An increasingly autocratic government is making bad decisions.
日益独裁的政府正在做出错误的决定。
Aug 24th 2023
音频版播放
Whatever has gone wrong? After China rejoined the world economy in 1978, it became the most spectacular growth story in history. Farm reform, industrialisation and rising incomes lifted nearly 800m people out of extreme poverty. Having produced just a tenth as much as America in 1980, China’s economy is now about three-quarters the size. Yet instead of roaring back after the government abandoned its “zero-covid” policy at the end of 2022, it is lurching from one ditch to the next.
到底出了什么问题？1978年中国重新加入世界经济后，成为历史上最引人注目的增长故事。农业改革、工业化和收入增加使近8亿人摆脱了极端贫困。 1980年，中国的经济总量仅为美国的十分之一，但现在的规模约为美国的四分之三。然而，在政府于 2022 年底放弃“零新冠”政策后，它并没有卷土重来，而是从一个沟渠跌落到另一个沟渠。
The economy grew at an annualised rate of just 3.2% in the second quarter, a disappointment that looks even worse given that, by one prominent estimate, America’s may be growing at almost 6%. House prices have fallen and property developers, who tend to sell houses before they are built, have hit the wall, scaring off buyers. Consumer spending, business investment and exports have all fallen short. And whereas much of the world battles inflation that is too high, China is suffering from the opposite problem: consumer prices fell in the year to July. Some analysts warn that China may enter a deflationary trap like Japan’s in the 1990s .
第二季度经济年化增长率仅为 3.2%，考虑到根据一项著名的预测，美国的经济增长率可能接近 6%，这一情况看起来更令人失望。房价下跌，而往往在房屋建成前出售的房地产开发商也遭遇了困境，吓跑了买家。消费者支出、商业投资和出口均低于预期。尽管世界上许多国家都在与过高的通货膨胀作斗争，但中国却面临着相反的问题：消费者价格在截至七月份的一年中下降。一些分析人士警告说，中国可能会陷入像20世纪90年代日本那样的通货紧缩陷阱。
Yet in some ways Japanification is too mild a diagnosis of China’s ills. A chronic shortfall in growth would be worse in China because its people are poorer. Japan’s living standards were about 60% of America’s by 1990; China’s today are less than 20%. And, unlike Japan, China is also suffering from something more profound than weak demand and heavy debt. Many of its challenges stem from broader failures of its economic policymaking—which are getting worse as President Xi Jinping centralises power.
但在某些方面，日本化对于中国弊病的诊断过于温和。在中国，经济增长的长期下滑会更加严重，因为中国的人民更加贫穷。到1990年，日本的生活水平约为美国的60%；今天的中国还不到20%。而且，与日本不同的是，中国还面临着比需求疲软和债务沉重更严重的问题。它的许多挑战源于其经济政策制定的更广泛的失败——随着习近平主席的集权，这种失败变得更加严重。
A decade or so ago China’s technocrats were seen almost as savants. First they presided over an economic marvel. Then China was the only big economy to respond to the global financial crisis of 2007-09 with sufficient stimulatory force—some commentators went as far as to say that China had saved the world economy. In the 2010s, every time the economy wobbled, officials defied predictions of calamity by cheapening credit, building infrastructure or stimulating the property market.
大约十年前，中国的技术官僚几乎被视为专家。首先，他们创造了经济奇迹。当时中国是唯一一个以足够刺激力度应对2007-09年全球金融危机的大型经济体，有评论甚至说中国拯救了世界经济。 2010年代，每当经济出现波动时，官员们都会通过降低信贷价格、建设基础设施或刺激房地产市场来无视灾难的预测。
During each episode, however, public and private debts mounted. So did doubts about the sustainability of the housing boom and whether new infrastructure was really needed. Today policymakers are in a bind. Wisely, they do not want more white elephants or to reflate the property bubble. Nor can they do enough of the more desirable kinds of stimulus, such as pension spending and handouts to poor households to boost consumption, because Mr Xi has disavowed “welfarism” and the government seeks an official deficit of only 3% of gdp.
然而，在每一次事件中，公共和私人债务都在增加。人们对房地产繁荣的可持续性以及是否真的需要新基础设施的怀疑也随之增加。如今，政策制定者陷入了困境。明智的是，他们不希望出现更多白象或加剧房地产泡沫。他们也无法采取足够的更理想的刺激措施，例如养老金支出和向贫困家庭发放补贴以刺激消费，因为习近平否认“福利主义”，而且政府寻求将官方赤字仅占GDP的3%。
As a result, the response to the slowdown has been lacklustre. Policymakers are not even willing to cut interest rates much. On August 21st they disappointed investors with an underwhelming cut of 0.1 percentage points in the one-year lending rate.
因此，对经济放缓的反应乏善可陈。政策制定者甚至不愿意大幅降息。 8 月 21 日，他们将一年期贷款利率下调了 0.1 个百分点，令投资者感到失望。
This feeble response to tumbling growth and inflation is the latest in a series of policy errors. China’s foreign-policy swagger and its mercantilist industrial policy have aggravated an economic conflict with America. At home it has failed to deal adequately with incentives to speculate on housing and a system in which developers have such huge obligations that they are systemically important. Starting in 2020 regulators tanked markets by cracking down on successful consumer-technology firms that were deemed too unruly and monopolistic. During the pandemic, officials bought time with lockdowns but failed to use it to vaccinate enough people for a controlled exit, and then were overwhelmed by the highly contagious Omicron variant.
