亨利·羅文（HenryS.Rowen）胡佛研究所高級研究員，亞太研究中心主任，史丹福大學商學院榮譽教授，是斯坦福區域革新和創業工程主任，《大中國革新探索》（史丹福大學出版社2008年）主編。
斯坦福學者亨利·羅文：中國即將出現大變革 將深刻影響世界
史丹福大學商學院榮譽教授亨利·羅文日前發表文章稱，中國即將出現大變革，而且很可能是激烈的變革。在過去30多年裡，中國經濟以平均年增長率9%的速度迅猛增長，這使中國成為世界貿易和金融業的大玩家，而且在政治和軍事領域也發揮越來越大的作用。這種增長不僅具有重要的國際意義，而且深刻影響了中國社會，遲早也將對國內政治產生影響。
亨利·羅文（HenryS.Rowen）胡佛研究所高級研究員，亞太研究中心主任，史丹福大學商學院榮譽教授，是斯坦福區域革新和創業工程主任，《大中國革新探索》（史丹福大學出版社2008年）主編。
亨利·羅文12月1日發表在胡佛研究所網站上的這篇文章指出，即將出現的是政治和經濟兩方面的變革。變革出現的順序將產生影響力的巨大差別，但這個順序非常不確定。無論如何，大變革很可能在2020年前出現。
社會變革
變革出現的早晚將產生重大差別。相信中國的增長將最終帶來政治變革是一回事（鄧小平在1988年告訴國務卿舒爾茨中國在50年後將成為民主國家，或許他的意思是『忘掉它吧』），期待政治變革在這個十年內出現是另外一回事，本文的觀點是後者。不過，事情並不這麼簡單（從來不），下文還將談到的另一個觀點是在此階段很可能出現突然的經濟衰退。人們不應該期待這些預測的事件是各自獨立的，因為政治動盪將損害經濟發展，而經濟突然衰退肯定產生政治後果。政治動盪或經濟衰退或者兩者兼而有之的相互作用只是猜測而已，本文將做出一些猜測。
假設中國的經濟持續高速增長，變革出現的時間應該是2015年，這是很近的未來，足以引起我們的關注，隨後幾年可能性將越來越大。把它們聯繫起來的共同因素是中國的人均GDP到那時將達到17000美元（以2005年的購買力為準）。這是自由之家列舉的大部分「自由」國家或所有「部分自由」的非石油富國的經濟水平。有助於自由的因素還有教育程度，而這在中國也穩步增長。雖然今天中國的教育水平仍然屬於「非自由」的範疇，但假設增長率維持在年均9-10%，它將在2015年達到自由的基本水平。如果增長率下降到總理溫家寶所說的7%，該水平也將在2017年後不久實現（更準確地說，如果經濟持續高速增長，中國在2017年被認定為「部分自由」的概率是50%，隨後概率將越來越大）。
可以理解的是，該話題的大部分討論集中在政治自由即人民選擇國家領導人的能力上。但自由之家有兩個自由指標：一是政治權利，一是公民自由（如美國的權利法案）。從這些標準來看，當今中國在政治權利上墊底，在公民自由上稍好一些。原本就不該有政治排名，因為中國是列寧主義國家，共產黨把經濟自由和嚴格的政治控制結合起來，但是經濟自由將產生深遠的社會後果。經濟自由的基礎是繁榮，而繁榮是不平等分配的，中國東部城市裡已經出現了龐大的中產階級，越來越大的私營經濟，媒體比10年前更自由，比30年前的自由度更是大多了（但政治言論仍然不自由），勞動力市場更開放，都市居住權的限制也不那麼嚴格，宗教活動雖然常常受到騷擾但基本上被容許了，司法體系也在緩慢前行，人們的權利意識越來越強。筆者想再次強調繁榮並不均衡，龐大的中產階級集中在東部城市裡。用自由之家的說法，這些進步意味著公民自由的進步。
從消極的一面看，最近一直存在著對持不同政見者的打擊，官方的委婉語是「維穩」。
現在還不清楚為什麼在共產黨控制似乎很強大的時候出現這種事。明年即將出現的領導人換屆似乎已經定下來了，發生的群體性事件很多出現在少數民族地區。官方對阿拉伯世界的動盪傳播到中國的擔心是真實的，但人們對1989年天安門事件的記憶肯定也發揮了作用，因為這場風波在共黨領袖的心中一直栩栩如生。那場風波是最後導致蘇聯解體的東歐動盪激發起來的，被視為危害黨的領導。如果你採取列寧主義者的做法，就不可能不特別小心。
不幸的是，中國官方最近以維穩的名義打擊持不同政見者。
中國的情形需要放在世界模式的背景下考慮，該模式顯示經濟發展和民主自由之間存在著明顯的相關關係。這種聯繫或許三種可能性可以解釋：1）經濟發展導致民主；2）民主或許促成發展；3）兩者或許有一個共同起因。經濟發展導致民主的第一種可能是西摩·馬丁·李普塞特（SeymourMartinLipset）的假設，即只有受過良好教育的富人才能抗拒蠱惑人心的煽動家。穩定的民主預設了人力、社會、和物質資本的積累。教育促進增長，人們文化水平的提高促成反對獨裁的民主革命，使得反對民主的政變不大可能成功。
羅伯特·巴羅（RobertBarro）在分析了一百多個國家後發現更高的收入水平和更高的教育水平（初級）預示著更高的自由，這是支持李普塞特觀點的證據，雖然在有利於選舉權的因素出現和它在政治上的具體表現之間還存在著明顯的時間滯後。在教育水平上，2000年中國25歲以上的人口中平均受教育年限是5.74年，尤其是在農村地區和快速擴張的高等教育方面教育進步的步伐在加快。到了2025年，25歲以上人口的平均正規學校教育將達到8年。教育帶來的進步雖然緩慢，但經過一段時間終將產生巨大的影響力。巴羅把這種滯後歸咎於制度的惰性，雖然受到經濟和社會變量出現變化的影響。他注意到大概20年後，「民主程度就將完全由經濟和社會變量所決定。」
這個觀察幫助人們理解為什麼像中國這樣經濟快速增長的國家當今的自由程度遠遠低於現有經濟發展程度預測的那種水平。
亞當·普沃斯基（AdamPrzeworski）及合著者也發現經濟發展水平最好地預測了不同政權出現的概率，但他們的解釋是如果和從獨裁到民主的轉型國家相比，富裕國家的民主更容易生存。這些研究者注意到，一個國家的收入水平越高，該國的民主政權維持下來的機會就越大。
中國共產黨人在表達各種怨憤不滿時感受到的禁忌越來越少。
巴羅和普沃斯基等人發現民主並不直接導致更高的經濟增長，佩爾森（TorstenPersson）塔貝里尼（GuidoTabellini）進一步強化了這個觀點，他們認為民主導致經濟增長的證據非常弱。他們寫到「民主」這個概念太籠統，而制度細節非常重要。該理論的畫面仍然不清晰，文獻仍然存在不同觀點。
第三個可能性是民主和發展擁有共同的起因。這個觀點得到戴龍·阿西墨格魯（DaronAcemoglu）和合著者的支持，他們認為「雖然收入水平和民主是正相關關係，但沒有證據表明存在因果關係。相反，歷史因素往往影響不同社會的政治和經濟發展道路的偏離，導致民主和經濟表現的正相關關係。」這些學者認為政治和經濟發展道路交織在一起。有些國家走上民主和經濟發展相互促進的道路，有些國家則遵循專制、壓迫和更有限的經濟發展的道路。
不管人們採取哪種解釋，民主的中國在東亞並不算稀罕，因為日本、韓國、台灣都被自由之家列為民主國家，新加坡被列為「部分民主」國家。
它們顯示西方式的民主能夠在華人社會生根發芽。
中共為選舉開了一扇小窗戶，1988年允許村級領導幹部選舉。到了1990年代中期，90%的村委會主任都是通過投票而上台的。但個人直接提名、多個候選人、秘密投票、公開唱票、馬上宣布投票結果、正常的罷免程序等要求並不總是得到遵循。多年前人們就猜想這種選舉將擴展到鄉鎮層級，但這種期待並沒有出現。
這使得中共面臨一個變化的情景，人們在表達怨憤和不滿時感受到的禁忌更少了，而這些不滿和冤屈往往是當局的錯誤造成的。其中一個例子就是2011年7月的溫州動車事故。這個事故本來就夠糟糕的了，讓許多人憤怒不已的是當局試圖掩蓋真相（從字面意思上就是把摔到橋下的車廂和屍體掩埋）。
人們表達不滿的方式之一是通過當局所說的「群體性事件」。這些事件主要是罷工和抗議的結合體，抗議警察的不公，抗議地方黨組織征地拆遷牟利以及少數民族民眾抗議種族歧視等。在1995年，報導的群體性事件大約一萬起，十年後的官方數據增加了十倍。如今政府已經停止報導這個數量，但非官方的估計是2010年大概有 16萬起群體事件。抗議者一般都避免直接挑戰中共的權威，更願意引用黨的文件、法律和國務院規定和領導人言論中列舉的權利。抗議者也非常小心地把議題局限在本地事務上。人們不應該認為這個國家的抗議活動將嚴重威脅政權的存在。人們知道歷史上這些抗議的作用是什麼，領袖們有時候鼓勵他們抗爭，作為趕走當地腐敗官員的方式。但是，儘管這並不說明中共搖搖欲墜，但也並非中共執政正當性的證據。
當局表現出的焦慮反映在社會出現的深刻變化上。正如傑夫·代爾（GeoffDyer）在2010年10月的《金融時報》上寫的：
因為組織親民主的情願活動而被關進監獄的劉曉波是政治改革的旗手，但在很多方面他並非當局的主要挑戰。劉先生屬於上一代的持不同政見者，這些人在天安門事件後已經被邊緣化了。普通中國人很少聽說過他。
相反，壓力更加多樣化而且來自不同地方。都市郊區富裕階層如果財產權受到侵犯更樂意組織大型抗議活動，而且確保電視攝影機的拍攝。中國迅速增長的司法群體裡有很多人主張建立更加獨立的法院，其中不僅有法官也有背負冤屈的公民。
而且，現在還有網際網路，雖然當局盡一切努力審查和左右輿論導向，但網絡已經成為反叛和嘲諷的源頭。
