《商务英语阅读》第二版Chapter1 Why China Works (网上私人独家翻译)

Why China Works

A look at bright spots in the recession begins with Beijing, where state control is looking smart.

经济衰退中的一线光明开始于国家宏观调控看起来明智的北京。

The construction site of the China Pavilion, host to the World Expo Shanghai 2010

By Rana Foroohar | NEWSWEEK

Published Jan 10, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Jan 19, 2009

China is the only major economy that is likely to show significant growth this year, because it is the only one that routinely breaks every rule in the economic textbook. In fact, the main reason China is not slowing as fast as the other big five economies is its capacity for macro-control.

中国是今年唯一一个可能取得亮丽增长的主要经济体，因为它是世界上唯一一个惯常打破经济教科书每一个原则的国家。事实上，中国不像其他五大经济体那样发展缓慢的主要原因是，它的宏观调控能力。

Why does China's market economic system work? Now that the United States and Europe are moving toward macro-economic control—by nationalizing the banking and car industries, and imposing heavy new regulation on the financial industry—the question has a new urgency.

China looks like the one best positioned to navigate what may be the worst global downturn in seven decades.

为什么中国市场经济体系奏效？目前，欧美等国正通过银行及汽车业国有化及强制对金融业的管理，走向宏观调控，但问题更加紧迫。中国看上去是最能够驾驭这场可能是近七十年来最糟的全球经济滑坡的国家。

In a time of crisis, China's bureaucrats can pick from traditional market tools, like their Western counterparts, and from the arsenal of China’s market economic system. Early last year, as the housing market was overheating, they simply ordered bankers to cut back on housing loans: then as home sales began to fall, they offered market incentives, like lower taxes on home purchases. In recent weeks they launched economic rescue efforts similar to those in the west, including a huge ($600 billion) plan to ramp up government spending and big interest-rate cuts. But they've also issued orders that would be seen as improper "intervention" in the West—for example, calling last week on state industries, including steel and construction, to "actively increase" their roles in the economy by buying up new assets at home and abroad.

在危机中，中国官员既能采用像西方同行那样的传统市场工具，也能吸取中国市场经济体系的积累经验。去年早期，由于房地产市场过热，中国官员仅命令银行削减房贷：然后随着房屋销售量下降，他们提供市场激励机制，比如更低的房屋购置税。最近几周，他们展开类似西方的经济救援行动，其中包括价值6000亿的大计划以增加政府开支和大幅削减利率。但同时，他们也发布在西方国家眼

里是不合理的干涉的命令—例如，上周中国官员召集包括钢铁和建筑在内的国有工业，通过并购国内外的新资产以积极发挥他们在经济中的作用。

Once seen as the bad habit of an immature economy, China's state meddling is now seen as a bulwark of stability. "Government control of the most capital-intensive sectors leaves me optimistic about China's prospects," says CLSA economist Andy Rothman. "The government can say to companies in these sectors, 'Continue to spend, don't defer your investment plans'." Despite the falls in its biggest export markets and its own stock markets, China's economy looks likely to grow more than 7 percent in 2009—down from the double-digit pace of recent years, but stronger than most. Corporate loan rates are actually up, as state banks loosen credit. In a nation where investment is "the backbone of sustainable growth," accounting for 40 percent of GDP, the state is once again ramping up investment to fight serious threats to growth, says Morgan Stanley Asia chief Stephen Roach. "What we're seeing is that the Chinese command-and-control system can actually work more effectively than other market based systems in times of economic stress," he says.

曾被视为不成熟经济的弊病的中国宏观调控，现在却被看做是稳定的保障。里昂证券（CLSA）经济学家安迪·罗斯曼（Andy Rothman）说，”政府对大多数资本密集型产业的控制，让我看好中国的未来。政府会对这些领域的公司说，继续花吧，不要由于你们的投资计划而延迟“。尽管最大的出口及自身股票市场

出现下滑，中国经济在2009年看上去仍旧增加了7%以上，虽然与近些年两位数的增速相比有所下滑，但仍然比大多数国家坚挺。随着国有银行放松信贷，企业贷款率切实增加。摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）的亚洲首席史蒂芬·罗奇（Stephen Roach）说，在一个投资支持可持续发展，并占GDP的40%的国家，政府再次增加投资以抵抗对增长的威胁。他又说，在危机时期，中国的指挥控制系统确实比其他以市场为基础的系统有效。

China works because it is governed by a radical pragmatism that has focused on a slow but steady shift toward freer markets. Deng called it "crossing the river by feeling for the stones." The state still exerts a strong and stabilizing hand, but it has unleashed a private sector that now controls at least half the economy, and as much as 70 percent if you include state-owned companies that are in fact allowed to operate as private firms. That's up from around 17 percent in the early 1990s. Some 60 percent of GDP growth, and two thirds of new job creation now come from the private sector, according to CLSA.

