[2008.12.13] 中国和印度：突然脆弱

China and India
中国和印度

Suddenly vulnerable
突然脆弱

Dec 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Asia’s two big beasts are shivering. India’s economy is weaker, but China’s leaders have more to fear
亚洲的两大巨兽正在瑟瑟发抖：印度的经济更加羸弱，中国的领袖则有更多需要关注的地方。

THE speed with which clouds of economic gloom and even despair have gathered over the global economy has been startling everywhere. But the change has been especially sudden in the world’s two most populous countries: China and India. Until quite recently, the world’s fastest-growing big economies both felt themselves largely immune from the contagion afflicting the rich world. Optimists even hoped that these huge emerging markets might provide the engines that could pull the world out of recession. Now some fear the reverse: that the global downturn is going to drag China and India down with it, bringing massive unemployment to two countries that are, for all their success, still poor-India is home to some two-fifths of the world’s malnourished children.

经济萧条的阴云正在以令人绝望的速度开始笼罩世界的任何角落。特别是已经对中国和印度这两个人口大国产生影响。不久以前，这两个增速强劲的国家还觉得自己免疫于让发达国家痛苦不堪的危机。乐观主义者甚至希望这两个巨大的新兴市场经济国家将会成为世界摆脱衰退所需的巨大引擎。不过现在有些人却在为相反的问题担心：全球范围内低迷的经济也许会将中国和印度拖下水，给这两个国家带来巨大的失业；无论如何成功，他们都还是贫穷的国家，全球五分之二的营养不良儿童生活在印度。

The pessimism may be overdone. These are still the most dynamic parts of the world economy. But both countries face daunting economic and political difficulties. In India’s case, its newly positive self-image has suffered a double blow: from the economic buffeting, and from the bullets of the terrorists who attacked Mumbai last month. As our special report makes clear, India’s recent self-confidence had two roots. One was a sustained spurt in economic growth to a five-year annual average of 8.8%. The other was the concomitant rise in India’s global stature and influence. No longer, its politicians gloated, was India “hyphenated” with Pakistan as one half of a potential nuclear maelstrom. Rather it had become part of “Chindia”-a fast-growing success story.

有一些悲观情绪也许被夸大了，毕竟中印两国仍然是世界经济中最为活跃的两部分，只是现在都面临着令人生畏的经济形势和政治困难。印度方面，比较正面的自我形象最近受到了经济震荡和恐怖事件的双重打击，。正如我们特别报导中指明的那样，印度近期的自信心有两个根源：一个是冲力十足的经济增长，过去五年的平均增幅达到8.8％；另一个则是随着经济地位提升而日益提高的国际地位和影响力。印度政客洋洋得意的原因不再是拥有核武，同巴基斯坦一样可以制造核漩涡；而是成为”中印大同”的一部分，因为这是一个高速发展的成功典范。

The Mumbai attacks, blamed on terrorist groups based in Pakistan and bringing calls for punitive military action, have revived fears of regional conflict. A hyphen has reappeared over India’s western border, just as the scale of the economic setback hitting India is becoming apparent. Exports in October fell by 12% compared with the same month last year; hundreds of small textile firms have gone out of business; even some of the stars of Indian manufacturing of recent years, in the automotive industry, have suspended production. The central bank has revised its estimate of economic growth this year downwards, to 7.5-8%, which is still optimistic. Next year the rate may well fall to 5.5% or less, the lowest since 2002.

孟买恐怖袭击事件使区域性冲突的可能性死灰复燃，以巴基斯坦为基地的恐怖团体难辞其咎，而印度也主张采取惩罚性军事行动。印度西部边境的 再次出现，就好像袭击印度的经济衰退迹象日益明显一样。10月份的出口额同比下降了12％；数百个小型纺织公司倒闭；甚至近些年形成的一批星级汽车生产商也已经暂停了生产。印度央行修正了对于今年经济增长率的预测，下调到7.5％－8％，而且这依然是很乐观的估计。明年这个数字也许会跌到5.5％，甚至更低，达到自2002年以来的最低水平。

Still faster after all these years
经历这些年后依然增长迅速

If China’s growth rate were to fall to that level, it would be regarded as a disaster at home and abroad. The country is this month celebrating the 30th anniversary of the event seen as marking the launch of its policies of “reform and opening”, since when its economy has grown at an annual average of 9.8%. The event was a meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee at which Deng Xiaoping gained control. Tentatively at first but with greater radicalism in the 1990s, the party dismantled most of the monolithic Maoist edifice-parcelling out collective farmland, sucking in vast amounts of foreign investment and allowing private enterprise to thrive. The anniversary may be a bogus milestone, but it is easy to understand why the party should want to trumpet the achievements of the past 30 years (see article). They have witnessed the most astonishing economic transformation in human history. In a country that is home to one-fifth of humanity some 200m people have been lifted out of poverty.