中國的黨國是這樣一場暴風雨，人們往往容易忽略列寧主義陰影下出現的越來越充滿活力的社會。
中共確實是一場暴風雨，愛德華·斯坦菲爾德（Edward Steinfeld）在2011年7-8月那一期《波士頓評論》上總結如下：
在這個新制度下，國家權威和國家與社會關係的本質已經完全不同了，這個現實被國家狂熱地試圖開發新規則維持控制和影響力的努力所證實。為回應對變化了的國家作用的期待，出現了依法治理的新話語。除了新稅法、合同法、物權法、環境保護法之外，國家還出台了政府信息公開的法規，在某種程度上相當於中國的信息自由法。有些省比如經濟發展很快的福建已經出台了強調集體協商作用的新的勞動法。
有關政治未來的話題，領導人的公開言論存在不同的口氣。黨的許多領袖已經表達反對審查和支持言論和媒體自由的觀點。至於當局，溫家寶總理在接受美國有線電視新聞網CNN採訪時說「人民追求民主和自由的希望和需要是不可阻擋的。」（這句話遭到中國媒體的封殺）
技術已經改變了人們接觸信息的方式和相互交流的能力。
其中一個是無處不在的手機，當今中國使用的手機超過8億5千萬部，未來幾年，手機用戶可能超過10億。每天有五億條簡訊在流傳，政府已經失去了對人們傳播信息、組織抗議活動和揭露腐敗等的控制（比如下一場類似薩斯的傳染病）。手機成為突發事件引起的群體性抗議活動的組織工具。
網際網路的重要性無可爭議。中國有五億網民，而且還在不斷增加。因為信息的其他來源和娛樂一直比其他國家受到更多限制，它的社會影響力也就更大些。這就產生了尋求信息和發布博客的用戶和試圖確定限制性邊界的審查者之間不斷上演的博弈。領導人對阿拉伯世界抗議活動的恐慌近乎草木皆兵，最近以一種滑稽的方式表現出來。因為突尼西亞革命者將他們成功的起義命名為「茉莉花革命」，所以這種花在中國就曾經成為不存在的植物。二月份，當中國的「茉莉花革命」信息開始在網上傳播的時候，三個漢字茉莉花被屏蔽了，發簡訊根本無法使用這些字，連胡錦濤主席唱「茉莉花」這首歌的視頻也從網上消失了。
人民通過網際網路或者使用手機展現出來的力量破壞了列寧主義控制的原則：用地域和社會階級把人們孤立起來。所有這種現代化在一定程度上都得到當局的許可，因為這些社交網絡技術帶來的經濟利益，如果它們受到嚴格限制，中國的經濟增長將受到嚴重影響。
經濟和政治動盪？
所以，中共領袖認為維持黨對國家的控制所必須的經濟高速發展播下了它們垮台的種子。但是中國的高速增長能夠持續嗎？每年9%以上的速度將降下來，這是絕對的真理，就像樹不可能長到天上去，30年的高速增長（1989年天安門事件後短暫停滯了一段時間）已經非常罕見了。普遍的觀點是通過勞動力增長乏力、工人從生產力低下的農村向生產力高的城市流動放緩、國家向國際技術前沿邁進的途徑等形式出現衰退。
最近一些學者巴里·埃森格林（BarryEichengreen）、康鎬炫（KwanhoShin）、朴東炫（DonghyunPark）等提出了相反的觀點。他們發現幾乎所有非石油出口國家的高速增長都是在以2005年國際價格計算人均GDP達到16740美元後突然停止了，其增長速度從每年5.6%突然降至2.1%。他們注意到中國的軌跡是在2015年達到這個水平（或者如果每年增長率是7%的話，是在2017年）。他們預測未來的經濟衰退將是年增長率是2%到3.5%，這將意味著中國的增長速度降至6到7%（作者認為這種結果不是確定無疑的，但可能性很大）。基本原因是人均GDP到了這個程度後，工人從農業轉向工業的回報開始下降，利用外資和技術的利益也隨之消失。導致經濟衰退的另外因素是中國故意壓低人民幣匯率。這三位作者觀察到，越過16000美元水平仍然持續保持快速增長的經濟體只有兩個，那就是城市國家新加坡和香港。
這個現象的核心是生產力增長的放緩。他們寫到：
經濟放緩出現在經濟增長過程的這個時刻，即人們不再能從農村轉移多餘勞動力到工業領域來刺激生產，引進外國技術的收益開始降低，但全要素生產力（TFP）從不尋常的3%以上的高水平突然急劇降至零仍然令人印象深刻。
但在這個方面，中國具有獨特的優勢以保持經濟增長的高速度：中國地域遼闊可以大量注入投資，西部省份人多但貧窮。針對這一點，作者寫到：
如果增長奇蹟在國內移植的話，占中國人口相當比例的內陸省份的經濟發展（人口比很多國家還多）在未來幾年仍然可以維持中國的經濟增長。政府已經擴展了基礎設施建設比如高速路和鐵路到這些欠發達地區，為它們的經濟轉型做準備。
假設確實出現了突然的經濟衰退，後果會是什麼呢？從國內來看，衰退很可能根據地域和行業不同而有所變化。已經出現的情況是很多資本投資很可能報酬率很低，3000億美元的高鐵投資中很多可能就是如此。政府會做出削減資本投資和鼓勵消費的反應嗎？中國的整個出口已經引人注目地下降了36%。政府說要這麼做。
幾乎可以肯定的是中國的穩定，實際上也是中共統治的合法性要求經濟持續高速增長---最起碼年均增長率應該在7%。雖然存在神奇的門檻的說法並不可信，但這個速度若在世界其他地方都會被認為非常好的，如果經濟大幅度衰退無論是國內還是國外都將對中國造成嚴重的後果。
從國內來說，經濟增長放緩的前景出現很多問題，如這種衰退的不同影響如何跨國收入分配，我們知道貧富差距已經非常巨大了。有錢有勢的某些人在炫耀他們的財富，網上已經出現了很多這種事。如果困難時期到來，人們會怎麼看待這種消費？
哪些經濟領域受到影響最沉重？房地產泡沫破裂已經即將來臨，建築工人將面臨失業困境。汽車行業如何呢？作為世界第二大，2010年銷售汽車1800萬輛，官方預計在2021年將達到5000萬輛。這對已經讓政府頭疼的問題如包括大學畢業生在內的失業和就業不足意味著什麼？人們對希望破滅會做出什麼反應呢？人們對本來就不受人愛戴的黨的不滿是否會大幅度增加呢？
至於對國際產生的可能影響，埃森格林和同事的觀點是「有人估計，中國一家就占全球需求增長的30%，金磚四國總體占需求的45%，新興市場和開發中國家作為整體是世界的絕大多數。」簡而言之，中國經濟衰退將嚴重影響世界經濟增長。
受影響最大的是原材料供應如巴西、印度尼西亞、澳大利亞，但也包括日本和歐洲的機器供應商。考慮到國際貿易的多邊特徵，美國的出口也將受到影響。
中國的國防和外交政策在很多方面也將受到經濟衰退的影響。增長衰退意味著未來軍事潛力的擴張就不會這麼大。中國將發現更難提供許多人預計將擁有的，人民解放軍無疑期待的各種先進武器的貨款。如果國家的困難足夠沉重的話，中共可能被誘惑把外國人當作替罪羊。首要的目標就是美國人。
中共有一個選擇，通過逐漸引入自下而上的政治變革試圖避免可能的大動盪。這就是曾經也是列寧主義政黨的國民黨在台灣的做法。政治選舉首先在地方政府，隨後在國民代表大會進行，直到最後選舉總統。這個過程雖然也不是沒有困難但相對來說還算順利。中國沒有採取自上而下的途徑或許是因為黨的領袖看到這對其控制的威脅實在太大了，或許因為擔心造成政治動亂。人們很難批評中國領袖這樣的權力專家，但大麻煩確實就在前面。
兩種變革的相互關係
回到最初的立場：在2020年之前某個時候中國將很可能出現政治變革或經濟變革或者兩種變革同時出現。如果這種變革出現了，兩種變革出現的順序可能產生很大差別，雖然人們只能預測情況會如何變化。如果首先出現實質性的政治自由，那麼不那麼嚴重的經濟衰退就不會造成災難性影響。但是如果出現另外一種情況，經濟動盪先於政治改革，那麼，嚴重的經濟衰退將造成政治自由化、保守派勢力成功控制局勢、或陷入長期的政治動亂。我們不得而知。
不管怎樣，中國在未來十年的發展將很可能深刻地影響世界其他地方，就像過去這些年對世界產生的影響一樣巨大，只不過是用其他的方式。
December 1, 2011
policy review » no. 170 » features
China: Big Changes Coming Soon
by Henry S. Rowen
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/100861
Economic growth and political upheaval
Big changes are ahead for China, probably abrupt ones. The economy has grown so rapidly for many years, over 30 years at an average of nine percent a year, that its size makes it a major player in trade and finance and increasingly in political and military matters. This growth is not only of great importance internationally, it is already having profound domestic social effects and it is bound to have internal political ones — sooner or later.