中国的成功主要因为由彻底的实用主义管理，这一主义更注重缓慢但平稳地转向更自由市场。邓小平称之为”摸着石头过河“。政府伸出强有力的手的同时，也解放现在占至少一半经济成分的私人领域，允许70%的国有公司以私人公司形式运行。与20世纪90年代初期的约17%有所增长。根据CLSA的信息，大约60%的GDP增长及2/3的新增就业来自私人领域。

In 1995, China began a revolutionary dismantling of state-run industry, laying off 46 million state workers—the equivalent of the entire

workforce of France and Italy—over the next six years alone. In the years following, the streamlining has continued, sharply raising profitability at state-run firms, and the private sector was allowed to play an increasingly important role in the economy. Rothman calls it "radical change, but over an extended time period." Above all, the Chinese wanted to avoid the chaos that followed Russia's "big-bang reforms" of the early '90s, which created a corrupt, Kremlin-sponsored economic oligarchy that still haunts Russia today.

1995年，中国展开了一场革命性的国企拆分，仅在接下来的六年就裁掉460万国企职工，相当于法国意大利的全部工人数。接下来几年，精简继续，国企盈利率迅猛上升，以及允许私企在经济中发挥重要作用。罗斯曼（Rothman）称之为，一场长时间的剧变。更重要的是，中国尤其想避免俄罗斯90年代初大爆炸改革导致的混乱，这场改革产生了腐败的，克里姆林（Kremlin）支持下的寡头政治，至今仍困扰俄罗斯。

China opened to Western investment at an earlier stage of development than either Japan or South Korea—in the early 1980s, when its average yearly income was only 760rmb ($500), because Deng recognized that global trade was the way out of national poverty. He also freed peasants to seek jobs in cities, a risky move in a nation with a long history of mobile peasant rebellions. After the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, China joined the World T rade Organization, committing itself to a wider opening of its domestic markets. Around the same time, the

government allowed laid-off workers to start businesses and buy up state-owned housing for a song, founding an ownership society almost overnight, and setting the stage for a middle-class society, in what Rothman calls "the biggest one-time transfer of wealth in the history of the world."

在20世纪80年代，平均年收入只有760元，（约合500美元）的发展初期，中国已经对西方开放投资市场，而在发展初期日本和韩国还尚未开放。这是由于邓小平意识到全球贸易是摆脱国家贫穷的出路。他同样鼓励农民来城市寻找工作，这对于一个有着悠久流动农民起义历史的国家是个冒险的举动。在20世纪90年代末期亚洲金融危机后，中国加入世贸组织，旨在国内市场更广泛的开放。大约在同一时间，政府允许下岗失业人员创业，并以低价买断国有房屋，几乎在一夜之间成立了一个所有权社会，并且为中产阶级社会设置铺垫，用罗斯曼的话说就是“世界史上最大的一次性的资源转化”。

Now, as a worse crisis gains momentum, Beijing continues to push market reforms in key sectors, even as it reasserts control in others. Banks are one main target of reform. "Capital markets are still dominated by bank lending. We have too few products and we need to get more institutional investors into the market," says Fang Xinghai. T o that end, China is boldly moving beyond stocks into new types of complex securities, including stock index funds, corporate bonds and other debt products. The fact that Chinese leaders understand even in the midst of the credit crisis that more sophisticated forms of securitization can play a

stabilizing role is a sign of strategic thinking, and great skill at learning from others' mistakes. Asked what he admires most in Western counterparts, Jiang Jianqing, chairman of China's largest state bank, ICBC, says, "Innovation. Americans have an endless passion for it. Perhaps in the past, it hasn't been so well regulated, but you can't stop it. It's one of the most important ways to push enterprise forward."

