中國關鍵時刻！習近平就任的挑戰
2012-10-29
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作者：經濟學人
習近平即將在十八大之後接任中共總書記，並於明年3月接下國家主席一職；他會延續胡綿濤的努力，試圖結合經濟成長和政治穩定。不過，這項任務越來越困難了；經濟走緩、貪汙和無數社會問題，已經讓中國民眾的不滿日漸增加。
習近平可以繼續打壓不滿，也可以開始放鬆共產黨的控制。習近平必須斬斷過去，才能確保中國未來的繁榮和穩定；而中國的未來將取決於，習近平是否擁有足夠的勇氣和遠見看清這點。學者在最近的政府討論會中指出，中國社會的下層不穩定，中層感到灰心，上層則失去控制。共產黨過去可以壓制民眾的不滿，但今日的一般民眾可以上街遊行，也可以透過社群媒體即時評論任何事情。
中國共產黨已然失去了意識形態上的法統，經濟走緩也在侵蝕其經濟法統，因此它需要找出贏得民眾忠誠的新方式。習近平可以多給中國民眾一點權力，例如將鄉村土地私有化並交給農民、放寬戶口限制、開放媒體自由等。
深度的政治改革聽起來不太可能，但鄧小平在1980年代就曾談及中央領導直選，朱鎔基也說過，競爭性選舉應該儘快擴展至更高的層級。習近平當然會畏懼推動這樣的改革，即使如此，偉大之人自然敢於作出大膽之事。
中國共產黨犯了許多錯誤，但也創造了老一輩人無法想像的財富和希望；大膽改革則能大幅增加中國民眾對共產黨的向心力。習近平於中國的關鍵時刻就任，而對其他人來說，習近平的選擇也非常重要；脆弱又不穩定的中國，比強盛的中國更讓人害怕。（黃維德譯）
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2012
The man who must change China
Xi Jinping
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: October 29, 2012
From The Economist
Published: October 29, 2012
Oct 27th 2012 | from the print edition
JUST after the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which starts in Beijing on November 8th, a short line of dark-suited men, and perhaps one woman, will step onto a red carpet in a room in the Great Hall of the People and meet the world’s press. At their head will be Xi Jinping, the newly anointed party chief, who in March will also take over as president of China. Behind him will file the new members of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s supreme body. The smiles will be wooden, the backs ramrod straight. Yet the stage-management could hardly be more different from the tempestuous uncertainties of actually governing.
As ruler of the world’s new economic powerhouse, Mr Xi will follow his recent predecessors in trying to combine economic growth with political stability. Yet this task is proving increasingly difficult. A slowing economy, corruption and myriad social problems are causing growing frustration among China’s people and worry among its officials.
In coping with these tensions, Mr Xi can continue to clamp down on discontent, or he can start to loosen the party’s control. China’s future will be determined by the answer to this question: does Mr Xi have the courage and vision to see that assuring his country’s prosperity and stability in the future requires him to break with the past?
Who’s Xi?
To the rich world, labouring under debt and political dysfunction, Chinese self-doubt might seem incongruous. Deng Xiaoping’s relaunch of economic reforms in 1992 has resulted in two decades of extraordinary growth. In the past ten years under the current leader, Hu Jintao, the economy has quadrupled in size in dollar terms. A new (though rudimentary) social safety net provides 95% of all Chinese with some kind of health coverage, up from just 15% in 2000. Across the world, China is seen as second in status and influence only to America.
Until recently, the Chinese were getting richer so fast that most of them had better things to worry about than how they were governed. But today China faces a set of threats that an official journal describes as “interlocked like dog’s teeth” (see article). The poor chafe at inequality, corruption, environmental ruin and land-grabs by officials. The middle class fret about contaminated food and many protect their savings by sending money abroad and signing up for foreign passports (see article). The rich and powerful fight over the economy’s vast wealth. Scholars at a recent government conference summed it up well: China is “unstable at the grass roots, dejected at the middle strata and out of control at the top”.
Once, the party could bottle up dissent. But ordinary people today protest in public. They write books on previously taboo subjects (see article) and comment on everything in real time through China’s vibrant new social media. Complaints that would once have remained local are now debated nationwide. If China’s leaders mishandle the discontent, one senior economist warned in a secret report, it could cause “a chain reaction that results in social turmoil or violent revolution”.
But, you don’t need to think that China is on the brink of revolution to believe that it must use the next decade to change. The departing prime minister, Wen Jiabao, has more than once called China’s development “unbalanced, unco-ordinated and unsustainable”. Last week Qiushi , the party’s main theoretical journal, called on the government to “press ahead with restructuring of the political system”.
Mr Xi portrays himself as a man of the people and the party still says it represents the masses, but it is not the meritocracy that some Western observers claim (see article). Those without connections, are often stuck at the bottom of the pile. Having long since lost ideological legitimacy, and with slower growth sapping its economic legitimacy, the party needs a new claim on the loyalty of China’s citizens.