Two kinds of changes are in store: political and economic. The order in which they occur will affect their impacts, and that order is very uncertain. In any case, big discontinuities are likely before 2020.
SOCIAL CHANGES
Sooner versus later can make a large difference. It is one thing to believe that China’s growth will lead eventually to political change (Deng Xiaoping told George Shultz in 1988 that China would become a democracy in 50 years, perhaps meaning: 「Forget about it.」), but is quite another matter to expect political change within this decade — an argument made here. But things are not so simple (they never are); another line of argument, discussed below, is that there is a good chance of an abrupt economic slowdown over this period. One should not expect these conjectured events to be independent; political turbulence would hurt the economy and a sharp economic slowdown would surely have political consequences. The interplay between these two prospects, a political disruption and/or an economic jolt, can only be a matter of speculation, and some is offered here.
The leading edge of the time when these events might occur, assuming continued high-speed growth, is 2015 — soon enough to get our attention — with the odds increasing in successive years. The common factor that connects them is that China will reach a gdp per capita level of $17,000 by about then (in 2005 purchasing power parity). This is the level at which all non-oil-rich countries are at least 「partly free」 as rated by Freedom House, with the large majority being 「Free.」 Also fostering freedoms is the level of education, and that too is steadily increasing in China. While today it is deep in the 「non-free」 category, assuming growth is sustained at nine to ten percent a year it will reach this freedom benchmark level by 2015; if growth slows to seven percent annually, as Premier Wen Jiabao has suggested it will, that level is reached not long after — by 2017. (To be more precise, with continued high growth there is a 50–50 chance of China being declared partly free by 2017, odds that will increase thereafter.)
Most discussion on this topic focuses, understandably, on political freedoms, the ability of a people to choose their rulers. But Freedom House has two freedom indexes: One is on political rights while the other is civil liberties (for the latter, think of the U.S. Bill of Rights). On these measures, China today has a bottom score on political rights and is rated one step above the bottom on civil liberties. There should be no argument about the political rating; it is a Leninist state in which the Communist Party has combined economic liberalizing with tight political control. But economic liberalizing is having profound social consequences. Its foundation is prosperity. Prosperity is decidedly unequally divided, but a large class has emerged centered in the cities in the eastern part of the country, there is a growing private sector, the press is freer than a decade ago and much freer than 30 years ago (but with political speech remaining decidedly unfree), the labor market is more open, urban residency permits are less binding, religious practices are often harassed but are widely tolerated, the legal system crawls ahead, and people have a growing sense of having rights (not a traditional Chinese value). Prosperity may be decidedly unequally divided but, again, a large class has emerged centered in the cities in the eastern part of the country. In Freedom House terms, these advances mean progress on civil liberties.
On the negative side, recently there has been a crackdown on dissent with the official euphemism being 「stability maintenance.」 It isn’t clear why this is happening given that Party control looks strong. The transition to the next set of rulers next year seems to be settled, while many of the mass demonstrations that occur are taking place in the non-Han periphery of the country. It is true that worries are expressed by officialdom about the political turmoil engulfing the Arab world spreading to China, and memories about the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989, which are no doubt vivid in the minds of Party leaders, must also be playing a role. They were triggered by the upheavals in Eastern Europe, which culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and were seen as jeopardizing the rule of the Party. If you are running a Leninist operation you can’t be too careful.
Unfortunately, China has recently cracked down on dissent with the official explanation being 「stability maintenance.」
China’s situation needs to be put into the worldwide pattern, which shows a strong correlation between economic development and democratic freedoms. Three possibilities might account for this connection: 1) Development might lead to democracy; 2) democracy might foster development; or 3) there might be a common cause driving both. The first, development leading to democracy, is Seymour Martin Lipset’s hypothesis that only a society with educated, wealthy people can resist the appeal of demagogues. Stable democracy presupposes an accumulation of human, social, and physical capital. Education promotes growth, and schooling makes democratic revolutions against dictatorships more probable and successful antidemocratic coups less probable.
After analyzing more than a hundred countries, in support of the Lipset view Robert Barro found that higher incomes and higher levels of (primary) education predict higher freedoms — but with significant time lags between the appearance of a factor positive for electoral rights and its expression in politics. On education, in 2000, China’s over-25 population had an average of only 5.74 years of schooling. Large educational-improvement efforts are underway, especially in rural areas and in the rapidly expanding postsecondary sector. By 2025, the average Chinese person over 25 will have had almost eight years of formal schooling. The educational mill grinds slowly but over time has huge effects. Barro attributed such lags to inertia in institutions affected by changes in economic and social variables, and notes that after about two decades 「the level of democracy is nearly fully determined by the economic and social variables.」
This observation helps one to understand why a rapidly growing country such as China has a freedom rating today well below the level that its current income would predict.
Adam Przeworski and his coauthors also find that levels of economic development best predict the incidence of various types of political regimes, but their interpretation is the superior survival capacity of wealthier democracies rather than to movements from dictatorship to democracy at higher levels of wealth. The higher the level of income that a given country enjoys, these researchers note, the better are the odds that a democratic regime in that country will endure.
People in the Chinese Communist Party are feeling fewer inhibitions about airing their grievances, which are numerous.
Barro and Przeworski are among those who find that democracy does not lead directly to higher growth, a view reinforced by Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini, who believe that the evidence that democratizations yield economic growth is weak. They write that 「democracy」 is too blunt a concept and that institutional details matter greatly. The theoretical picture remains unclear and the literature is divided.
The third possibility, that democracy and development have a common cause, finds support from Daron Acemoglu and his several coauthors, who argue that 「though income and democracy are positively correlated, there is no evidence of a causal effect. Instead . . . historical factors appear to have shaped the divergent political and economic development paths of various societies, leading to the positive association between democracy and economic performance.」 These scholars see political and economic development paths as interwoven. Some countries embarked on development paths associated with democracy and economic growth, while others followed paths based on dictatorship, repression, and more limited growth.
Whichever interpretation one adopts, a democratizing China would not be unusual in East Asia, with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan rated 「Free」 and Singapore rated 「Partly Free」 by Freedom House. They show that Western-style democracy can take root in Sinitic societies.
The Chinese Communist Party has allowed a small window for elections for political office. In 1988 it mandated them, but only for villages. By the mid-1990s, 90 percent of committee heads held their posts by virtue of the ballot. However, requirements such as the direct nomination by individuals, multiple candidates, secret ballots, public counting of votes, immediate announcement of results, and regular recall procedures are not always followed. Some years ago it seemed likely that elections would be extended upward to townships, but this has not happened.
This is creating a changed situation for the Party, with people feeling fewer inhibitions about airing their grievances, which are numerous and can be triggered by events in which the authorities are held at fault. One such case was their response to a high-speed train accident in July 2011. The accident was bad enough, but what enraged many people was the authorities』 attempted cover-up (literally: hastily trying to bury the fallen cars and bodies).
One of the ways the people express their discontent is through what the authorities call 「mass incidents.」 These are, inter alia, a mixture of strikes and protests against unjust behavior by the police and the seizure of land from peasants by local Party people who then profit from it, and incidences in which non-Han people object to discriminatory behavior. In 1995, about 10,000 such incidents were reported; a decade later the official figure had increased tenfold. The government has stopped reporting this number but an unofficial estimate for 2010 is 160,000. Protesters typically avoid direct challenge to Party authority, preferring to cite rights listed in Party documents, laws, State Council regulations, and speeches by Communist Party leaders. Protests also tend to be carefully limited to local matters. One should not assume that protests in the countryside seriously threaten the regime. People know the role of protests in their history — and of leaders sometimes encouraging them as a way of ferreting out corrupt local officials. Yet while this is not a sign that the Party is tottering, neither is it a sign of Party legitimacy.