现在，在一个更大危机的趋势下，北京继续在关键领域推进市场化改革，同时重申对其他领域的管控。银行是改革的主要目标之一。“资本市场仍然由银行贷款占主导地位，我们的产品太少了，我们需要得到更多的机构投资者进入市场，”方星海说。为此，中国大胆地超越了股票，成为新型的复合证券，包括股票指数基金，公司债券及其他债券产品。中国领导人明白即使是在信贷危机中证券形式的复杂化也是可以起到稳定作用的，这一事实是战略思维的标志，并从其他国家的错误中学习到高超的技巧。当被问及他最钦佩的西方同行，姜建清，中国最大的国有银行，中国工商银行董事长说，“创新。美国人有无尽的创新激情。也许在过去，它并没有被如此良好的监管，但你不能阻止它。它是推动企业前进的最重要途径之一。“

Even more farsighted is the new, landmark land-reform program, which would make it possible for Chinese peasants to rent or lease their land to outsiders. Simply figuring out who owns which properties can be a Byzantine task in China, so land reform could take decades-but the idea is already generating excitement. In November, real-estate consulting firm Jones Lang LaSalle estimated that land reform could

unlock rural property worth as much as $2.5 trillion. "Land reform will be China’s lasting legacy," says JLL national research director Michael Klibaner. T urning peasants into land-owning consumers could go a long way toward creating a consumer society, reducing China's dependence on exports, and rebalancing the world economy.

更有远见的是，新的具有里程碑意义的土地改革方案，这将有可能使中国农民以出租或租用他们的土地给外人。在中国，仅仅找出谁拥有哪些属性就是个错综复杂的任务，所以土地改革可能需要数十年，但这个想法已经令人兴奋。十一月份，房地产咨询公司仲量联行（Jones Lang LaSalle）估计，土地改革可以解锁农村产权的价值高达25万亿美元。“土地改革将是中国持久的遗产，”仲量联行全国研究总监柯志谦（Michael Klibaner）说。谈到从农民成为拥有土地的消费者到建立一个消费社会还有很长的路要走，同时减少中国对出口的依赖，并重新平衡世界经济。

Once Chinese leaders signal a new direction, they rarely waver, says Rothman. Witness the political battle over American charges that China is deliberately holding down the value of the yuan to boost its exports, a charge that ignores the gradual 21.5 percent rise in the yuan that had already taken place between the summer of 2005 and 2008. While the yuan did fall a bit in recent months, most economists believe Beijing will continue to allow a modest appreciation, weighing its need for export competitiveness against the world's need for more balanced trade flows.

一旦中国领导人提出一个新的方向，他们很少动摇，罗斯曼说。见证了美国

指控中国故意压低人民币币值以刺激出口的政治斗争，指控却忽略了在2005年夏天到2008年之间，人民币已经渐进式增长了21.5%。虽然人民币在近几个月下降了一点儿，大多数经济学家认为为了权衡其出口竞争力的需要和世界上更加平衡的贸易流的需要，北京将继续允许适度升值，。

This balance between free and managed markets can also be seen in China's approach to price fixing and macro-economic control in key sectors like financial services, telecoms, utilities and energy. Some of these industries are partially privatized-in telecoms, equipment markets are open to foreigners, because they bring capital and expertise that eventually trickles down to local firms, like the now internationally competitive Huawei. But the more lucrative services market is still run by authorities, who set prices on mobile-phone calls. "China does control prices, it's true," says Fang. "But it moves one step behind the market. The market is always the baseline."

自由和管理市场之间的平衡也可以看到在中国的做法，以固定价格和宏观调控的重点行业如金融服务，电信，公用事业和能源。其中某些行业被部分私有化，在电信设备市场是对外国人开放的，因为他们带来资金和专业知识，最终下达给地方企业，像现在国际上有竞争力的华为。但更有利可图的服务市场仍然由国家运行，谁设定了移动电话的拨打价格。“中国不控制价格，这是真的，”方舟子说。“但它在市场后退一步，市场永远是底线。”

Recently, for example, China has been cutting fuel subsidies to bring prices closer to international norms. It's part of a 15-year process, that,

according to CLSA's Rothman, has taken the percentage of total consumer prices fixed by the state from 95 percent to as low as 5 percent. The slow easing was designed to avoid the 1,000 percent burst of inflation that hit Russia from 1991 to 1992 after Moscow deregulated prices. "The Chinese don't want shock therapy, which has proven to be all shock, and no therapy," says Cheng Li, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.

