷款可能会出现大规模坏账，国家一度摇摇欲坠的金融部门数年前就得到了清理整顿，——2007年，不良贷款总额只占银行资产总额的3 ％——并且对付中国上一次银行业危机所设立的金融手段依然有效，换句话说，北京认为其金融系统足够强大，足以处理宽松货币政策所带来的风险。
Those caveats are important. But China’s technocrats are well aware of the risks they are running. “They came into this [crisis period] with eyes wide open,” says Barber, recognizing that loans being granted in a relatively weak economic climate could start to go bad in droves. The country’s once shaky financial sector was cleaned up several years ago — in 2007, nonperforming loans amounted to just 3% of total bank assets — and vehicles set up to deal with China’s last banking crisis still exist. In other words, Beijing thinks its financial system is strong enough to handle the risks of its very loose monetary policy.
可以确信的一点是，即使事态不会进一步恶化且中国未来经济依然保持强劲，仍然不太可能，就其本身而言，足以将整个世界拖回到复苏的轨道。经济规模最能说明问题。美国的经济规模是十四万亿美元，而中国是4.4万亿美元；去年美国占到全球GDP总量将近21%，而中国仅占到6.4%，换言之，中国的消费水平的确在增长，但仍不足以把世界发达经济体从衰退中拽出来。中国消费者支出占中国国内生产总值不到40 ％，而在美国，经济危机爆发前，消费者支出是美国国内生产总值的70 ％。美国消费者现在保持观望——过去9个月内美国的储蓄率从零窜升到近7 ％ ，消费者紧捂他们的钱包——世界迫切需要有人前去填补这一空白。
To be sure, even if darker scenarios never unfold and China’s economy continues to power ahead, it will probably not, on its own, be enough to drag the rest of the world into a recovery. Size matters. The U.S. has a $14 trillion economy; China’s is $4.4 trillion. The U.S. accounted for nearly 21% of total global GDP last year; China just 6.4%. Chinese consumption, in other words, is growing — but is still insufficient to lift the world’s advanced economies out of recession. Consumer spending drives less than 40% of China’s GDP; in the U.S. before the bust, the consumer accounted for almost 70%. With American shoppers now on the sidelines — the U.S. savings rate has soared from zero to nearly 7% in the past nine months as consumers have closed their wallets — the world desperately needs someone to step into that void.
中国当然会有用，但它仍是个相对贫穷的国家，每年人均收入6000美元，而美国年人均收入39000美元，欧洲33400美元，要在中国大城市成为殷实的中产阶级，收入要求约为12000美元。中国的汽车销售固然显得春风得意，但大多数中国人仍负担不起一辆大众或别克的价格，更别提宝马。尽管中国消费者感到比过去更富裕，但他们享受到的经济成果可能并不会发生太大变化，除非中央政府对医疗保健和社会保险体系实施改革，采取措施让人们更有信心投资而不是储蓄。北京大学的Pettis说，去年，中国的消费量大约相当于法国的情况，不同的是，没有人呼吁法国拯救世界。
China can help. But it remains a relatively poor country, with an annual per capita income of $6,000, compared with $39,000 in the U.S. and $33,400 in the E.U. To be solidly middle class in China’s big cities is to have an income of about $12,000. Brisk though auto sales may be, most Chinese still can’t afford a Volkswagen or a Buick, let alone a BMW. Even as China’s consumers feel richer, their share of its economy may not change much until Beijing enacts reforms to the health-care and social-security systems, steps that would give people more confidence to spend rather than save. Last year, says Peking University’s Pettis, China’s consumption was about the equivalent of France’s. No one is calling on France to save the world.
中国正面临极大挑战——人口从农村大规模转移向城市，要清理几十年来恶化的环境，要继续为支撑其政治稳定而提供所必须的经济繁荣。鉴于其经济规模，应该没有人感到惊讶，它仍然最关心以最小的代价实现自我救赎——而不是拯救其他任何人。最让北京惶恐的前景是工人骚乱，是那类导致7月24日中国东北一家钢铁公司经理死于情绪失控的工人手中的骚乱。
China faces enormous challenges — a massive shift of population from rural areas to cities, cleaning up decades of environmental degradation, continuing to provide the increase in prosperity that has underpinned political stability. Given their scale, it should surprise nobody that it is still most concerned with saving itself economically — not anyone else. Beijing is most unnerved by the prospect of labor unrest of the sort that resulted in the death on July 24 of a steel-company executive in northeast China at the hands of a mob.
但中国经济的反弹绝非海市蜃楼。如果北京能安然度过全球危机而自身经济并未垮台，其领导人的声望和信心将极大膨胀，一种幸存于自大萧条以来最严重经济危机的崭新经济模式将在华盛顿共识彻底倒下时让广大发展中国家无法抗拒地受到吸引。北京，在这场危机前就已崛起，在世界其他国家和地区都步履蹒跚时，其全球范围的影响力将进一步扩展，这一点比以往任何时候都更来得真实，中国目前虽不是世界经济的领袖，但未来领袖非它莫属。
But the resilience of the Chinese economy is no mirage. If Beijing can come through the global crisis without an economic meltdown of its own, its leaders’ reputation and confidence will be boosted. An economic model that survives the worst downturn since the Great Depression will have undeniable appeal in the developing world, at a time when the Washington Consensus is thoroughly shot. Beijing, before the crisis, was already rising, its global reach and influence expanding. As the rest of the world falters, that is truer than ever. China is not yet the leader of the global economy. But it’s getting there.
— 和北京记者Austin Ramzy共同报道
— with Reporting by Austin Ramzy / Beijing
http://www.yeeyan.com/articles/view/85095/53832?orgin=top
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1913638-3,00.html