The nervousness the authorities are displaying reflects the profound changes occurring in society. As Geoff Dyer wrote in October 2010 in the Financial Times:
Jailed for 11 years for organizing a pro-democracy petition, Mr. Liu [Xiaobo] is a standard-bearer for political reform but in many ways he is not the main challenge for the authorities. . . . Mr. Liu is part of an older generation of dissidents who have been marginalized since Tiananmen. Few ordinary Chinese have heard of him.
Instead, the pressure is more diffuse but from a broader range of sources. There are the well-to-do suburban residents who happily organize large protests when their property rights are affected and make sure television cameras are there to watch them. China’s fast-growing legal community is full of people — from judges to citizens with a grievance — who are trying to build more independent courts.
And then there is the Internet, which, in spite of all the efforts of the authorities to censor and mould discussion, is also a deep well of rebellious irony . . . .
The Chinese party-state is such a blizzard of activity, that it is often easy to overlook the increasingly vibrant society emerging from behind its Leninist shadow.
The Party is indeed in a blizzard of activity, summarized as follows by Edward Steinfeld, writing in the July-August 2011 issue of the Boston Review:
In this new system state authority and the nature of state-society relations are radically different, a reality confirmed by the state’s frenetic effort to develop new rules to maintain control and influence. As a response to changing expectations of the role of the state, a new discourse of law-based governance has emerged. In addition to new tax, contract, property, and environmental laws, the state has promulgated national regulations on open government information — China’s Freedom of Information Act, in a sense. Some provinces, such as booming Fujian, have new labor rules that emphasize collective bargaining.
There are differences in tone among the public statements of some leaders on the subject of its political future. Many Party elders have come out against censorship and in support of freedoms of speech and of the press. As for active authorities, Premier Wen Jiabao said in an interview with cnn that 「the people’s wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible」 (a statement that was censored in the Chinese press).
Technology is transforming people’s access to information and their ability to communicate with each other. One is the ubiquitous cell phone, with around 850 million of them in use in China today, with over a billion users projected a few years from now. With over half a billion text messages flowing daily, the government has lost control of people’s ability to spread the word (e.g., about the next sars-type epidemic), organize protests, or expose corruption. Cell phones are an organizing instrument for mass demonstrations triggered by disturbing events.
The importance of the Internet should not be doubted. It has about 500 million users in China and is also heading powerfully upward. Because other sources of information and entertainment have been more limited than in most other countries, its social impact is greater. This has produced an ongoing game between users who seek information and who blog and the censors who try to set strict limits. The leaders』 nervousness was recently displayed in an absurd way in reaction to the uprisings in the Arab world. Because the Tunisian revolutionaries dubbed their successful uprising the 「Jasmine Revolution,」 this flower for a while became a nonexistent plant. In February, when messages for a Chinese 「Jasmine Revolution」 began circulating on the Internet the Chinese characters for jasmine were intermittently blocked in text messages; videos of President Hu Jintao singing 「Mo Li Hua,」 a Qing dynasty paean to the flower, disappeared from the Web.
Demonstrations of people power via the Internet or the use of cell phones violate a tenet of Leninist control: keeping individuals separated by geography and by social class. All this modernization is being permitted (up to a point) by the authorities because of the economic benefits these social networking technologies bring; the country’s growth would be impaired were they to be more rigorously restricted.
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DISRUPTIONS?
So high-speed growth, seen as necessary by Party leaders if they are to remain in control, is sowing the seeds of their downfall. But will China’s high growth rate be sustained? It is axiomatic that the rate of 9-plus percent per year will slow; trees do not grow to the sky and 30 years of high-speed growth (interrupted briefly by the Tiananmen Square events in 1989) is already exceptional. A common view is that the slowdown will happen gradually through more sluggish growth in the work force, a reduced flow of workers from low-marginal-productivity farming to higher productivity urban work, and the country’s approach to the world technological frontier.
A contrasting view is offered by some scholars, recently by Barry Eichengreen, Kwanho Shin, and Donghyun Park. They find that high growth in almost all non-oil-exporting countries came to a rather sudden end at a per capita gdp of $16,740 in 2005 international prices, with growth slowing from 5.6 to 2.1 percent per annum, and they note that China is on a trajectory to reach that level in 2015 (or 2017 if growth is seven percent a year). They estimate the coming slowdown to be two to 3.5 percent a year, which would take the nation’s growth rate down to around six to seven percent a year (an eventuality the authors present not as certain but as highly probable). The basic reason is that at that level of gdp the payoff from shifting workers from agriculture to industry decreases and so, too, do the benefits from using foreign-developed technologies. Contributing further to the slowdown will be China’s strongly undervalued exchange rate. The three authors observe that the only two fast-growing economies to sail through the $16,000 level unimpeded were the city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore.
Central to this phenomenon is a slowing of productivity growth. They write:
Slowdowns coincide with the point in the growth process where it is no longer possible to boost productivity by shifting additional workers from agriculture to industry and where the gains from importing foreign technology diminish. But the sharpness and extent of the fall in tfp (total factor productivity) growth from unusually high levels of 3-plus percent to virtually zero is striking.
However, in this circumstance China has a unique advantage that could keep it growing at a good rate: a vast region into which capital investment can be poured. Its Western provinces are both highly populated and poor. On this point, the authors write:
If the growth miracle is transplantable within China, then the economic development of the interior provinces, which have larger populations than most countries and are home to a substantial fraction of China’s own population, can continue to sustain the country’s growth for years to come. The government is already extending physical infrastructure, such as highways and railways, to less developed provinces to prepare them for this transition.
Assuming an abrupt slowdown does occur, though, what might some of its consequences be? Domestically, much might depend on the sectoral and geographic distribution of the slowdown. Already, much capital investment at the margin probably has little return. This is likely true of much of the reported $300 billion spent on high-speed rail. Might the government respond by cutting some kinds of capital investment (which it should be doing anyway) and encouraging consumption, which has fallen to a remarkably low 36 percent of total output? It has said it wants to do this.
It has become almost axiomatic that the stability of China, indeed the legitimacy of rule by the Party, requires sustained high growth — a minimum of seven percent per year gdp growth. Although the existence of a magic threshold isn’t credible and that rate, almost anywhere else in the world, would be seen as excellent, markedly slowed growth would likely have consequences for China, domestic and foreign.
Domestically, the prospect of slower growth raises many questions. For example, what would the differential impact of slower growth be across the income distribution, which has substantially widened over time? Some of the rich and powerful are flaunting their wealth, and the Internet is displaying this for all to see. How would this consumption come across if times get tough?
What economic sectors would be most affected? Already a real estate bust is in the offing, with rising unemployment for construction workers. What would happen to the auto sector, the world’s largest with more than eighteen million vehicles sold in 2010 and officially forecast to reach 50 million by 2021? What might happen to unemployment and underemployment, already a problem, including for college graduates? How might people react to disappointed expectations? Would disaffection with the Party, which is not universally admired, grow markedly?
On possible international impacts, Eichengreen and his colleagues have something to say: 「By some estimates, China alone is accounting for 30 percent of global demand growth, the brics [Brazil, Russia, India and China] collectively 45 percent, and emerging markets and developing countries as a whole a healthy majority of the total.」 In short, such a Chinese slowdown would seriously impact world growth.
Most obviously affected would be raw material suppliers such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Australia, but also machinery suppliers in Japan and Europe. Given the multilateral character of world trade, U.S. exports would also be hurt.
China’s defense and foreign policy could be affected in several ways by a major economic slowdown. Slowed growth implies its future military potential will loom not so large. The country would find it more difficult to afford the wide array of advanced weapons many assume it will have and which the People’s Liberation Army doubtless expects to receive. If the nation’s woes are deep enough, the Party might be tempted to blame outsiders for its misfortunes. The prime here would be the Americans.
The Party has the option of trying to avoid a possibly major upheaval by gradually introducing political changes from the bottom. This is what the Kuomintang Party, once also a Leninist one, did in Taiwan. Political choices were introduced first in local government, then in the national parliament, then finally in elections for president. This proceeded not without difficulties but relatively smoothly. China has not followed this upward course perhaps because the Party leadership sees the threat to its control as too great or perhaps because of a belief that political chaos would result. One hesitates to criticize such great experts on power as China’s leaders, but it does look like big trouble could be ahead.
THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN DISRUPTIONS
To return to the initial propositions: There is a significant chance of either, or both, political and economic change in China occurring at some point before 2020. If this change happens, the order in which these two events occur could make a major difference, although one can only guess at how events might play out. If substantial political liberalizing were to occur first, then a less-than-huge economic slowdown shouldn’t have a traumatic effect. But if it were to happen the other way around, if economic change comes before political change, then a sharp economic slowdown might result in political liberalizing, or a conservative faction might succeed in tightening the screws, or there might be an extended period of political turbulence. We simply don’t know.
One way or another, developments in China in the next decade have a high probability of deeply affecting the rest of the world — more so than they have already and in very different ways.