Take a deep breath
Mr Xi could start by giving a little more power to China’s people. Rural land, now collectively owned, should be privatised and given to the peasants; the judicial system should offer people an answer to their grievances; the household-registration, or hukou, system should be phased out to allow families of rural migrants access to properly funded health care and education in cities. At the same time, he should start to loosen the party’s grip. China’s cosseted state-owned banks should be exposed to the rigours of competition; financial markets should respond to economic signals, not official controls; a free press would be a vital ally in the battle against corruption.
Such a path would be too much for those on the Chinese “left”, who look scornfully at the West and insist on the Communist Party’s claim—its duty, even—to keep the monopoly of power. Even many on the liberal “right”, who call for change, would contemplate nothing more radical than Singapore-style one-party dominance. But Mr Xi should go much further. To restore his citizens’ faith in government, he also needs to venture deep into political reform.
That might sound implausible, but in the 1980s no less a man than Deng spoke of China having a directly elected central leadership after 2050—and he cannot have imagined the transformation that his country would go on to enjoy. Zhu Rongji, Mr Wen’s predecessor, said that competitive elections should be extended to higher levels, “the sooner the better”. Although the party has since made political change harder by restricting the growth of civil society, those who think it is impossible could look to Taiwan, which went through something similar, albeit under the anti-Communist Kuomintang.
Ultimately, this newspaper hopes, political reform would make the party answerable to the courts and, as the purest expression of this, free political prisoners. It would scrap party-membership requirements for official positions and abolish party committees in ministries. It would curb the power of the propaganda department to impose censorship and scrap the central military commission, which commits the People’s Liberation Army to defend the party, not just the country.
No doubt Mr Xi would balk at that. Even so, a great man would be bold. Independent candidates should be encouraged to stand for people’s congresses, the local parliaments that operate at all levels of government, and they should have the freedom to let voters know what they think. A timetable should also be set for directly electing government leaders, starting with townships in the countryside and districts in the cities, perhaps allowing five years for those experiments to settle in, before taking direct elections up to the county level in rural areas, then prefectures and later provinces, leading all the way to competitive elections for national leaders.
The Chinese Communist Party has a powerful story to tell. Despite its many faults, it has created wealth and hope that an older generation would have found unimaginable. Bold reform would create a surge of popular goodwill towards the party from ordinary Chinese people.
Mr Xi comes at a crucial moment for China, when hardliners still deny the need for political change and insist that the state can put down dissent with force. For everyone else, too, Mr Xi’s choice will weigh heavily. The world has much more to fear from a weak, unstable China than from a strong one.
from the print edition | Leaders
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曾經締造經濟奇蹟的台灣，如今卻在保一邊緣徘徊。
今年第三季的經濟成長率甚至不到1％，僅有0.86％，原因在於國內消費的衰退是近4年以來最為嚴重的，9月份的失業率為4.32％，是過去一年以來的第二高。過去一年，台股下跌3.7％，表現不如韓國、馬來西亞、印度與泰國。
《華爾街日報》近日的專文分析指出，台灣過度依賴高科技電子產品出口，如今隨著個人電腦需求下滑，是導致台灣的經濟成長率在亞洲四小龍中敬陪末座的主因。根據滙豐銀行研究，去年台灣電子產品佔整體出口額達47％，是所有亞洲國家最高的。
但現在美國面臨財政危機、歐債問題未解、中國經濟趨緩，台灣電子產品出口首當其衝，也因此拖累了整體經濟成長率，但這一直是以出口為導向的台灣經濟無法擺脫的宿命。
一 旦全球市場萎縮，台灣經濟將缺乏足夠的支撐力。以今年情況而言，經濟學家指出，iPhone 5與iPad mini的推出，代表了這一波高科技新產品熱潮已達到高點，未來勢必將走下坡，而搭載微軟Windows 8作業系統銷售，能否大到足以支撐台灣電子產業的成長，多數經濟學家都打上了問號。
政府希望藉由推動公共建設並吸引台商回台投資，挽救低迷的經濟，很難在短期內如願。至於內需市場消費，因為薪資成長停滯，不太可能有大幅的成長。隨著工廠外移，再加上大學生供給過剩，薪資成長停滯的問題，短期難有特效藥。2013年，內需市場的消費仍將持續低迷。
但也並非前景一片黯淡，滙豐銀行經濟學家郭浩莊（Donna Kwok）表示，儘管未來新推出的科技產品數量將明顯減少，但美國和中國大陸市場仍有一定的需求量。此外，過去兩個月亞洲電子產品出貨量連續呈現成長趨勢，對台灣而言，是難得的好消息。
然而，要創造長期的經濟成長，最根本的問題仍在於扭曲的產業結構，若無法解決過度依賴高科技電子產品的困境，想要擺脫亞洲四小龍之末的惡名，只是難上加難。（吳凱琳編譯）
【新聞來源】The Wall Street Journal-Taiwan Faces Slowdown as Technology Cycle Ends
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