中国改革路漫漫

Hugo Restall

三

十年前的这个星期，邓小平和中国共产党告别了毛泽东主义，踏上了改革开放的道路，开创了一段迄今全球最为瞩目的经济高速增长时期。站在目前的有利位置来看，这个过程似乎异乎寻常的顺利。但改革之路并不顺畅，未来也不会平坦。了解真实的历史是我们探索中国未来何去何从的关键。

Associated Press

邓小平，摄于1978年

首先，北京对改革的理念和路径从未达成完全一致，也没有为此制订明确的路线图。中国的改革带有浓重的个人色彩，在邓小平期间尤其如此。邓小平能够推行改革开放，是因为1978年中国正处在意识形态和经济建设的衰竭状态，内部对“走资本主义道路”的反对力量薄弱。中国人已经饱受政治运动和阶级斗争之苦，因此采用实用主义作为指导方针是人心所向。

邓小平也在上世纪八十年代和九十年代初的关键时刻作为“最高领导人”发发挥关键作用。在当时改革似乎陷入泥淖的时刻，邓小平利用自己的个人威望推动了改革继续前行。与此同时，经济改革的最初阶段创造了诸多赢家，却很少有输家，因为当时私有企业还刚刚起步规模较小，与国有的工业集团相得益彰。

邓小平曾说过一句著名的话“摸着石头过河”，中国决策者们也是遵循这个方针踏上了循序渐进的发展道路。小范围试验在全国推广经常获得成功，例如包产到户政策和在沿海建立经济特区。中国决策者们从未规划到外国企业会对中国经济有如此高的参与度，这只是水到渠成的事情。但由于没有改革蓝图，中国也曾犯下一些明显的失误──中国的股市迄今仍然运转失调，因为股市起步伊始就是作为国有企业的零成本融资渠道。纵容企业家从股市持续获取融资可能会损害到公司的利益，以及那些高价购入股份的股东。

中国的循序改革策略和根本的缺乏共识问题也引发了政治争议。在上世纪八十年代的时候，中国共产党内的改革派和保守派仍就改革步伐争论不下，知识界在极小的自由空间内就是否需要政治改革进行争论。1989年天安门事件之后，这些辩论受到了政府严厉控制。但在数年时间内，中国经济改革发展重上轨道。在九十年代中期，中国共产党成功地将自己重塑为包括企业家在内的中国各阶层社会精英的集合体。唯一的政策争论发生在技术精英与他们的庇护网领导人之间，政府同时还通过改善知识分子的生活水平收买了后者的忠诚。

在上世纪九十年代末和本世纪初，中国成为了一个引人瞩目的放任政策经济体。政府收入占国内生产总值(GDP)的比例从1978年的31%下降到11%左右。与此同时，北京还单方面下调关税，加入了世界贸易组织(WTO)，还精简了公共部门。从上世纪九十年代开始，中国效益不佳的国有企业在数年时间里裁减了大约三分之一的劳动力，一些人士预计有6,000万人因此下岗。因此，在大约三十年的时间里，中国的“社会主义市场经济”年复一年地实现了两位数增长。

不幸的是，这段高速增长时期即将结束，而全球金融危机并不是唯一的原因。中国改革的钟摆目前再次摆回到了意识形态竞争和大政府政策一方。由于中国仍然没有就自由市场改革的价值达成确切共识，那些由社会主义转向资本主义的人士正转变为欧洲风格的社会民主党人。

在上世纪九十年代末，官僚主义开始重建他们的权威。北京确定了通过改进税收体系，带动政府收入占GDP的比例重新达到20%。去年，政府收入占GDP的比例达到了20.8%，增幅高达32.4%，远远超过了中国经济11.4%的增速。