Henry S. Rowen is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, director emeritus of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and professor emeritus at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He is co-director of the Stanford Project on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and co-editor of Greater China’s Quest for Innovation (Stanford University Press, 2008).
史丹福大學商學院榮譽教授亨利·羅文日前發表文章稱，中國即將出現大變革，而且很可能是激烈的變革。在過去30多年裡，中國經濟以平均年增長率9%的速度迅猛增長，這使中國成為世界貿易和金融業的大玩家，而且在政治和軍事領域也發揮越來越大的作用。這種增長不僅具有重要的國際意義，而且深刻影響了中國社會，遲早也將對國內政治產生影響。
亨利·羅文（HenryS.Rowen）胡佛研究所高級研究員，亞太研究中心主任，史丹福大學商學院榮譽教授，是斯坦福區域革新和創業工程主任，《大中國革新探索》（史丹福大學出版社2008年）主編。
亨利·羅文12月1日發表在胡佛研究所網站上的這篇文章指出，即將出現的是政治和經濟兩方面的變革。變革出現的順序將產生影響力的巨大差別，但這個順序非常不確定。無論如何，大變革很可能在2020年前出現。
社會變革
變革出現的早晚將產生重大差別。相信中國的增長將最終帶來政治變革是一回事（鄧小平在1988年告訴國務卿舒爾茨中國在50年後將成為民主國家，或許他的意思是『忘掉它吧』），期待政治變革在這個十年內出現是另外一回事，本文的觀點是後者。不過，事情並不這麼簡單（從來不），下文還將談到的另一個觀點是在此階段很可能出現突然的經濟衰退。人們不應該期待這些預測的事件是各自獨立的，因為政治動盪將損害經濟發展，而經濟突然衰退肯定產生政治後果。政治動盪或經濟衰退或者兩者兼而有之的相互作用只是猜測而已，本文將做出一些猜測。
假設中國的經濟持續高速增長，變革出現的時間應該是2015年，這是很近的未來，足以引起我們的關注，隨後幾年可能性將越來越大。把它們聯繫起來的共同因素是中國的人均GDP到那時將達到17000美元（以2005年的購買力為準）。這是自由之家列舉的大部分「自由」國家或所有「部分自由」的非石油富國的經濟水平。有助於自由的因素還有教育程度，而這在中國也穩步增長。雖然今天中國的教育水平仍然屬於「非自由」的範疇，但假設增長率維持在年均9-10%，它將在2015年達到自由的基本水平。如果增長率下降到總理溫家寶所說的7%，該水平也將在2017年後不久實現（更準確地說，如果經濟持續高速增長，中國在2017年被認定為「部分自由」的概率是50%，隨後概率將越來越大）。
可以理解的是，該話題的大部分討論集中在政治自由即人民選擇國家領導人的能力上。但自由之家有兩個自由指標：一是政治權利，一是公民自由（如美國的權利法案）。從這些標準來看，當今中國在政治權利上墊底，在公民自由上稍好一些。原本就不該有政治排名，因為中國是列寧主義國家，共產黨把經濟自由和嚴格的政治控制結合起來，但是經濟自由將產生深遠的社會後果。經濟自由的基礎是繁榮，而繁榮是不平等分配的，中國東部城市裡已經出現了龐大的中產階級，越來越大的私營經濟，媒體比10年前更自由，比30年前的自由度更是大多了（但政治言論仍然不自由），勞動力市場更開放，都市居住權的限制也不那麼嚴格，宗教活動雖然常常受到騷擾但基本上被容許了，司法體系也在緩慢前行，人們的權利意識越來越強。筆者想再次強調繁榮並不均衡，龐大的中產階級集中在東部城市裡。用自由之家的說法，這些進步意味著公民自由的進步。
從消極的一面看，最近一直存在著對持不同政見者的打擊，官方的委婉語是「維穩」。
現在還不清楚為什麼在共產黨控制似乎很強大的時候出現這種事。明年即將出現的領導人換屆似乎已經定下來了，發生的群體性事件很多出現在少數民族地區。官方對阿拉伯世界的動盪傳播到中國的擔心是真實的，但人們對1989年天安門事件的記憶肯定也發揮了作用，因為這場風波在共黨領袖的心中一直栩栩如生。那場風波是最後導致蘇聯解體的東歐動盪激發起來的，被視為危害黨的領導。如果你採取列寧主義者的做法，就不可能不特別小心。
不幸的是，中國官方最近以維穩的名義打擊持不同政見者。
中國的情形需要放在世界模式的背景下考慮，該模式顯示經濟發展和民主自由之間存在著明顯的相關關係。這種聯繫或許三種可能性可以解釋：1）經濟發展導致民主；2）民主或許促成發展；3）兩者或許有一個共同起因。經濟發展導致民主的第一種可能是西摩·馬丁·李普塞特（SeymourMartinLipset）的假設，即只有受過良好教育的富人才能抗拒蠱惑人心的煽動家。穩定的民主預設了人力、社會、和物質資本的積累。教育促進增長，人們文化水平的提高促成反對獨裁的民主革命，使得反對民主的政變不大可能成功。
羅伯特·巴羅（RobertBarro）在分析了一百多個國家後發現更高的收入水平和更高的教育水平（初級）預示著更高的自由，這是支持李普塞特觀點的證據，雖然在有利於選舉權的因素出現和它在政治上的具體表現之間還存在著明顯的時間滯後。在教育水平上，2000年中國25歲以上的人口中平均受教育年限是5.74年，尤其是在農村地區和快速擴張的高等教育方面教育進步的步伐在加快。到了2025年，25歲以上人口的平均正規學校教育將達到8年。教育帶來的進步雖然緩慢，但經過一段時間終將產生巨大的影響力。巴羅把這種滯後歸咎於制度的惰性，雖然受到經濟和社會變量出現變化的影響。他注意到大概20年後，「民主程度就將完全由經濟和社會變量所決定。」
這個觀察幫助人們理解為什麼像中國這樣經濟快速增長的國家當今的自由程度遠遠低於現有經濟發展程度預測的那種水平。
亞當·普沃斯基（AdamPrzeworski）及合著者也發現經濟發展水平最好地預測了不同政權出現的概率，但他們的解釋是如果和從獨裁到民主的轉型國家相比，富裕國家的民主更容易生存。這些研究者注意到，一個國家的收入水平越高，該國的民主政權維持下來的機會就越大。
中國共產黨人在表達各種怨憤不滿時感受到的禁忌越來越少。
巴羅和普沃斯基等人發現民主並不直接導致更高的經濟增長，佩爾森（TorstenPersson）塔貝里尼（GuidoTabellini）進一步強化了這個觀點，他們認為民主導致經濟增長的證據非常弱。他們寫到「民主」這個概念太籠統，而制度細節非常重要。該理論的畫面仍然不清晰，文獻仍然存在不同觀點。
第三個可能性是民主和發展擁有共同的起因。這個觀點得到戴龍·阿西墨格魯（DaronAcemoglu）和合著者的支持，他們認為「雖然收入水平和民主是正相關關係，但沒有證據表明存在因果關係。相反，歷史因素往往影響不同社會的政治和經濟發展道路的偏離，導致民主和經濟表現的正相關關係。」這些學者認為政治和經濟發展道路交織在一起。有些國家走上民主和經濟發展相互促進的道路，有些國家則遵循專制、壓迫和更有限的經濟發展的道路。
不管人們採取哪種解釋，民主的中國在東亞並不算稀罕，因為日本、韓國、台灣都被自由之家列為民主國家，新加坡被列為「部分民主」國家。
它們顯示西方式的民主能夠在華人社會生根發芽。
中共為選舉開了一扇小窗戶，1988年允許村級領導幹部選舉。到了1990年代中期，90%的村委會主任都是通過投票而上台的。但個人直接提名、多個候選人、秘密投票、公開唱票、馬上宣布投票結果、正常的罷免程序等要求並不總是得到遵循。多年前人們就猜想這種選舉將擴展到鄉鎮層級，但這種期待並沒有出現。
這使得中共面臨一個變化的情景，人們在表達怨憤和不滿時感受到的禁忌更少了，而這些不滿和冤屈往往是當局的錯誤造成的。其中一個例子就是2011年7月的溫州動車事故。這個事故本來就夠糟糕的了，讓許多人憤怒不已的是當局試圖掩蓋真相（從字面意思上就是把摔到橋下的車廂和屍體掩埋）。
人們表達不滿的方式之一是通過當局所說的「群體性事件」。這些事件主要是罷工和抗議的結合體，抗議警察的不公，抗議地方黨組織征地拆遷牟利以及少數民族民眾抗議種族歧視等。在1995年，報導的群體性事件大約一萬起，十年後的官方數據增加了十倍。如今政府已經停止報導這個數量，但非官方的估計是2010年大概有 16萬起群體事件。抗議者一般都避免直接挑戰中共的權威，更願意引用黨的文件、法律和國務院規定和領導人言論中列舉的權利。抗議者也非常小心地把議題局限在本地事務上。人們不應該認為這個國家的抗議活動將嚴重威脅政權的存在。人們知道歷史上這些抗議的作用是什麼，領袖們有時候鼓勵他們抗爭，作為趕走當地腐敗官員的方式。但是，儘管這並不說明中共搖搖欲墜，但也並非中共執政正當性的證據。
當局表現出的焦慮反映在社會出現的深刻變化上。正如傑夫·代爾（GeoffDyer）在2010年10月的《金融時報》上寫的：
因為組織親民主的情願活動而被關進監獄的劉曉波是政治改革的旗手，但在很多方面他並非當局的主要挑戰。劉先生屬於上一代的持不同政見者，這些人在天安門事件後已經被邊緣化了。普通中國人很少聽說過他。
