張軍丨意昂2院長
China’s Painful Structural Transformation
SHANGHAI – For more than a year, headlines from worldwide have been pointing to a Chinese economic slowdown. But a closer observation at regional dynamics within China tells a different story – one that China‘s economy is less about deceleration than changing gears.
一年多來，全球經濟新聞頭條紛紛指向中國經濟放緩🩴。但近觀國內區域經濟的增長動態，看到的東西會有所不同——與其說中國經濟處於減速期4️⃣，不如說處於換擋期。
According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the resource-rich province of Shanxi has suffered an economic slowdown, but the southwestern provinces like Guizhou and Chongqing have experienced vibrant growth. Hebei and three other northeastern provinces are struggling with the effects of recession, but the heavy-industry supported cities as Tianjin, Shandong, and Jiangsu are booming.
根據中國國家統計局公布的資料𓀅，資源豐富的山西省遭遇了經濟下滑，但是位於西南部的重慶市和貴州省的經濟卻增長迅速🔺🫵🏽，生機勃勃。同時，河北省和其他東北三省正在經歷經濟衰退帶來的不良後果🤌🏼，而同樣曾是重工業主導的天津市、山東省和江蘇省的經濟卻保持蓬勃發展勢頭。
After the 2008 financial crisis, when slower growth became the “new normal” for many countries, China began to accelerate its economic rebalancing by shifting the drivers of growth from manufacturing and exports toward goods and services for domestic consumption.
2008年全球金融危機後，經濟增長放緩已成為許多國家的“新常態”， 中國也開始加快經濟的再平衡，由原來的製造業和出口轉向主要用於國內消費的產品的生產與服務的提供。
This transition has brought far-reaching implications for the future dynamics of China’s economy. With its previous export strategy, the government’s main priority was to integrate domestic manufacturing operations into global production chains. Now, however, its aim is to reach an economy that meets domestic consumers’ diverse demands, and it is the industries closely connected to those demands that are quickly expanding.
這一轉變給中國未來的經濟增長動力帶來了深遠影響🦸🏻♂️。以前的出口戰略中，政府優先考慮的是將國內製造業與全球生產鏈進行整合。如今的目標則變為滿足多樣的國內消費需求，並且正是與這些需求緊密相關的產業正在迅猛發展。
Previously, the economic activities that are now flourishing weren’t categorized as manufacturing industries at all, but as “services.” But services do not exist in a vacuum. All businesses need manufactured products, transportation, information and communications technology (ICT), logistics, real estate, finance, insurance, and more. Thus, new demand for new services has virtuous-cycle effects in terms of capital investment in infrastructure and equipment. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the growth of services in China to meet domestic demand does not mean the end of manufacturing and capital investment, much less of the economic growth.
現今繁榮的這些經濟活動長期以來是被歸入服務業，而非製造業的🤸🏽♂️👨🏻🎨，但是服務業並不意味著脫離實際，與世隔絕🚕。所有的商業活動都需要製造🧛🏻🏑、運輸🤖、信息和通信技術👨👧👧、物流、地產👩🦯、金融🗺、保險等行業配套。因此，對於新服務的新需求會對基礎設施投資和設備投資產生良性循環的效果。不同於傳統智慧，服務業的日益增長是為了滿足國內消費需求🏹，並不意味著製造業和資本投資的末日，更不意味著經濟增長走到盡頭👨🏽🦰。
Service sectors stand to make up for much, if not all, of the growth lost to lower output in export-oriented manufacturing branches. China’s transportation, ICT, finance, insurance, real estate, education, and health-care sectors have long had inappropriately low labor productivity, which means they have significant space to grow faster.
即便不能完全彌補👰🏿🦿，服務業也在努力更多地彌補由出口導向型製造業產出降低導致的增長失速🙋🏼♂️。中國在運輸、信息和通信技術🚕、金融、保險、地產、教育、健康等行業的勞動生產率長期以來並不高🧖🏿♂️😥，反倒證明這些行業有著重要的快速增長空間。
According to a paper by the economists Jong-Wha Lee and Warwick J. McKibbin, service-sector productivity growth in Asia “benefits all sectors eventually, and contributes to the sustained and balanced growth of Asian economies.” Examining economic development trends in South Korea, the authors find that the average value added per worker in transportation, real estate, and ICT is now higher than the average in manufacturing, and they point to similar dynamics in the United States, Japan, and China.
