[转贴]《纽约时报》向中国提的建议大部分是错的 /生存与超越

这和克林顿及布什政府经济政策有讽刺性的相似之处，目睹西方金融和经济系统今年的崩溃，中国人（或者其他人）怎么会希望效仿这种模式。纽时社论没有提到这种转变内含的经济混乱和政治风险，没有提到中国不能永远依赖廉价能源和对自然资源破坏，没有提到建造依赖私人汽车的21世纪城市的荒唐。建立可确保长期生存的经济机制和政策是一项艰巨的挑战，要求中国找到一个完全不同的方向。

中国已经感受到世界经济放缓的影响。政府采取行动提高最贫困的中国人的收入可能相对容易。但除非经济可以制造并分销他们希望买入的产品和服务（一些产品和服务无法迅速大规模生产，例如高等教育或医疗服务等），否则主要的结果将是通胀，而不是真实生活水平的重大提高。此外，中国消费者对未来黯淡时光的迹象非常敏感。当中国经济仍然处于动荡转型期，刺激消费信心和消费需求将是困难的任务。

制造产品组合的快速转变对于工人和企业而言可能也是极有破坏性的。很多中国出口厂家没有能力把自己的产品转变为国内产品。大部分出口企业生产的是供富裕的西方消费者消费的产品，跟中国消费底层所需要的基础商品和服务很不同。而且很多出口厂家在沿海地区，要转移的话代价昂贵，很多现有的设施和工人将被抛弃。

在过去三十年，由于超量的出口和白热化的投资，中国增长了13倍，但它的经济是失衡的。纽时社论说到中国过剩的出口和怠惰的消费，但忽略了那些不便利的事实。它没有提到大众消费型的中国经济会遇上的环境、全球气候变化和自然资源的限制。难道纽时编委会没有读过纽时自己精彩的中国环境系列报道吗？没有细读弗里德曼（Thomas Friedman）的新书《热、平、拥挤（Hot, Flat, and Crowded）》吗？即使不大大提高消费，中国经济已经与物质和经济现实发生冲突了。

如果目标是西式的消费经济，中国的能源需求将是巨大的。然而它的主要能源资源煤越来越显示出问题，空气和水污染失控，全球气候遭到破坏。尽管保护资源可以带来一些好处，但它的保护潜能远不及美国。继续依赖津贴能源肯定是死路一条：从长期来看，进口石油会变得难以承受或者难以获得，而且中国通过煤取得国内能源的做法所带来的环境负面效应将变得压倒一切。

刺激消费无疑可以帮助中国熬过这场经济风暴。但纽时社论没有思考中国走这条路的话如何熬过长期的政治风暴。目前政权的合法性在于给中国所有人带来更美好的生活。如果大部分民众发现他们的经济生活变得更糟而不是变得更好，政权的生存就会受到威胁。中国领导人已经开始担心这些趋势，并警告公众未来还会有更艰难的时期。当然，他们还会把责任推给外界环境。一些最富有的中国人已经遭遇重大损失。刺激消费可以提供短期的安慰，但将把中国进一步引上不可持续经济之路，并最终暴露政治弱点。

纽时社论提出的简单处方是把中国变成20世纪的美国，而不考虑这条道路的长期可能性。索罗斯（George Soros）最近接受中国《财经》杂志访问时表示，“我希望中国、美国都采取节能和替代能源措施，以此作为刺激经济的方式，这正是我们走出目前全球危机所需要的。”

在纽时发表这篇社论两周后，中国宣布4万亿元人民币的刺激方案，应对经济衰退。我希望中国领导人在设定开支的时候，要更加留意索罗斯的观点，而不是纽时编委的观点。

A recent New York Times editorial gives China broad advice on the economic and financial crises, most of it wrong. Headlined "As Goes China, so Goes…" (an allusion to the old U.S. presidential election bromide, "As goes Maine, so goes the Nation), the editorial distills the essence of the macroeconomists' conventional wisdom about the proper future direction of the Chinese economy: reduce exports, expand imports, and create a modern consumer economy. The Times implies that China's government budget surplus, high individual savings rate, and endless consumer and social welfare needs make the task easy, if only Chinese policymakers would catch on. In fact, this transformation would be far more disruptive. Moreover, neither China nor the world can survive the creation of a clone of the 20th-century U.S. economy in the coming era of high-cost energy and low-carbon footprints.

To get China's consumers to spend, the government will need to spend more at home, investing in public works projects and providing more social benefits — including health insurance and pensions — so its citizens don't feel they have to save so much for a rainy day.

Noting that private consumer spending amounts to only about one-third of the Chinese GDP (in the United States it has been over 70%), the editorial says China "must do more to unlock the savings of its citizens and encourage them to spend." And the switch would be easy — the Chinese government has a "huge budget surplus" and "money to spare"to execute this policy.

Attempting to reshape China into an American-style mass consumer economy, however, is a recipe for economic, environmental, and probably political, disaster. It’s a path to the past, not the future.

This prescription bears an ironic similarity to the economic policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations, and one wonders why the Chinese (or anyone) would want to emulate that model after watching the Western financial and economic systems collapse this year. The editorial makes no reference to the economic dislocations and political risks inherent in this transformation, or the unsustainable reliance on cheap energy and natural resource destruction, or the folly of building 21st-century cities dependent on the private automobile. Creating economic institutions and policies that ensure long-term viability is a formidable challenge that will require China to find a dramatically different direction.

China is already feeling the impact of a slower world economy. Both economic growth and export growth have braked sharply. The slowdown threatens job creation, direly needed to absorb millions of rural Chinese seeking employment in the cities.

Government action to increase the income of the poorest Chinese would be relatively easy. But unless the economy can manufacture and distribute the products and services they want to buy — some of which, like higher education or healthcare services, cannot be quickly mass produced — the primary result will be inflation rather than a significant improvement in real standards of living. Moreover, Chinese consumers, unlike Americans, are extremely sensitive to indications of bad times ahead. The China Daily recently reported a typical Chinese consumer postponing purchase of a new bicycle after reading the news about the financial crisis, although it has not affected her at all. Stimulating consumer confidence and consumer demand when the Chinese economy is in turmoil and transition will be a difficult task.

As [the] industrial economies sputter, China is now in a position to pick up some of the slack: selling more of its own goods at home and buying more from the rest of the world.

Rapid transformation of the manufactured product mix could also be extremely disruptive for workers and businesses. Many Chinese export factories will not be able to redirect their production to domestic products. Much of the export complex provides discretionary-purchase goods, from toys to TVs, for rich Western consumers. These products are markedly different from the more basic goods and services needed by the bottom half of China's consumer economy. Moreover, export factories are located near the coast, where a huge coast-oriented transportation infrastructure delivers goods overseas to distributors and retailers. Comparable domestic distribution and marketing systems do not exist, since none is needed for exports. Overall, it would probably be cheaper for new businesses to build new factories in central and western China, with new workers and new distribution systems, rather than redirect export manufacturing facilities. Many existing facilities and workers will be abandoned.

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