相反，壓力更加多樣化而且來自不同地方。都市郊區富裕階層如果財產權受到侵犯更樂意組織大型抗議活動，而且確保電視攝影機的拍攝。中國迅速增長的司法群體裡有很多人主張建立更加獨立的法院，其中不僅有法官也有背負冤屈的公民。
而且，現在還有網際網路，雖然當局盡一切努力審查和左右輿論導向，但網絡已經成為反叛和嘲諷的源頭。
中國的黨國是這樣一場暴風雨，人們往往容易忽略列寧主義陰影下出現的越來越充滿活力的社會。
中共確實是一場暴風雨，愛德華·斯坦菲爾德（Edward Steinfeld）在2011年7-8月那一期《波士頓評論》上總結如下：
在這個新制度下，國家權威和國家與社會關係的本質已經完全不同了，這個現實被國家狂熱地試圖開發新規則維持控制和影響力的努力所證實。為回應對變化了的國家作用的期待，出現了依法治理的新話語。除了新稅法、合同法、物權法、環境保護法之外，國家還出台了政府信息公開的法規，在某種程度上相當於中國的信息自由法。有些省比如經濟發展很快的福建已經出台了強調集體協商作用的新的勞動法。
有關政治未來的話題，領導人的公開言論存在不同的口氣。黨的許多領袖已經表達反對審查和支持言論和媒體自由的觀點。至於當局，溫家寶總理在接受美國有線電視新聞網CNN採訪時說「人民追求民主和自由的希望和需要是不可阻擋的。」（這句話遭到中國媒體的封殺）
技術已經改變了人們接觸信息的方式和相互交流的能力。
其中一個是無處不在的手機，當今中國使用的手機超過8億5千萬部，未來幾年，手機用戶可能超過10億。每天有五億條簡訊在流傳，政府已經失去了對人們傳播信息、組織抗議活動和揭露腐敗等的控制（比如下一場類似薩斯的傳染病）。手機成為突發事件引起的群體性抗議活動的組織工具。
網際網路的重要性無可爭議。中國有五億網民，而且還在不斷增加。因為信息的其他來源和娛樂一直比其他國家受到更多限制，它的社會影響力也就更大些。這就產生了尋求信息和發布博客的用戶和試圖確定限制性邊界的審查者之間不斷上演的博弈。領導人對阿拉伯世界抗議活動的恐慌近乎草木皆兵，最近以一種滑稽的方式表現出來。因為突尼西亞革命者將他們成功的起義命名為「茉莉花革命」，所以這種花在中國就曾經成為不存在的植物。二月份，當中國的「茉莉花革命」信息開始在網上傳播的時候，三個漢字茉莉花被屏蔽了，發簡訊根本無法使用這些字，連胡錦濤主席唱「茉莉花」這首歌的視頻也從網上消失了。
人民通過網際網路或者使用手機展現出來的力量破壞了列寧主義控制的原則：用地域和社會階級把人們孤立起來。所有這種現代化在一定程度上都得到當局的許可，因為這些社交網絡技術帶來的經濟利益，如果它們受到嚴格限制，中國的經濟增長將受到嚴重影響。
經濟和政治動盪？
所以，中共領袖認為維持黨對國家的控制所必須的經濟高速發展播下了它們垮台的種子。但是中國的高速增長能夠持續嗎？每年9%以上的速度將降下來，這是絕對的真理，就像樹不可能長到天上去，30年的高速增長（1989年天安門事件後短暫停滯了一段時間）已經非常罕見了。普遍的觀點是通過勞動力增長乏力、工人從生產力低下的農村向生產力高的城市流動放緩、國家向國際技術前沿邁進的途徑等形式出現衰退。
最近一些學者巴里·埃森格林（BarryEichengreen）、康鎬炫（KwanhoShin）、朴東炫（DonghyunPark）等提出了相反的觀點。他們發現幾乎所有非石油出口國家的高速增長都是在以2005年國際價格計算人均GDP達到16740美元後突然停止了，其增長速度從每年5.6%突然降至2.1%。他們注意到中國的軌跡是在2015年達到這個水平（或者如果每年增長率是7%的話，是在2017年）。他們預測未來的經濟衰退將是年增長率是2%到3.5%，這將意味著中國的增長速度降至6到7%（作者認為這種結果不是確定無疑的，但可能性很大）。基本原因是人均GDP到了這個程度後，工人從農業轉向工業的回報開始下降，利用外資和技術的利益也隨之消失。導致經濟衰退的另外因素是中國故意壓低人民幣匯率。這三位作者觀察到，越過16000美元水平仍然持續保持快速增長的經濟體只有兩個，那就是城市國家新加坡和香港。
這個現象的核心是生產力增長的放緩。他們寫到：
經濟放緩出現在經濟增長過程的這個時刻，即人們不再能從農村轉移多餘勞動力到工業領域來刺激生產，引進外國技術的收益開始降低，但全要素生產力（TFP）從不尋常的3%以上的高水平突然急劇降至零仍然令人印象深刻。
但在這個方面，中國具有獨特的優勢以保持經濟增長的高速度：中國地域遼闊可以大量注入投資，西部省份人多但貧窮。針對這一點，作者寫到：
如果增長奇蹟在國內移植的話，占中國人口相當比例的內陸省份的經濟發展（人口比很多國家還多）在未來幾年仍然可以維持中國的經濟增長。政府已經擴展了基礎設施建設比如高速路和鐵路到這些欠發達地區，為它們的經濟轉型做準備。
假設確實出現了突然的經濟衰退，後果會是什麼呢？從國內來看，衰退很可能根據地域和行業不同而有所變化。已經出現的情況是很多資本投資很可能報酬率很低，3000億美元的高鐵投資中很多可能就是如此。政府會做出削減資本投資和鼓勵消費的反應嗎？中國的整個出口已經引人注目地下降了36%。政府說要這麼做。
幾乎可以肯定的是中國的穩定，實際上也是中共統治的合法性要求經濟持續高速增長---最起碼年均增長率應該在7%。雖然存在神奇的門檻的說法並不可信，但這個速度若在世界其他地方都會被認為非常好的，如果經濟大幅度衰退無論是國內還是國外都將對中國造成嚴重的後果。
從國內來說，經濟增長放緩的前景出現很多問題，如這種衰退的不同影響如何跨國收入分配，我們知道貧富差距已經非常巨大了。有錢有勢的某些人在炫耀他們的財富，網上已經出現了很多這種事。如果困難時期到來，人們會怎麼看待這種消費？
哪些經濟領域受到影響最沉重？房地產泡沫破裂已經即將來臨，建築工人將面臨失業困境。汽車行業如何呢？作為世界第二大，2010年銷售汽車1800萬輛，官方預計在2021年將達到5000萬輛。這對已經讓政府頭疼的問題如包括大學畢業生在內的失業和就業不足意味著什麼？人們對希望破滅會做出什麼反應呢？人們對本來就不受人愛戴的黨的不滿是否會大幅度增加呢？
至於對國際產生的可能影響，埃森格林和同事的觀點是「有人估計，中國一家就占全球需求增長的30%，金磚四國總體占需求的45%，新興市場和開發中國家作為整體是世界的絕大多數。」簡而言之，中國經濟衰退將嚴重影響世界經濟增長。
受影響最大的是原材料供應如巴西、印度尼西亞、澳大利亞，但也包括日本和歐洲的機器供應商。考慮到國際貿易的多邊特徵，美國的出口也將受到影響。
中國的國防和外交政策在很多方面也將受到經濟衰退的影響。增長衰退意味著未來軍事潛力的擴張就不會這麼大。中國將發現更難提供許多人預計將擁有的，人民解放軍無疑期待的各種先進武器的貨款。如果國家的困難足夠沉重的話，中共可能被誘惑把外國人當作替罪羊。首要的目標就是美國人。
中共有一個選擇，通過逐漸引入自下而上的政治變革試圖避免可能的大動盪。這就是曾經也是列寧主義政黨的國民黨在台灣的做法。政治選舉首先在地方政府，隨後在國民代表大會進行，直到最後選舉總統。這個過程雖然也不是沒有困難但相對來說還算順利。中國沒有採取自上而下的途徑或許是因為黨的領袖看到這對其控制的威脅實在太大了，或許因為擔心造成政治動亂。人們很難批評中國領袖這樣的權力專家，但大麻煩確實就在前面。
兩種變革的相互關係
回到最初的立場：在2020年之前某個時候中國將很可能出現政治變革或經濟變革或者兩種變革同時出現。如果這種變革出現了，兩種變革出現的順序可能產生很大差別，雖然人們只能預測情況會如何變化。如果首先出現實質性的政治自由，那麼不那麼嚴重的經濟衰退就不會造成災難性影響。但是如果出現另外一種情況，經濟動盪先於政治改革，那麼，嚴重的經濟衰退將造成政治自由化、保守派勢力成功控制局勢、或陷入長期的政治動亂。我們不得而知。
不管怎樣，中國在未來十年的發展將很可能深刻地影響世界其他地方，就像過去這些年對世界產生的影響一樣巨大，只不過是用其他的方式。
December 1, 2011
policy review » no. 170 » features
China: Big Changes Coming Soon
by Henry S. Rowen
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/100861
Economic growth and political upheaval
Big changes are ahead for China, probably abrupt ones. The economy has grown so rapidly for many years, over 30 years at an average of nine percent a year, that its size makes it a major player in trade and finance and increasingly in political and military matters. This growth is not only of great importance internationally, it is already having profound domestic social effects and it is bound to have internal political ones — sooner or later.
