特稿：在中国，危机是慢吞吞来的
多维社记者陈湘编译报导/如果整个世界都在希望中国能够来挽救他们，那么，中国领导人在过去几周里的行动所传达出的信息是，他们打算先救自己的经济。
走在街上都感受经济减速
去年，中国是全球经济增长的最大功臣，时逢中国准备迎接改革开放30周年和2008北京奥运会，没有什么能比这个成就更恰到好处的了。
但是，今年却充满了悲剧和动荡。一场大地震夺走了6.8万人的生命，重建工程将要花费数十亿元。东躲的暴动和国际舆论对中共政府人权问题的批评，给北京奥运会又蒙上阴影，损害了中国的形象。
英国泰晤士报驻远东记者迈克尔·谢里顿(Michael Sheridan)的报导，致力于让国内爱国主义情结不断升温的中国领导人，没有能及时意识到这一次金融海啸的影响力。甚至在奥运旗帜落下之前，中国的股市和地产市场就已经大幅下跌，与此同时，出口贸易也不断触礁。过去3个月里，中国的出口行业已经跌落深渊。
中国经济在经历了将近30年的高速成长后，开始迅速减缓速度，就连走在大街上，都可以感受到这种减速的影响力。
中国各地的报导都说，城市里，由于大批工厂倒闭而触发暴动和示威。11月底，东莞有数百人涌入一家废弃的玩具工厂。示威者烧毁警车，把厂内办公室洗劫一空，管理人员纷纷为自保而逃出工厂。东莞在中国南方，灰尘滚滚，素以血汗工厂著称。
今年头9个月，中国已经有三分之二的小型玩具工厂倒闭。欧美的需求量下跌，以及严格的新产品安全规定意味着许多工厂都不会重新开工了。
自2005年以来，与美元的兑换率升值将近20％的人民币，也开始减缓升值势头，甚至会贬值。海外买主说，中国的低成本优势已经消失不少。
在政府部门中搞规划的资深计划人员张平（Zhang Ping，音译）预测，明年会有大批的工人失业，并认为，公司破产、产量下降和工人失业会导致社会动乱。
中国城市的官方统计失业率多半会达到4.5％，这是10年来的最高点。这个总数还没有包括数百万从内地到沿海打工的民工，他们中，已经有不少人被公司解雇并开始返乡。
上海的独立经济学家谢国忠估计，可能每5名民工中就会有1人失业。
外界对中国的乐观是虚假的
泰晤士报的报导指出，之所以有那么多的海外分析师和外国政府还对中国保持了一种虚假的乐观估计，原因之一就是这次危机是慢吞吞地来到的。
虽然，今年第三季度的数据已经显示，中国经济成长开始减缓，但是，雷曼兄弟破产后金融系统的混乱状况，以及中国工厂于10月贸易博览会上出口订单数量一落千丈的影响，实际上还没有在第三季度的数据上呈现出来。
预计中国今年最后一个季度的增长率和出口数据出来后，我们就开始看到中国经济减缓的程度。
出口大省广东到11月份为止的官方数据显示，他们的增长率已经降低了三分之一，去年，广东省的国民生产总值占中国全国的12％。
“广东将面临一个严峻的环境，会有越来越多的不确定和不稳定的因素,”广东省的一位官员李妙娟说。
经济学家之间的传统共识是，中国需要至少8％的成长率才能保证给不断增加的适龄劳工人口提供就业机会。独立分析师对明年的预测已经跌落至5％的增长率。
出于对经济减缓后果的担忧，北京央行已经将其基准贷款利率下调了1.08％，至5.58％，这是自1997年亚洲金融危机以来的最大降幅。
周小川被迫做检讨
与过去相比，当前的政府的政策是一个大转变，而且，不久前还传出政府内部高层不和的传言。中国金融界内也一直流传著一条小道消息，称中央银行行长周小川被迫在党的内部会议上作出毛泽东时代流行的那种“自我批评”，检讨自己未能及时觉察到美国的次贷危机所造成的严重威胁。
“党的一些领导人感到生气的是，今年夏天，当经济前景已经明显地透露出步入低迷状况时，人民银行高层还在大肆炫耀他们防范通货膨胀的成就，”一位匿名的国际投资银行人士说。
如今中央银行承诺，要投入5.86千亿美元，用于救市和刺激经济。其目标是通过向铁路、公路和机场等基础设施投入资金来增进本土需求。政府还会向地震后的重建工程、环保和农村住房投入大量资金。
但是，如果对这一方案的数目做进一步的分析，就会发现，其中的大部分资金，原本就是2006年－2010年的5年计划中已经分配好的资金。另外，还传出消息说，北京打算向地方政府和私企筹款。事实证明，在公布经济刺激计划的具体内容后，它对股市信心的鼓动力是短暂的。
中国人大消费－水中月亮
许多海外经济学家所寄希望的，是数亿中国消费者会突然转变以前的谨慎态度，掏出他们的存款，开始大肆采购。
现实是，尽管外国达官贵人访华时，可以在上海和北京市中心看到那些耸立如林的五星级旅馆，但是，大多数中国人手头的钱都很紧。
30年的经济改革创造出了一个可能看起来像是资本主义的系统，但是，它并不是一个真正的自由市场制度。政治权力的垄断，使得那些与自己的管辖范围有关的商家打交道的官员结党营私，收取巨额回报。
“上海股价跟随少数几个人说的话而起落，”一名散户股票经纪人说。“散户投资者人微言轻。”
法院的公开审讯揭露出党内高官的严重腐败，大大增添了中国民众的不满，因此，并使得共产党内的左派重新获得民众支持。
统计资料显示，中国的不平等程度已经达到了全球最高，似乎是因为，经济改革释放出对毛泽东时代数十年平均主义的过度反应。
在中国的新兴超级富翁可以享受人生的同时，《星期日泰晤士报》对福建省一家“阿迪达斯”产品工厂的调查也发现，许多工人已经有近10年没有得到提薪了，甚至连名义上的提薪都没有。
虽然，香港投资银行家兴奋地谈起中国拥有的2万亿的庞大家庭储蓄，就等著拿出去花的时候，中国的银行分析师则不以为然。一名分析师估计，中国家庭的平均储蓄为4,000元人民币。许多中国人是把这笔钱当成是自己以备急用的款项，用于医疗、教育或照顾老人的开支。
而且，虽然中国经济，理论上是世界第四大经济体，但是如果根据国际货币基金，按13亿人口进行的人均调整排位，中国在世界上仅排在第109位。