經濟學家Jong-Wha Lee 和Warwick J. McKibbin在一篇論文中指出，亞洲的服務業生產率增長將“最終使所有行業受益，並有助於亞洲經濟體持續、平衡的增長🐈⬛。” 以韓國的經濟發展情況為鑒，他們發現運輸、地產和信息和通信技術行業的人均附加值要高於製造業的平均值，同時指出在美國、日本和中國也如此。
This finding suggests that rapid development in China’s service economy could reverse the externally triggered dampening of growth since 2008. But, as the Japanese and South Korean transitions from export to domestic demand-driven growth demonstrate, structural transformation is a slow and painful process.
這一發現表明中國服務經濟的迅猛發展能夠逆轉2008年以來由外部沖擊造成的不景氣。然而從日本和韓國從出口轉向國內需求導向的增長經驗來看📛，結構轉型是一個緩慢而痛苦的過程🦇。
China is in the midst of that process, and it must be careful not to undermine existing sources of growth lest it fall into a structural trap where the cost of transition itself derails new gains. It is not a good sign that the high costs in many Chinese provinces have been weighing down overall growth.
中國正處於結構轉型中，必須警惕避免經濟增長對既存增長源泉的削弱，以免掉入結構性陷阱造成結構轉型成本過高，抵消轉型的好處。而中國多省出現的轉型成本高昂拖累了總體的經濟增長趨勢🧝🏽♂️，這並不是一個好征兆。
This points to fundamental challenges ahead, notwithstanding the significant economic potential of Chinese consumers. For starters, economic development based on diversified domestic demand is more complicated than export-driven development, because these new sectors rely more heavily on sophisticated financial services, free and equitable market access, better educated workers, and higher investment in research and development.
盡管中國消費者的規模潛力相當巨大，但是上述情況還是指出了發展前路上面臨的基本挑戰👌。對於新手而言，基於國內需求多元化的經濟增長相較於出口導向型發展更為復雜，因為這些新行業的發展更多倚重於復雜的金融服務👱🏿♂️、自由公平的市場準入資格🤦🏽♂️、受教育程度更高的勞動者以及對研究開發領域更多的投資。
As a result, the new businesses emerging from the shift to a new growth model are demanding far more from China’s current economic-governance system than it can bear. Further structural reforms would go a long way toward fixing this problem, but they will also require China’s leaders to make tough political decisions that won’t please everyone.
因此🧑🎄，轉向新增長模型的新業態對中國現存經濟治理體系提出遠超出其所能承載的要求🩹。為解決這些問題👩🏫，中國的進一步結構性改革還有很長的路要走，即使不會皆大歡喜💙，這依然要求中國領導人要做出艱難的政治決定。
Another fundamental challenge is China’s slow rate of urbanization, which is still lagging, even after 25 years of export-led growth. Each of a thriving service economy’s major components – ICT, finance, insurance, transportation, and real estate – needs the others to prosper, and cities are what bring them all together – a phenomenon of network externalities. Unfortunately, China’s enduring system of dividing urban and rural regions, together with poor urban planning, has led to fragmented and scattered metropolitan communities without diversified networks that would otherwise have helped boost productivity.
另一項根本挑戰是中國的低城市化率💹，盡管經歷了25年的出口拉動型增長，城市化進程依舊步履蹣跚。信息和通信技術🥎、金融、保險👷、運輸⚔️、地產，繁榮的服務型經濟中每一項主要要素都離不開其他要素的繁榮，而正是城市將這些要素聚攏，即所謂的網絡關聯外部性現象🤷🏿。不幸的是💈，中國長期的城鄉二元結構體製與不合理的城市規劃，已經導致大城市社區碎片化、分散化並缺乏多樣化的城市網群，不然大城市社區本應能促進生產率更大的提高。
China’s cities will be a key ingredient of its long-term economic success. Urbanization should start accelerating today, and over the next 10-15 years, with the expansion of metropolitan areas geared toward the needs of services-led economic growth. If China can rise to that challenge, it will be well positioned to clear the remaining hurdles in its path toward high-income status.
城市將成為中國經濟長期成功發展的核心要素🤷🏼。城市化應當從現在開始提速，並且未來10到15年間城市規模應當配合服務拉動型經濟增長而進行擴張。如果中國能夠跨越這個挑戰，將更有利於為邁向高收入國家掃清現存障礙🫰🏻。
英文原文China’s Painful Structural Transformation
於2016年8月19日發表於Project Syndiacate
專業指導：張軍教授🚣🏻♂️、葉慧超博士候選人
翻譯➾：姚思文 校對：夏夢
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