Two kinds of changes are in store: political and economic. The order in which they occur will affect their impacts, and that order is very uncertain. In any case, big discontinuities are likely before 2020.
SOCIAL CHANGES
Sooner versus later can make a large difference. It is one thing to believe that China’s growth will lead eventually to political change (Deng Xiaoping told George Shultz in 1988 that China would become a democracy in 50 years, perhaps meaning: 「Forget about it.」), but is quite another matter to expect political change within this decade — an argument made here. But things are not so simple (they never are); another line of argument, discussed below, is that there is a good chance of an abrupt economic slowdown over this period. One should not expect these conjectured events to be independent; political turbulence would hurt the economy and a sharp economic slowdown would surely have political consequences. The interplay between these two prospects, a political disruption and/or an economic jolt, can only be a matter of speculation, and some is offered here.
The leading edge of the time when these events might occur, assuming continued high-speed growth, is 2015 — soon enough to get our attention — with the odds increasing in successive years. The common factor that connects them is that China will reach a gdp per capita level of $17,000 by about then (in 2005 purchasing power parity). This is the level at which all non-oil-rich countries are at least 「partly free」 as rated by Freedom House, with the large majority being 「Free.」 Also fostering freedoms is the level of education, and that too is steadily increasing in China. While today it is deep in the 「non-free」 category, assuming growth is sustained at nine to ten percent a year it will reach this freedom benchmark level by 2015; if growth slows to seven percent annually, as Premier Wen Jiabao has suggested it will, that level is reached not long after — by 2017. (To be more precise, with continued high growth there is a 50–50 chance of China being declared partly free by 2017, odds that will increase thereafter.)
Most discussion on this topic focuses, understandably, on political freedoms, the ability of a people to choose their rulers. But Freedom House has two freedom indexes: One is on political rights while the other is civil liberties (for the latter, think of the U.S. Bill of Rights). On these measures, China today has a bottom score on political rights and is rated one step above the bottom on civil liberties. There should be no argument about the political rating; it is a Leninist state in which the Communist Party has combined economic liberalizing with tight political control. But economic liberalizing is having profound social consequences. Its foundation is prosperity. Prosperity is decidedly unequally divided, but a large class has emerged centered in the cities in the eastern part of the country, there is a growing private sector, the press is freer than a decade ago and much freer than 30 years ago (but with political speech remaining decidedly unfree), the labor market is more open, urban residency permits are less binding, religious practices are often harassed but are widely tolerated, the legal system crawls ahead, and people have a growing sense of having rights (not a traditional Chinese value). Prosperity may be decidedly unequally divided but, again, a large class has emerged centered in the cities in the eastern part of the country. In Freedom House terms, these advances mean progress on civil liberties.
On the negative side, recently there has been a crackdown on dissent with the official euphemism being 「stability maintenance.」 It isn’t clear why this is happening given that Party control looks strong. The transition to the next set of rulers next year seems to be settled, while many of the mass demonstrations that occur are taking place in the non-Han periphery of the country. It is true that worries are expressed by officialdom about the political turmoil engulfing the Arab world spreading to China, and memories about the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989, which are no doubt vivid in the minds of Party leaders, must also be playing a role. They were triggered by the upheavals in Eastern Europe, which culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and were seen as jeopardizing the rule of the Party. If you are running a Leninist operation you can’t be too careful.
Unfortunately, China has recently cracked down on dissent with the official explanation being 「stability maintenance.」
China’s situation needs to be put into the worldwide pattern, which shows a strong correlation between economic development and democratic freedoms. Three possibilities might account for this connection: 1) Development might lead to democracy; 2) democracy might foster development; or 3) there might be a common cause driving both. The first, development leading to democracy, is Seymour Martin Lipset’s hypothesis that only a society with educated, wealthy people can resist the appeal of demagogues. Stable democracy presupposes an accumulation of human, social, and physical capital. Education promotes growth, and schooling makes democratic revolutions against dictatorships more probable and successful antidemocratic coups less probable.
After analyzing more than a hundred countries, in support of the Lipset view Robert Barro found that higher incomes and higher levels of (primary) education predict higher freedoms — but with significant time lags between the appearance of a factor positive for electoral rights and its expression in politics. On education, in 2000, China’s over-25 population had an average of only 5.74 years of schooling. Large educational-improvement efforts are underway, especially in rural areas and in the rapidly expanding postsecondary sector. By 2025, the average Chinese person over 25 will have had almost eight years of formal schooling. The educational mill grinds slowly but over time has huge effects. Barro attributed such lags to inertia in institutions affected by changes in economic and social variables, and notes that after about two decades 「the level of democracy is nearly fully determined by the economic and social variables.」
This observation helps one to understand why a rapidly growing country such as China has a freedom rating today well below the level that its current income would predict.
Adam Przeworski and his coauthors also find that levels of economic development best predict the incidence of various types of political regimes, but their interpretation is the superior survival capacity of wealthier democracies rather than to movements from dictatorship to democracy at higher levels of wealth. The higher the level of income that a given country enjoys, these researchers note, the better are the odds that a democratic regime in that country will endure.
People in the Chinese Communist Party are feeling fewer inhibitions about airing their grievances, which are numerous.
Barro and Przeworski are among those who find that democracy does not lead directly to higher growth, a view reinforced by Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini, who believe that the evidence that democratizations yield economic growth is weak. They write that 「democracy」 is too blunt a concept and that institutional details matter greatly. The theoretical picture remains unclear and the literature is divided.
The third possibility, that democracy and development have a common cause, finds support from Daron Acemoglu and his several coauthors, who argue that 「though income and democracy are positively correlated, there is no evidence of a causal effect. Instead . . . historical factors appear to have shaped the divergent political and economic development paths of various societies, leading to the positive association between democracy and economic performance.」 These scholars see political and economic development paths as interwoven. Some countries embarked on development paths associated with democracy and economic growth, while others followed paths based on dictatorship, repression, and more limited growth.
Whichever interpretation one adopts, a democratizing China would not be unusual in East Asia, with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan rated 「Free」 and Singapore rated 「Partly Free」 by Freedom House. They show that Western-style democracy can take root in Sinitic societies.
The Chinese Communist Party has allowed a small window for elections for political office. In 1988 it mandated them, but only for villages. By the mid-1990s, 90 percent of committee heads held their posts by virtue of the ballot. However, requirements such as the direct nomination by individuals, multiple candidates, secret ballots, public counting of votes, immediate announcement of results, and regular recall procedures are not always followed. Some years ago it seemed likely that elections would be extended upward to townships, but this has not happened.
This is creating a changed situation for the Party, with people feeling fewer inhibitions about airing their grievances, which are numerous and can be triggered by events in which the authorities are held at fault. One such case was their response to a high-speed train accident in July 2011. The accident was bad enough, but what enraged many people was the authorities』 attempted cover-up (literally: hastily trying to bury the fallen cars and bodies).
One of the ways the people express their discontent is through what the authorities call 「mass incidents.」 These are, inter alia, a mixture of strikes and protests against unjust behavior by the police and the seizure of land from peasants by local Party people who then profit from it, and incidences in which non-Han people object to discriminatory behavior. In 1995, about 10,000 such incidents were reported; a decade later the official figure had increased tenfold. The government has stopped reporting this number but an unofficial estimate for 2010 is 160,000. Protesters typically avoid direct challenge to Party authority, preferring to cite rights listed in Party documents, laws, State Council regulations, and speeches by Communist Party leaders. Protests also tend to be carefully limited to local matters. One should not assume that protests in the countryside seriously threaten the regime. People know the role of protests in their history — and of leaders sometimes encouraging them as a way of ferreting out corrupt local officials. Yet while this is not a sign that the Party is tottering, neither is it a sign of Party legitimacy.