渣打银行的中国研究部主任王志浩(Stephen Green)曾表示，中国人均国民生产总值为2,000美元，期望中国消费者会成为世界经济的救世主是不现实的。“预期消费大幅增加是完全不合理的，”他说。
外商感谢邓小平
对在中国的英国商家来说，改革给他们带来了的丰厚的回报。所有行业，包括银行、金融、会计、法律、航空、工程、咨询、化工和零售业，都可以证实这一点。
中国把1978年11月24日作为他们的30年改革的起始日，就是在那一天，安徽省的一些农民结束了公社的集体性质的务农方式，开始实行私人的合同制度。
这样的实验归功于邓小平的杰作，不久后，他就在中央委员会里为改革开放政策赢得了支持。
感谢邓小平，英国公司得以在之后的30年里在中国沿岸重建帝国殖民时期曾拥有的中国沿海市场。英帝国曾经在那里拥有他们的市场数十年，在1941年12月与日本开战后失去了这些市场。
泰晤士报的报导最后指出，这是一次惊人的大复兴，也许，它可能不是那位香烟不离手的马克思主义者－邓小平的本意。
如今，他的后来人将面对一场继往开来的严峻考验。
From The Sunday Times
November 30, 2008
China can no longer save world
Chinese consumers have no money to keep growth going
Michael Sheridan
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5257439.ece
If the world was looking for China to save it, the actions of Chinese leaders in the past few weeks suggest they intend to save their own economy first.
China was the greatest contributor to global growth last year - a fitting achievement as the country approached the 30th anniversary of its economic reforms and prepared for the glory of the 2008 Olympic Games.
But this has been a year of tragedy and turbulence. An earthquake took 68,000 lives and will cost billions in reconstruction. The uprising in Tibet and international criticism of the regime’s human-rights record soured the Olympics and damaged China’s image.
Its leaders, preoccupied with stoking up patriotic pride, failed to grasp the impact of the financial crisis. Even before the Olympic flags came down, stock and property markets had plunged, while exports were stumbling. In the past three months, the export sector has tumbled into an abyss.
The Chinese economy is slowing down sharply after almost 30 years of growth and the effects are being felt on the streets.
Riots and demonstrations have been reported in cities across China in protest at a swath of factory closures. Last week hundreds swarmed into an abandoned toy factory in Dongguan, a grimy southern town synonymous with sweat-shops. The protesters destroyed police cars and ransacked offices as managers fled in panic.
Two-thirds of small factories making toys for export have closed in the first nine months of the year. Falling demand and tough new product safety rules in Europe and America mean many will never reopen.
The value of the yuan, which has risen some 20% against the dollar since 2005, has levelled off and may decline. Foreign buyers say China’s cost advantage has already been eroded.