近日，例如，中国已经削减燃油补贴，使价格更接近国际标准。这是一个15年的过程的一部分，即，根据里昂证券的罗斯曼说，已经把总居民消费价格固定的百分比由国家从95%降低至5％。缓慢宽松政策的目的是要避免类似从1991年至1992年，莫斯科解除管制价格后爆发的1000%的通货膨胀的爆发。“中国不希望休克疗法，这已被证明全都是打击，并没有治疗，”布鲁金斯研究所高级研究员李成说。

The leadership's faith in its own ability to mold markets may derive from the fact that most are engineers, trained to build from a plan. Eight out of the nine top party officials come from engineering backgrounds, and the practicality of their profession may also help explain why they didn't buy into risky and Western financial innovation. At a recent Chinesebusiness conference in Barcelona, Xu Kuangdi, vice chairman of the advisory body to China's Parliament, and President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, mocked the "virtual" products sold over the last decade by Western bankers: "They had Ph.D.s in physics inventing

tools that the banks themselves couldn't understand or regulate. Investors listened to their stories and were told how wonderful all this would be, how much better it was than producing real goods. Everyone was working in a dream."

领导对于自己在塑造市场上能力的信心可能来自一个事实，即他们大部分是工程师，在做计划上训练有素。十之八九的高层党内官员都来自工科背景，他们的专业的实用性可能也有助于解释为什么他们不相信高风险和西方金融创新。在最近的巴塞罗那华商大会上，徐匡迪，中国议会咨询机构副主席，中国工程院院长，嘲讽西方银行家在过去十年中出售的“虚拟”产品：“他们有物理学博士们发明了银行无法理解或调节的工具。投资者听了他们的谎言，被告知这一切会有多么美好，它比生产真货好太多了。每个人都在幻想中工作。”

A command-and-control system run by relatively skilled technocrats allows China to get things done, quickly. "I'm always struck by the ability of the Chinese state to move in a coherent manner and to marshal its people and the resources of the country to a common target," noted David Murphy, head of CLSA's China Reality research division, in a recent report on the country's efforts to bolster growth. Contrast this to Russia, where thuggish autocracy has created an "anything goes" environment in which neither investors nor most officials have any idea what might happen from one moment to the next.

相对熟练的技术官员运行的指挥控制系统，令中国能很快地把事情做好。“我一直为此感到震撼，中国政府能够为了一个共同的目标，以一致的方式前进，

并且引领它的人民和国家资源。”里昂证券的中国现状研究部门负责人大卫·墨菲在最近一份关于国家为支撑经济增长做出的努力的报告中指出。与之形成对比的是俄罗斯，野蛮专制地创造了一个“怎么都行”的环境中,无论是投资者还是多数官员都不知道下一刻会发生什么。

What the Chinese people still want at this stage is prosperity, and stability, which they are pursuing with a pragmatic, capitalist zeal that arguably surpasses even that of Americans. Huang Ming, who teaches at both Cornell in New York and the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing, jokes that while he can command respect in the United States simply by telling people he's a tenured professor at an Ivy League university, Chinese people say, "OK, that's good, but how much money do you make?"

中国人民在现阶段以务实精神所追求的仍旧是繁荣和稳定，资本主义的热情可能都超过了美国。执教于纽约康奈尔大学和北京长江商学院的黄明开玩笑说，在美国，仅仅告诉别人他是常春藤联盟大学的终身教授，他就会赢得尊重，但是中国人会说，”哦，那挺好的，但是你赚多少钱啊？“

Many point to the current insider-trading case involving the detention of China's richest man, Huang Guangyu (the founder of electronics retailer Gome), as proof that the government is also getting more serious about prosecuting corruption. Independent economist Andy Xie (formerly of Morgan Stanley) says that the more important point is that Gome, the company, will most likely survive regardless of

what happens to Huang-a sign that Chinese markets are maturing. Xie also notes that recent legal changes in stock-ownership law have made markets more liquid, putting them farther out of the control of state authorities. That's one reason authorities have tried since August to revive the stock market by scrapping the stamp tax on share purchases but in vain. The market is getting too free for the state to control.