如果中国的增长率也跌落到上述水平，那么无论对本国还是对世界而言都是一个灾难。这个月正是欢庆改革开放政策实施30年的时候，而邓小平也正是从那时开始执掌中央委员会。从改革开放至今，中国一直保持着9.8％的平均经济增长率。政策之初比较保守，不过随着90年代初日益发达的激进主义潮流，共产党摒弃了让全国人民如痴如醉的毛泽东主义精神支柱：将集体所有制的土地分发给农民，引进大量的境外投资，鼓励私人企业的繁荣昌盛。30周年庆典也许比较务虚，不过中共希望过去30年的成就得到宣扬的想法却是容易理解的。他们见证了人类历史上最为令人震惊的经济改革，这个占全球人口五分之一的国家让2亿人摆脱了贫困。

Yet in China, too, the present downturn is jangling nerves. The country is a statistical haze, but the trade figures for last month-with exports 2% lower than in November 2007 and imports 18% down-were shocking. Power generation, generally a reliable number, fell by 7%. Even though the World Bank and other forecasters still expect China’s GDP to grow by 7.5% in 2009, that is below the 8% level regarded, almost superstitiously, as essential if huge social dislocation is to be avoided. Just this month a senior party researcher gave warning of what he called, in party-speak, “a reactive situation of mass-scale social turmoil”. Indeed, demonstrations and protests, always common in China, are proliferating, as laid-off factory-workers join dispossessed farmers, environmental campaigners and victims of police harassment in taking to the streets.

不过当前的经济衰退也在刺激着中国的神经。这个国家有着迷雾一般的统计结果，不过上个月的贸易数据却令人震惊：出口比2007年11月下降了2％；进口更是下降了18％。总体来说值得信赖的发电量也下降了7％。世行和其他的预测者依然希望中国的GDP在2009年还会有7.5％的增长，该水平低于之前认为的8％，而8％被大家认为是可以阻止社会错乱的增长底限。本月，一位中共高级研究员用党派用语对”严重社会混乱的反应形势”进行了警告。事实上，普遍的游行和示威活动在中国有所增加，下岗工人加入到一无所有的农民、环保运动者和受到警察迫害的受害者中间，一同走上了街头。

The gap between mouth and trouser
空谈与实干的差距

One worry is that China’s rulers will try to push the yuan down to help exporters. That would be a terrible idea, not least because the government has the resources to ease the pain in less dangerous ways: it is running a budget surplus and has little debt. Last month it announced a huge 4 trillion yuan (nearly $600 billion) fiscal-stimulus package. Some who have crunched the numbers argue that this was all mouth and no trousers-much of it made up by old budget commitments, double-counting and empty promises. It was thus mainly propaganda, to convince China’s own people and the outside world that the government was serious about stimulating demand at home. That may yet prove to be unfair: what matters is when infrastructure money is spent, not when it is announced. Yet there is little sign that the regime is ready to take radical steps in the two areas that would do most to persuade the rural majority to spend its money rather than hoard it: giving farmers better rights over their land; and providing a decent social safety-net, especially in health care.

让人忧虑的是中国领导人可能会打压人民币汇率来帮助出口企业。这是一个非常糟糕的想法，不光因为政府其实有办法找到更安全的方法来治愈经济伤痛：中国的现状是预算冗余并且举债甚微。上个月中国政府刚刚宣布了4万亿人民币（约合6000亿美元）的一揽子财政刺激措施。仔细琢磨过这个数字的人认为这只是浮夸的说法，与实事并不相符；因为刺激方案中大部分都是已经做出的预算承诺，还有重复计算或者空头支票。该方案只是宣传工具，让中国人和其他国家都相信政府在刺激内需上是非常认真的。不过这仍然能被证明是不公正的：问题的关键在于基础设施投入何时可以到位，而不是何时宣布。中国人口的主流由农民构成，但目前仍没有迹象表明中国当局准备在最能刺激农民消费的两个领域采取激进举措：让他们掌握更多的土地权利，以及提供象样的社会保障体系，特别实在健康保障方面。

Still, China does at least have trousers, with deep pockets. India, in contrast, is not seen as a big potential part of the answer to the world’s economic problems. Not only is its economy far smaller; its government’s finances are also a mess. Its budget deficit-some 8% of GDP-inhibits it from offering a bigger stimulus that might mitigate the downturn (see article). This is alarming. If China reckons it needs 8% annual growth to provide jobs for the 7m or so new members of its workforce each year, how is India to cope? A younger country, its workforce is increasing by about 14m a year-ie, about one-quarter of the world’s new workers. And, perversely, its great successes of recent years have been in industries that rely not on vast supplies of cheap labour but on smaller numbers of highly educated engineers-such as its computer-services businesses and capital-intensive manufacturing.