The nervousness the authorities are displaying reflects the profound changes occurring in society. As Geoff Dyer wrote in October 2010 in the Financial Times:
Jailed for 11 years for organizing a pro-democracy petition, Mr. Liu [Xiaobo] is a standard-bearer for political reform but in many ways he is not the main challenge for the authorities. . . . Mr. Liu is part of an older generation of dissidents who have been marginalized since Tiananmen. Few ordinary Chinese have heard of him.
Instead, the pressure is more diffuse but from a broader range of sources. There are the well-to-do suburban residents who happily organize large protests when their property rights are affected and make sure television cameras are there to watch them. China’s fast-growing legal community is full of people — from judges to citizens with a grievance — who are trying to build more independent courts.
And then there is the Internet, which, in spite of all the efforts of the authorities to censor and mould discussion, is also a deep well of rebellious irony . . . .
The Chinese party-state is such a blizzard of activity, that it is often easy to overlook the increasingly vibrant society emerging from behind its Leninist shadow.
The Party is indeed in a blizzard of activity, summarized as follows by Edward Steinfeld, writing in the July-August 2011 issue of the Boston Review:
In this new system state authority and the nature of state-society relations are radically different, a reality confirmed by the state’s frenetic effort to develop new rules to maintain control and influence. As a response to changing expectations of the role of the state, a new discourse of law-based governance has emerged. In addition to new tax, contract, property, and environmental laws, the state has promulgated national regulations on open government information — China’s Freedom of Information Act, in a sense. Some provinces, such as booming Fujian, have new labor rules that emphasize collective bargaining.
There are differences in tone among the public statements of some leaders on the subject of its political future. Many Party elders have come out against censorship and in support of freedoms of speech and of the press. As for active authorities, Premier Wen Jiabao said in an interview with cnn that 「the people’s wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible」 (a statement that was censored in the Chinese press).
Technology is transforming people’s access to information and their ability to communicate with each other. One is the ubiquitous cell phone, with around 850 million of them in use in China today, with over a billion users projected a few years from now. With over half a billion text messages flowing daily, the government has lost control of people’s ability to spread the word (e.g., about the next sars-type epidemic), organize protests, or expose corruption. Cell phones are an organizing instrument for mass demonstrations triggered by disturbing events.
The importance of the Internet should not be doubted. It has about 500 million users in China and is also heading powerfully upward. Because other sources of information and entertainment have been more limited than in most other countries, its social impact is greater. This has produced an ongoing game between users who seek information and who blog and the censors who try to set strict limits. The leaders』 nervousness was recently displayed in an absurd way in reaction to the uprisings in the Arab world. Because the Tunisian revolutionaries dubbed their successful uprising the 「Jasmine Revolution,」 this flower for a while became a nonexistent plant. In February, when messages for a Chinese 「Jasmine Revolution」 began circulating on the Internet the Chinese characters for jasmine were intermittently blocked in text messages; videos of President Hu Jintao singing 「Mo Li Hua,」 a Qing dynasty paean to the flower, disappeared from the Web.
Demonstrations of people power via the Internet or the use of cell phones violate a tenet of Leninist control: keeping individuals separated by geography and by social class. All this modernization is being permitted (up to a point) by the authorities because of the economic benefits these social networking technologies bring; the country’s growth would be impaired were they to be more rigorously restricted.
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DISRUPTIONS?
So high-speed growth, seen as necessary by Party leaders if they are to remain in control, is sowing the seeds of their downfall. But will China’s high growth rate be sustained? It is axiomatic that the rate of 9-plus percent per year will slow; trees do not grow to the sky and 30 years of high-speed growth (interrupted briefly by the Tiananmen Square events in 1989) is already exceptional. A common view is that the slowdown will happen gradually through more sluggish growth in the work force, a reduced flow of workers from low-marginal-productivity farming to higher productivity urban work, and the country’s approach to the world technological frontier.
A contrasting view is offered by some scholars, recently by Barry Eichengreen, Kwanho Shin, and Donghyun Park. They find that high growth in almost all non-oil-exporting countries came to a rather sudden end at a per capita gdp of $16,740 in 2005 international prices, with growth slowing from 5.6 to 2.1 percent per annum, and they note that China is on a trajectory to reach that level in 2015 (or 2017 if growth is seven percent a year). They estimate the coming slowdown to be two to 3.5 percent a year, which would take the nation’s growth rate down to around six to seven percent a year (an eventuality the authors present not as certain but as highly probable). The basic reason is that at that level of gdp the payoff from shifting workers from agriculture to industry decreases and so, too, do the benefits from using foreign-developed technologies. Contributing further to the slowdown will be China’s strongly undervalued exchange rate. The three authors observe that the only two fast-growing economies to sail through the $16,000 level unimpeded were the city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore.
Central to this phenomenon is a slowing of productivity growth. They write:
Slowdowns coincide with the point in the growth process where it is no longer possible to boost productivity by shifting additional workers from agriculture to industry and where the gains from importing foreign technology diminish. But the sharpness and extent of the fall in tfp (total factor productivity) growth from unusually high levels of 3-plus percent to virtually zero is striking.
However, in this circumstance China has a unique advantage that could keep it growing at a good rate: a vast region into which capital investment can be poured. Its Western provinces are both highly populated and poor. On this point, the authors write:
If the growth miracle is transplantable within China, then the economic development of the interior provinces, which have larger populations than most countries and are home to a substantial fraction of China’s own population, can continue to sustain the country’s growth for years to come. The government is already extending physical infrastructure, such as highways and railways, to less developed provinces to prepare them for this transition.
Assuming an abrupt slowdown does occur, though, what might some of its consequences be? Domestically, much might depend on the sectoral and geographic distribution of the slowdown. Already, much capital investment at the margin probably has little return. This is likely true of much of the reported $300 billion spent on high-speed rail. Might the government respond by cutting some kinds of capital investment (which it should be doing anyway) and encouraging consumption, which has fallen to a remarkably low 36 percent of total output? It has said it wants to do this.
It has become almost axiomatic that the stability of China, indeed the legitimacy of rule by the Party, requires sustained high growth — a minimum of seven percent per year gdp growth. Although the existence of a magic threshold isn’t credible and that rate, almost anywhere else in the world, would be seen as excellent, markedly slowed growth would likely have consequences for China, domestic and foreign.
Domestically, the prospect of slower growth raises many questions. For example, what would the differential impact of slower growth be across the income distribution, which has substantially widened over time? Some of the rich and powerful are flaunting their wealth, and the Internet is displaying this for all to see. How would this consumption come across if times get tough?
What economic sectors would be most affected? Already a real estate bust is in the offing, with rising unemployment for construction workers. What would happen to the auto sector, the world’s largest with more than eighteen million vehicles sold in 2010 and officially forecast to reach 50 million by 2021? What might happen to unemployment and underemployment, already a problem, including for college graduates? How might people react to disappointed expectations? Would disaffection with the Party, which is not universally admired, grow markedly?
On possible international impacts, Eichengreen and his colleagues have something to say: 「By some estimates, China alone is accounting for 30 percent of global demand growth, the brics [Brazil, Russia, India and China] collectively 45 percent, and emerging markets and developing countries as a whole a healthy majority of the total.」 In short, such a Chinese slowdown would seriously impact world growth.
Most obviously affected would be raw material suppliers such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Australia, but also machinery suppliers in Japan and Europe. Given the multilateral character of world trade, U.S. exports would also be hurt.
China’s defense and foreign policy could be affected in several ways by a major economic slowdown. Slowed growth implies its future military potential will loom not so large. The country would find it more difficult to afford the wide array of advanced weapons many assume it will have and which the People’s Liberation Army doubtless expects to receive. If the nation’s woes are deep enough, the Party might be tempted to blame outsiders for its misfortunes. The prime here would be the Americans.
The Party has the option of trying to avoid a possibly major upheaval by gradually introducing political changes from the bottom. This is what the Kuomintang Party, once also a Leninist one, did in Taiwan. Political choices were introduced first in local government, then in the national parliament, then finally in elections for president. This proceeded not without difficulties but relatively smoothly. China has not followed this upward course perhaps because the Party leadership sees the threat to its control as too great or perhaps because of a belief that political chaos would result. One hesitates to criticize such great experts on power as China’s leaders, but it does look like big trouble could be ahead.
THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN DISRUPTIONS
To return to the initial propositions: There is a significant chance of either, or both, political and economic change in China occurring at some point before 2020. If this change happens, the order in which these two events occur could make a major difference, although one can only guess at how events might play out. If substantial political liberalizing were to occur first, then a less-than-huge economic slowdown shouldn’t have a traumatic effect. But if it were to happen the other way around, if economic change comes before political change, then a sharp economic slowdown might result in political liberalizing, or a conservative faction might succeed in tightening the screws, or there might be an extended period of political turbulence. We simply don’t know.
One way or another, developments in China in the next decade have a high probability of deeply affecting the rest of the world — more so than they have already and in very different ways.
Henry S. Rowen is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, director emeritus of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and professor emeritus at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He is co-director of the Stanford Project on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and co-editor of Greater China’s Quest for Innovation (Stanford University Press, 2008).
