China and India 中國和印度

Suddenly vulnerable
措手不及的中印
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
中國和印度，這兩個亞洲的龐然大物也感到陣陣戰慄之寒。相形之下，印度的家底不夠厚實，而中國政府更是千頭萬緒。

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.
經濟慘淡乃至崩潰的陰雲以迅雷不及掩耳之勢在全球上空籠罩，震驚四座。然而，對世界兩座人口大國—中國和印度而言，這場變化來得尤為突然。而就在此前，這 兩個處在發展速度頭籌的大國，還以為自己能夠倖免於這場肆虐發達國家的惡疾。某些樂觀人士，甚至一度希冀這些巨大的新興市場能夠開足馬力，救世界於衰退之 中。如今，有人開始擔心事情會反其道而行之：世界經濟下滑將把中印兩國拖入泥潭，引發大量失業。儘管此二國發展迅速，但貧困依然：世界所有營養不良兒童 中，印度兒童就佔五分之二多。

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.
這或許有過於悲觀之嫌，畢竟這兩個國家還算是世界上最富活力的地區。然而，他們所面臨的經濟和政治困境卻十分嚴峻。就印度來看，它剛剛樹立起的良好的自我 形象遭到了雙重打擊。既來自經濟動盪，還來自上個月恐怖分子對首都孟買的襲擊活動。正如我們在特別報道中所指出的那樣，印度剛剛建立起的自信主要有兩方面 來源。一是保持了快速的經濟增長勢頭，達到年平均8.8%的增長速度；另一方面，印度的國際地位和影響力也同時快速攀升。印度官員不無得意地表示，印度不 再被當作巴的另一個潛在的核動亂地區而同巴基斯坦有任何「印巴」關係。確切地說，他已經加入到「中印」這個大區域中來了---這是一片發展迅速，成就矚目 的區域。

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.
巴基斯坦境內的恐怖分子對孟買發動襲擊，頓時進行軍事打擊行動的呼聲四起，這再次引發人們對爆發地區衝突的擔憂。全球經濟蕭條給印度帶來的打擊日益凸現， 印度西界的「印巴」問題再次出現。10月份的出口比去年同期下降了12%；成百上千的小型紡織企業遭遇破產；甚至連印度汽車領域的數家明星製造企業也陷入 停產狀態。印度央行下調本年度經濟增長預期為7.5%--8%，這已經是最樂觀的估計了。明年將下降到5%或5%以下，為2002年以來最低水平。

Still faster after all these years
中國：經年風雨，經濟速增

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.
中國經濟增長速度一旦跌落至此，那麼這不僅將成為中國的災難，還將是世界的災難。本月適逢中國慶祝中共中央十一屆三中全會召開30週年，在這次大會上鄧小 平上台實行了改革開放政策，從此中國經濟以年平均9.8%的速度增長。由最初的試探性改革發展為1990年代大規模的徹底改革，黨中央逐漸廢除了毛澤東時 期眾多的單一制度----改革包括分配集體土地，引進大量外國投資，允許發展私有企業。這所謂30週年或許稱不上具有真正的里程碑意義，但也不難理解中國 為何要對過去三十年所取得的成就大唱讚歌。在這三十年裡，人類歷史上發生了最為矚目的經濟變革。占世界五分之一人口的中國，讓2000萬人口擺脫了貧困。

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.
然而，就是在這樣的中國，當前的經濟放緩也讓它頓時六神無主。中國一向熱衷於統計，然而上個月的貿易數據顯示，出口較去年11月份下降了2%，進口下降了 18%，著實令人震驚。一向穩定的電力數據也下降了7%。儘管世界銀行等預測機構依然對中國2009年GDP增長抱有7.5%的希望，但人們近乎篤 信，8%的增長率是防止社會發生嚴重動盪的重要底線。就在本月，黨內一位高級研究員在各黨派座談會上發出呼籲，警惕「引發大規模社會動盪」。實際上，示威 遊行在中國時有發生，隨著失業工人同失地農民，環保人士，以及受公安人員侵害的受害者一道上街聲討，這一趨勢正在擴大。
The gap between mouth and trouser
承諾與行動的差距（說是一回事，掏錢又是一回事）

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.
還有一種擔心來自人民幣，中國政府有可能壓低人民幣匯率以扶持出口企業。這種做法並不可取，中國可以調用的儲備十分豐富，還有很多可供選擇的方式。中國預 算有盈餘，外債也很低。上個月， 中國政府宣佈了一項4萬億人民幣（約合6000億美元）的財政刺激計劃。有些人很快就對這筆錢進行了計算，認為這只是一張空頭支票---其中大部分都是舊 的預算項目，重複計算，和空頭承諾。因此，這不過是對本國民眾和世界使用的一套宣傳策略，表明中國政府對刺激國內需求很認真而已。而這最終是不公平的：重 要的不是何時宣佈這筆建設資金，而是何時投入這筆資金。然而，目前還沒有跡象表明中國已經準備好採取一系列有力措施，從兩方面入手鼓勵農村消費。這兩大方 面分別是：擴大農民對土地的權利，以及提供良好的社會保障，尤其是醫療保障。

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.
無論如何，中國至少腰包還是鼓的。再看看印度，它還不能擔當解決世界經濟問題的主角。他的經濟規模不夠大，政府財政千頭萬緒。印度財政赤字占GDP達8% 之多，制約了其財政刺激的規模，對平抑經濟放緩力不從心。這是極其危險的。如果中國需要GDP8%的年增長率才能為每年約700萬的新增勞動力提供工作崗 位，那麼印度何以應之？印度作為一個新興的年輕國家，每年新增勞動力1400萬，占世界新增勞動人口的四分之一。更令人感到無奈的是，印度近年在許多領域 所取得的成功不是靠大量的廉價勞動力供給，而是一小部分受過高等教育的工程師，集中在計算機服務企業以及資本密集型加工企業等。

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.
但是，應對經濟放緩印度之於中國又有兩方面的優勢。它是深諳經濟危機的老手，又有一套足以應對社會因此產生憤懣的政治體系，但不會壓制社會對政府既有的疑 問。印度為民主付出了經濟的代價，任何政策制定的過程都極其繁冗複雜。它也同中國一樣社會動盪和叛亂不斷。但是，它的政治體系極具抵抗力和靈活性，似乎連 中國領導人都認為這是中國政治體系所不具備的。中國疲於應對抗議的聲音，而印度則關注於行之將至的大選。

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.
用西方馬克思主義分析中國有句老話，要想經濟徹底變革，就必須政治改革。然而，中國的經濟雖然蓬勃發展，但政治並沒有放開多少，何以完全實現自由經濟？這 句老話被素之高閣。事實上，許多像印度這樣的民主捍衛者，也開始傾向於中國共產黨所宣稱的一黨統治有利於經濟增長，而印度奢侈的民主是靠窮人買單的，窮人 則一天比一天貧困。


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.
明年，中國將步入艱難險阻，也迎來各項週年紀念---鎮壓西藏叛亂50週年；鎮壓天安門動亂20週年；中華人民共和國成立60週年---也許，值得記住的 不僅僅是78-79年那場中共中央全體會議，還應該記住其時那場發生在北京的「民主牆」運動。那是一段言論自由，百家爭鳴的短暫時光，發生在恐外封閉的文 化大革命之後，尤為矚目。如毛澤東那樣，鄧小平沒有反對這場異己論戰是出於政治需要，之後便一舉將其粉碎。他這樣做便阻礙了民主牆運動的著名人物魏京生所 稱的「第五次現代化」：民主。而這正是中國之所需。