政府支出也在迅猛增加，这是意识形态重新转向中央集权经济体制的标志之一。政府领导人将自己描述成化解所有问题的答案，传达出他们愿意动用公共资源帮助那些被新经济繁荣所抛弃的人群，而不是打算发展新企业创造就业机会。虽然与欧洲国家相比，中国的社会保障体系仍然规模较小，不过正在迅速发展。考虑到中国仍然是一个贫穷国家，人口正在迅速老龄化，这可能难以维系。

与此同时，在经历了一段以一个发展中国家罕见的程度欢迎外国贸易与投资的时期后，北京正悄悄改变政策，对海外产品和投资设置一些非关税壁垒。中国政府力促缔造新的龙头企业，它们通过各种所有权结构和政府有着千丝万缕的联系，享受着国有银行提供的慷慨融资。中国新制定的劳动法也远远超过了基本的；劳动保护范围，鼓励工人组织工会，与管理层进行抗争。

所有这些都减少了真正私有部门的机会，而这个部门一直是中国经济飞速增长的推动力。随着增长放缓，有政府背景的官员管理者独享最大的发展机会，社会不平等和不满也应运而生。如果这促使政府进一步加大投入收买异己，那么经济改革的良性循环就可能演变为政府加大干预的恶性循环。

在政治领域，政府和商业精英的密切关系意味着对共产党的任何新兴反对力量都可能是反商界的。实际上我们已经看到了这方面的证据：在知识界，一个民族主义的运动正鼓吹政府加强对经济的控制，这个所谓的“新左翼”思潮是当下最热门的势头。

过去一年，互联网最终开始展现出成为公民共享信息手段的潜力，民众通过网络互相了解政府腐败和滥用职权的信息，并组织起来寻求补救。但与此同时，网络也成为“愤青”的释放渠道，这些20多岁持民族主义思想的年轻人支持一个更为强势的中央政府。

上述因素并不意味着中国30年的改革道路肯定会遭遇逆转。但一些人从中国过往经济增长中得出的简单直线预测实在是过于乐观了。中国共产党独揽大权所带来的问题已经变得越来越明显，既得利益者试图阻碍银行体系和股市的发展（这可能有利于企业家），来维护他们对中国经济的控制。

无论是经济方面还是政治领域，未来的一年都将非常关键。中国依赖于出口的经济在全球放缓面前尤为薄弱，天安门事件明年6月也将迎来20周年。不过，中国共产党已经展示了其擅于调整自身应对新挑战的一面。我们可以预计，摸着石头过河的感觉还会继续，即便改革步伐有所放缓。

（编者按：本文作者是《远东经济评论》(Far Eastern Economic Review)的编辑。）

China's Winding Road To Reform
Hugo Restall

Thirty years ago this week, Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese Communist Party turned their backs on Maoism and embarked on a reform program that led to the most remarkable period of wealth creation the world has ever seen. From today's vantage point this process appears surprisingly smooth. But it hasn't been, and still isn't. Understanding the real history is key to understanding where the country could go from here.

Above all, there has never been total agreement in Beijing about the wisdom or course of reform. Nor has there been a clear roadmap. Rather, especially under Deng, it was a fairly personal process. He could launch reform because in 1978 China was in a state of ideological and economic exhaustion, and internal opposition to 'following the capitalist road' was weak. The adoption of pragmatism as a guiding principle was popular because people were so fed up with political campaigns and class struggle.

Deng also played a crucial role as 'paramount leader' at key moments in the 1980s and early '90s pushing through changes using his personal prestige when reform seemed to be foundering. Meanwhile, in the early stages economic reforms created many winners and very few losers, as private enterprises started small, coexisting with the state-owned industrial dinosaurs.

In Deng's famous phrase, China's policy makers adopted a gradualist approach, 'crossing the river by feeling for the stones.' Small-scale experiments often led to success on a national scale, such as allowing farmers to keep what they produced from private plots and the establishment of special economic zones along the coast. Foreign enterprises' high level of participation in the Chinese economy was never planned, it simply evolved. But the lack of a reform blueprint also led to some notable failures -- China's stock market remains dysfunctional because it started as a no-cost source of money for state-owned enterprises. Allowing the market to become a viable source of capital for entrepreneurs would hurt these companies and those who own their overpriced shares.