因多个指向表明涉及当前的内幕交易案而被拘留的中国首富黄光裕（电子产品零售商国美的创始人），就是政府对于腐败诉讼越来越严厉的证据。独立经济学家谢国忠（原供职于摩根士丹利）说，更重要的一点是，无论黄光裕发生什么事，国美这家公司都应该会生存下来——这是中国市场走向成熟的一个标志。他还指出，最近股票所有权的法律变更使得市场更具流动性，使他们远离了国家权力机关的控制。这也是权力机关从八月开始试图通过废除购买股份时缴纳的印花税来重振股票市场的原因之一，但是失败了。国家难以控制正变得过于自由的市场。

That said, there's no doubt the state's hand in the economy will grow in this downturn. Much of the new stimulus package will flow through state-controlled sectors like transport and power and construction, which can spend it quickly. Beijing has also chosen this moment to issue new 3G mobile licenses, which will further funnel money through the state telecoms sector. And in Hong Kong, there's evidence that investors are moving money from commercial to state banks, because of the implicit promise of state support.

尽管如此，毫无疑问，在这个低迷时期政府对经济的干预会增加。许多的新型的经济刺激方案将遍布国家控制的行业，比如交通，电力和建筑这些可以迅速花掉投资的行业。北京也选择在这个时候发行新的3G移动牌照，这将为整个国家的电信行业进一步输送资金。同时在香港，有证据表明，投资者正把资金从商业银行转移到国有银行，因为国有银行隐形承诺着国家的支持。

Perhaps the most intriguing evolution in China's hybrid markets is in the way leaders are tracking public opinion. Savvy management of public opinion may prove crucial as economic conditions head south. In many places they can now post their views about local government on city-run websites, and local leaders are required to answer individual complains within three days. Public rankings of various city departments are posted based on the number of positive and negative comments.

或许在中国的混合动力市场最有趣的进化是领导人追踪公众舆论的方式。舆论的智能管理在经济状况变差的情况下被证明可能是至关重要的。在许多地方，民众现在可以在城市运营的网站上发布他们对当地政府的意见，并且地方官员要在在三天之内答复个别投诉。对外公布的全市各部门的公共排名是基于正面和负面评论的数量。

It's part of a government strategy to use the Internet and public opinion to put pressure on provincial officials, as well as to influence policy decisions. Victor Yuan, chairman of Horizon, a Beijing market-research firm, conducted public polls to help the government set Olympic ticket rates and figure out what to charge for natural-gas

upgrades in remote areas, in order to avoid public outrage over too high prices.

这是一个政府的策略，利用互联网和舆论对地方官员施压，也影响政策的制定。北京零点研究咨询集团董事长袁岳，通过进行民意调查，帮助政府制定奥运门票等级；找出天然气在偏远地区的升级价格，以避免公众因为过高的价格而愤怒。

It's getting tougher even for radical pragmatists to deliver on Deng's promise. Thirty years ago, there were 963 million people in China, and 30 percent of them were hungry. T oday, there are 1.3 billion, and 97 percent of them have a full stomach, but the step up to the middle class is harder. Ruchir Sharma of Morgan Stanley has pointed out that China's per capita GDP recently hit $3,000-the level at which Japan's miracle economy began to slow to a more mature pace.

即使是激进实用主义者，要想兑现邓小平的承诺也变得越来越难了。三十年前，中国有9.63亿人口，而其中30％在饿肚子。今天，中国有13亿人口，并且其中97％能吃饱肚子，但是想踏上中产阶级更难。摩根士丹利的Ruchir Sharma指出，近期中国的人均国内生产总值达到了三千美元——这相当于日本的经济奇迹开始放缓后更成熟的速度。

China's successful use of China’s market economic system carries limited lessons for the United States or Europe. Still, the fact that an increasingly rich China still works so well is worth studying, not least because the credit crisis is provoking a wider questioning of free-market

orthodoxy. "It is worth remembering that China is the only major nation that is experiencing neither a credit crisis, nor a crisis of confidence," notes Rothman. "Its still safe to say that nobody worries about the Chinese government's ability to get things done." As Wen Jiabao has said, "confidence is worth more than gold," and the Chinese people still believe in their system.

中国对市场经济体制的成功运用对欧美国家的参考价值有限。不过，中国日益富裕且表现如此良好值得我们学习，尤其是因为这次信贷危机导致广泛质疑自由市场的正统。“值得记住的是中国是既没有遭遇信用危机也没有信任危机的唯一大国，”罗斯曼指出。“可以肯定是，没人担心中国政府把事情做好的能力。”诚如温家宝所言，“信心比黄金更重要”，而中国民众仍然相信他们制度。