这种对增长和通胀下滑的无力反应是一系列政策错误中的最新一个。中国傲慢的外交政策和重商主义产业政策加剧了与美国的经济冲突。在国内，它未能充分解决住房投机的激励问题，以及开发商承担如此巨大义务以至于具有系统重要性的制度。从 2020 年开始，监管机构通过打击那些被认为过于不守规矩和垄断的成功消费科技公司来打击市场。在大流行期间，官员们通过封锁赢得了时间，但未能利用这些时间为足够多的人接种疫苗以实现受控退出，然后被高度传染性的 Omicron 变种淹没。
Why does the government keep making mistakes? One reason is that short-term growth is no longer the priority of the Chinese Communist Party (ccp). The signs are that Mr Xi believes China must prepare for sustained economic and, potentially, military conflict with America. Today, therefore, he emphasises China’s pursuit of national greatness, security and resilience. He is willing to make material sacrifices to achieve those goals, and to the extent he wants growth, it must be “high quality”.
为什么政府总是犯错误？原因之一是短期增长不再是中国共产党的首要任务。有迹象表明，习近平认为中国必须为与美国持续的经济冲突以及潜在的军事冲突做好准备。因此，今天他强调中国追求国家的伟大、安全和韧性。他愿意为实现这些目标做出物质牺牲，并且他想要的增长程度必须是“高质量”。
Yet even by Mr Xi’s criteria, the ccp’s decisions are flawed. The collapse of the zero-covid policy undermined Mr Xi’s prestige. The attack on tech firms has scared off entrepreneurs. Should China fall into persistent deflation because the authorities refuse to boost consumption, debts will rise in real value and weigh more heavily on the economy. Above all, unless the ccp continues to raise living standards, it will weaken its grip on power and limit its ability to match America.
然而，即使按照习近平的标准，中共的决定也是有缺陷的。零新冠政策的崩溃损害了习近平的威望。对科技公司的攻击吓跑了企业家。如果中国因当局拒绝刺激消费而陷入持续通货紧缩，债务的实际价值将会上升，并对经济造成更大压力。最重要的是，除非中共继续提高生活水平，否则它将削弱其对权力的控制并限制其与美国抗衡的能力。
Mounting policy failures therefore look less like a new, self-sacrificing focus on national security, than plain bad decision-making. They have coincided with Mr Xi’s centralisation of power and his replacement of technocrats with loyalists in top jobs. China used to tolerate debate about its economy, but today it cajoles analysts into fake optimism. Recently it has stopped publishing unflattering data on youth unemployment and consumer confidence. The top ranks of government still contain plenty of talent, but it is naive to expect a bureaucracy to produce rational analysis or inventive ideas when the message from the top is that loyalty matters above all. Instead, decisions are increasingly governed by an ideology that fuses a left-wing suspicion of rich entrepreneurs with a right-wing reluctance to hand money to the idle poor.
因此，越来越多的政策失败看起来不像是对国家安全的新的、自我牺牲的关注，而更像是简单的错误决策。它们与习近平的权力集中和他用忠诚者取代高级职位的技术官僚同时发生。中国过去常常容忍有关其经济的争论，但如今它却哄骗分析人士表现出虚假的乐观态度。最近，它停止发布有关青年失业率和消费者信心的令人不快的数据。政府高层仍然拥有大量人才，但当高层传达的信息是忠诚高于一切时，期望官僚机构能够做出理性分析或创造性想法是天真的。相反，决策越来越受到一种意识形态的支配，这种意识形态融合了左翼对富有企业家的怀疑和右翼不愿将钱交给无所事事的穷人的观点。
The fact that China’s problems start at the top means they will persist. They may even worsen, as clumsy policymakers confront the economy’s mounting challenges. The population is ageing rapidly. America is increasingly hostile, and is trying to choke the parts of China’s economy, like chipmaking, that it sees as strategically significant. The more China catches up with America, the harder the gap will be to close further, because centralised economies are better at emulation than at innovation.
中国的问题始于高层，这一事实意味着它们将持续存在。随着笨拙的政策制定者面临经济日益严峻的挑战，情况甚至可能变得更糟。人口正在迅速老龄化。美国的敌意日益浓厚，并试图扼杀中国经济中具有重要战略意义的部分，例如芯片制造。中国越是追赶美国，进一步缩小差距就越困难，因为中央集权经济体更擅长模仿而不是创新。
Liberals’ predictions about China have often betrayed wishful thinking. In the 2000s Western leaders mistakenly believed that trade, markets and growth would boost democracy and individual liberty. But China is now testing the reverse relationship: whether more autocracy damages the economy. The evidence is mounting that it does—and that after four decades of fast growth China is entering a period of disappointment. ■
自由主义者对中国的预测常常背叛一厢情愿。 2000 年代，西方领导人错误地认为贸易、市场和增长将促进民主和个人自由。但中国现在正在测试相反的关系：更多的独裁是否会损害经济。越来越多的证据表明事实确实如此——而且在经历了四十年的快速增长之后，中国正在进入一个令人失望的时期。 ■