This gradualist approach, and the underlying lack of consensus, had political consequences. During the 1980s, reformist and hardline forces within the Communist Party still fought over the pace of reform, and intellectuals had a modicum of freedom to debate the need for political reform. The crackdown after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre sharply reined in that debate, but within a few years economic reform and growth were back on track. By the mid-90s, the Party successfully recast itself as a collection of society's elites from all backgrounds, including entrepreneurs. The only competition over policy was between technocratic elites and leaders of patronage networks, while the government bought the allegiance of intellectuals with improvements in their lifestyles.

China became a remarkably laissez faire economy in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The government's revenues as a share of GDP shrank to around 11%, from 31% in 1978. At the same time, Beijing unilaterally cut tariffs and joined the World Trade Organization, while shrinking the public sector. In the space of a few years starting in the 1990s, inefficient state-owned enterprises shed about one-third of their workforce, by some estimates 60 million jobs. As a result, for about three decades the 'socialist market economy' churned out double-digit growth year after year.

Unfortunately this run is coming to an end, and not just because of the global financial crisis. Today the pendulum is swinging back toward ideological competition and big government. With the country still without a true consensus on the virtues of free-market reform, the communists-turned-capitalists are morphing into European-style social democrats.

In the late 1990s, the bureaucrats set out to re-establish their power. Beijing fixed a target of restoring national revenue to 20% of GDP by improving the tax collection system. Last year, revenue hit 20.8% of GDP, growing by 32.4%, far ahead of economic growth of 11.4%.

Spending has risen just as fast, and this is now part of an ideological shift back toward statism. Government leaders portray themselves as the answer to every problem, expressing their willingness to use public resources to help those left behind by the new prosperity, rather than counting on new businesses to create jobs. While China's social safety net remains small in comparison to European countries, it is expanding rapidly. Given that China remains a poor country and has a rapidly aging population, this may not be sustainable.

Meanwhile, after welcoming foreign trade and investment to a degree seldom seen in a developing country, Beijing is quietly shifting tack to impose some nontariff barriers to foreign products and investment. The state is pushing the creation of new national champions, enterprises that are tied to the government by various ownership structures and enjoy generous financing from the state-owned banks. A new labor law goes far beyond basic workplace protections, incentivizing workers to organize and instigate disputes with management.

All of this is reducing the opportunities open to the true private sector, which has been the engine of China's rapid growth. As growth slows and the politically well-connected cadre managers enjoy the lion's share of opportunities, inequality and resentment grow. If this prompts the government to expand spending further to buy off the discontented, the virtuous cycle of economic reform could turn into a vicious cycle of ever greater government intervention.

In the political sphere, the close alignment of government and business elites means that any emerging opposition to the Communist Party will likely be antibusiness. And indeed we see evidence of this -- among intellectuals, a nationalist movement advocating greater government control of the economy known as the 'new left' is the hottest trend.

In the past year, the Internet has finally begun to show potential as a tool for citizens to share information about government corruption and abuses, and to organize to seek redress. But at the same time, the Net has unleashed the 'angry youth,' nationalistic 20-somethings who support a stronger central government.

None of this means that China is necessarily going to reverse course after 30 years of reform. But the straight-line projections some have drawn of the country's growth are too optimistic. The drawbacks of the Communist Party's monopoly on power are becoming more evident, as vested interests protect their control on the economy by holding back development of the banking system and stock market that would benefit entrepreneurship.

The coming year is expected to be critical, both economically and politically. China's export-dependent economy is especially vulnerable to a global slowdown, and the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen is coming up in June. However, the Communist Party has shown itself adept at adjusting to new challenges. We can expect that the feeling for the stones will continue, even as the pace of reform slows.

(Editor's Note: Mr. Restall is the editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review.)";