Zhang Ping, the government’s senior planner, predicted mass unemployment next year, saying bankruptcies, production cuts and layoffs will lead to unrest.
The official unemployment rate in Chinese cities is likely to hit 4.5%, the highest in a decade. That total does not include millions of migrants from the interior of the country, many thousands of whom are heading home as companies throw them out of work.
Andy Xie, an independent economist based in Shanghai, estimates that one in five migrants may lose their jobs.
One reason why so many foreign analysts and governments have persisted in false optimism about China is that this has been a slow-motion crisis.
Third-quarter figures, which showed slowing growth, failed to capture the turmoil in the financial system after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and a collapse in export orders for Chinese factories at trade fairs in October.
China’s growth and export figures for the last quarter of this year are expected to reveal the scale of the slowdown.
Official data to November from export-orientated Guangdong province, responsible for 12% of Chinese GDP last year, indicate that its growth has already been cut by a third.
“Guangdong will face a harsh environment with increasing uncertainties and unstable factors,” said Li Miao-juan, a provincial official.
The traditional consensus among economists is that China needs at least 8% growth to sustain its growing population of working age. Forecasts by independent analysts now range as low as 5% growth for next year.
Fears in Beijing of the consequences led the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to cut its bench-mark lending rate by 1.08% to 5.58% last week, the sharpest reduction since the Asian financial crisis of 1997.
It was a reversal of policy that came after rumours of discord in the secretive circles at the apex of power. There is persistent talk among Chinese financiers that central-bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan was forced to make a Mao-era “self-criti-cism” at internal party meetings for failing to grasp the serious threat posed by America’s sub-prime crisis.
“Some party leaders are enraged that the PBOC went on flourishing its inflation-fight-ing credentials long into the summer when it was clear the situation was grave,” said an international investment banker who asked not to be named.
The central bank has now endorsed a $586 billion (£382 billion) spending package to stimulate the economy. It aims to boost domestic demand by spending on infrastructure such as railways, roads and air-ports. The government will also pour money into earthquake reconstruction, environmental protection and rural housing.
But a closer look at the figures showed that much of the money was already allocated under the 2006-10 five-year plan. It also emerged that Beijing was seeking to raise some of the funds from local governments and private businesses. The effects of the stimulus plan on stock-market confidence proved short-lived once these details were appreciated.
The great hope cited by many foreign economists is that hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers will shed their caution, take out their savings and start to spend.
The reality is that for all the five-star glitz of downtown Shanghai and Beijing that foreign grandees see on their visits, most Chinese people have limited cash to hand.
Thirty years of economic reforms created a system that may look like capitalism but it is not a free market. The monopoly of political power has granted huge rewards to a clique of officials dispensing patronage to their client businessmen.
“Stock prices in Shanghai move on the word of a few,” said a retail broker. “The retail investor counts for nothing.”
The exposure in public trials of the most egregious examples of corruption have fuelled disenchantment among the Chinese public and renewed support for leftists inside the party.
Statisticians measure China’s inequality ratio as one of the most distorted in the world, as if reforms had unleashed an excessive reaction to decades of Maoist egalitarianism.
While the new super-rich enjoy dazzling wealth, an investigation by The Sunday Times among workers at Adidas factories in Fujian province this year found that even in nominal terms many had not seen a wage rise in a decade.
While investment bankers in Hong Kong have talked gaily of a notional $2 trillion in household savings just waiting to be mobilised, Chinese banking analysts paint a very different picture. One analyst puts average household savings at 4,000 yuan, or £382. Many Chinese will see such money as reserves for a medical emergency, schools or care in old age.
And when China’s economy, notionally the fourth-largest in the world, is adjusted to take account of its 1.3 billion population, the country ranks 109th in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Stephen Green, head of China research at Standard Chartered, has cited a per-capita GDP figure of $2,000 to deflate expectations that the Chinese consumer will come to the rescue. “It is simply not reasonable to expect a consumption boom,” he said.
For British businesses in China, reform has brought rich pickings. The roll call of companies - in banking, finance, accountancy, law, aviation, engineering, consultancy, chemicals and retailing - testifies to that.
The Chinese date their reforms from November 24, 1978, when farmers in Anhui province, inland from Shanghai, ended collective farming and began an individual contract system.
The experiment was the work of Deng Xiaoping, who won endorsement for gaige kai-fang - “reform and opening up” at a subsequent Central Committee meeting.
Thanks to Deng, during the next 30 years British companies rebuilt markets on the China coast that had been theirs in the decades of empire and were lost at the outbreak of war with Japan in December 1941.
It has been a remarkable renaissance, if not, perhaps, what the chain-smoking Marxist may have intended.
His heirs face a stern test of their inheritance.
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