无论如何，中国的财富还可以支持政府实施一些举措；印度则相反，不被外界认为是解决世界经济困难的主要动力。不仅因为印度经济的规模本身就比较小，该国政府的财政状况也是一团糟。预算赤字已经达到了GDP的8％，所以根本无法拿出刺激方案来削弱经济衰退的影响。这是一个警告。如果中国估计需要8％的年增长来为新生的700万左右产业大军提供就业机会，印度将怎样应对？虽然建国时间较短，但印度职工总数量每年增量为1400万，占到了全球新增员工数量的四分之一；同时印度近些年的巨大成功完全依赖于那些大量廉价劳动力的产业，没有什么受过高等教育的工程师–一如计算机服务产业和资本集中型的制造业。

In two respects, however, India has a big advantage over China in coping with an economic slowdown. It has all-too extensive experience in it; and it has a political system that can cope with disgruntlement without suffering existential doubts. India pays an economic price for its democracy. Decision-making is cumbersome. And as in China, unrest and even insurgency are widespread. But the political system has a resilience and flexibility that China’s own leaders, it seems, believe they lack. They are worrying about how to cope with protests. India’s have their eyes on a looming election.

在应对经济增长放缓的问题上，印度比中国有两方面的优势。首先，印度的相关经验实在是太丰富了；其次印度的政治体系在应对不满情绪的时候不会遭受到现有债务的冲击。印度为民主付出了经济代价。决策是非常麻烦的事情。就像在中国，不安局面甚至是暴乱状态的传播已经日益广泛，不过政治体系还是有相当的适应能力和弹性的，只是中国自己的领导们都认为自己缺乏这些。令他们忧虑的事情是如何应对抗议行为。印度则关注于日益接近的大选。

It used to be a platitude of Western-and Marxist-analysis of China that wrenching economic change would demand political reform. Yet China’s economy boomed with little sign of any serious political liberalisation to match the economic free-for-all. The cliché fell into disuse. Indeed, many, even in democratic bastions such as India, began to fall for the Chinese Communist Party’s argument that dictatorship was good for growth, whereas Indian democracy was a luxury paid for by the poor, in the indefinite extension of their poverty.

在西方国家和马克思主义者关于中国的分析中，经济突变必然要求政治改革的论调已经是老生常谈。然而中国的经济发展似乎并没有产生任何迹象表明伴随着自由经济出现了政治自由化，因此这个陈词滥调被废止了。实际上，很多地区都开始倾心于中国共产党关于专政有利于国家发展的理论，甚至象印度这样的民主主义堡垒国家也开始动摇；因为印度的民主实际上是对无限贫穷的补偿。

But as China enters a trying year of anniversaries-the 50th of the suppression of an uprising in Tibet; the 20th of the quashing of the Tiananmen Square protests; the 60th of the founding of the People’s Republic itself-it may be worth remembering that the winter of 1978-79 saw not only a party Central Committee plenum but also the “Democracy Wall” movement in Beijing. It was a brief flowering of the freedom of expression, quite remarkable after the xenophobic isolation of the Cultural Revolution. Deng, like Mao Zedong before him, tolerated the dissident movement as long as it served his ends, and then stamped it out. In so doing he thwarted what Wei Jingsheng, the most famous of the wall-writers, had dubbed “the fifth modernisation”: democracy. China still needs it.

随着中国进入了一个艰难的纪念日之年：西藏平暴50周年、天安门事件20周年、共和国成立60周年，人们应该谨记1978－1979的经济萧条期，那不仅是中央委员会高压政策的结果，标志着北京”民主墙”运动的展开。那是自由表达的昙花一现，在文化大革命全面与世界隔绝结束之后显得非常引人注目。同毛泽东一样，邓小平容忍着持不同政见的人充分表演，然后一脚踩灭他们。此举阻碍阻挠了被WEIJINGSHENG描述为”第五个现代化”的民主政治，此人为著名的魏京生。而民主政治认识中国需要的东西。

译者：Tidehunter   http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=16045&extra=page%3D1

另一篇同样优秀的译文：http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=16049&extra=page%3D1