中國現在壕起來了，十年前領導們挺擔心的_風聞

《世界報業辛迪加》4月2日刊登復旦大學經濟學院院長張軍文章《中國經濟鉅變的十年》

文：張軍

譯：楊雨晴

2008年之後，西方進入了困難時期，先後經歷了金融危機、經濟衰退和艱辛的復甦。對於中國而言，2008年同樣是個重要的轉折點，但它開啓的卻是十年飛速發展期，這是幾乎無人預料到的。

當時，美國投資銀行雷曼兄弟破產，引發全球金融危機，中國領導人當然也感到十分擔心。而那年一月的南方雪災、五月的汶川地震等自然災害以及三月的西藏暴力犯罪事件更是加重了他們的憂慮。

那時候，中國最擔心的事似乎正在成為現實。儘管八月的北京奧運會令世人印象深刻，但中國股市從2007年6124點的高位一路“跳水”跌到了2008年10月的1664點。這樣的跌幅是前所未有的。

但中國政府仍然堅持執行長期規劃，調整出口導向型經濟增長模式向國內消費型轉變。事實上，全球經濟危機恰好迫使中國正視其過於依賴外部需求的風險，這進一步堅定了中國轉型的決心。

中國的努力換來了巨大的回報。在過去十年裏，千千萬萬中國人躋身中產階層，使這個羣體擴大到2至3億人。2015年時，中國中產階層的平均財富就達到了13.9萬美元，財富總量超過28萬億美元，這個數字超過了美國和日本中產階層的16.8萬億美元和9.7萬億美元。

中國中產階層擁有巨大的能量。在過去十年裏，中國消費者購買了全球70%的奢侈品。儘管人均汽車擁有量僅為全球平均水平的一半，但自2008年以來，中國汽車市場已超過美國，穩坐全球汽車銷售量榜首。另外，2018年中國出境旅遊人次突破了1.5億。

如此強大的中產階層橫空出世，意味着中國政府面臨至關重要的戰略機遇。中國核心經濟智囊劉鶴曾於2013年寫道，2008年金融危機之前，中國的目標是成為全球生產中心，通過製造業吸引國際資本和知識；而在2008年危機發生之後，中國首要的戰略目標變成了在控制債務風險和提振總體需求的同時大幅刺激經濟，以鼓勵國內消費和投資，從而減小外部震盪對中國的影響。

作為該計劃的一部分，中國進行大規模基礎設施投資，比如新建高速鐵路將近3萬公里。僅去年一年，中國高鐵網絡總運量將近20億人次。互聯互通程度的提升使各地區之間的經濟聯繫變得更加緊密，城鎮化快速推進，消費水平也大幅提升。

在此基礎上，中國企業還在發達國家通過併購獲取關鍵技術，投資高利潤基礎設施。這樣一來，中國2018年的經濟規模幾乎達到了2008年的三倍，國內生產總值突破90萬億人民幣（13.6萬億美元）。換種説法，2006年中國GDP還只有日本的一半，但到了2016年卻是日本的2.3倍。

當然，中國也遇到了一些新的挑戰。土地和住房價格飛速飆升，以至於人們擔心城市房地產價格會出現泡沫。信貸增長也帶來了新的風險。但總體而言，中國在擴張性經濟政策的支撐下迅速崛起，成為了全球經濟強國。

在中國新的增長模式中，有一個關鍵特徵是在領導人規劃之外的，當然就更別説獲得什麼產業政策的扶持了：那就是着眼消費的創新產業。它在2008年以前幾乎不存在，但如今卻在對中國經濟發揮越來越重要的推動作用。

目前，中國的電子商務和移動支付都處於全球領先水平。2018年，中國的移動支付總額達到了24萬億美元，是美國的160倍。十年前曾經處於龍頭地位的國有銀行和石化企業，現在已經被電子商務和互聯網巨頭阿里巴巴和騰訊趕超。如今，互聯網企業和技術公司每年能為中國創造幾千萬的就業崗位。

與此同時，過去一直是增長引擎和就業大户的製造業，如今開始走下坡路，部分是因為受到工資水平快速提高的影響。這使得中國經濟結構發生了根本性變化。

傳統的GDP指標已經無法反映中國的經濟結構轉型，但許多經濟學家並沒有把精力花在研究這種轉型上，而是專心致志給中國的增長敍事挑毛病。例如，布魯金斯學會最近發佈研究報告，稱中國實際經濟規模比官方公佈的數據小約12％。

找這種茬沒什麼意義。中國經濟過去十年所經歷的變化是影響廣泛、前所未見和至關重要的。與其試圖證明中國的成績沒那麼亮眼，倒不如花功夫去理解中國的經濟轉型，這樣做對世界的意義要大得多。

China’s Decade of Sweeping Economic Change

For the West, the year 2008 marked the beginning of a difficult period of crisis, recession, and uneven recovery. For China, 2008 was also an important turning point, but one followed by a decade of rapid progress that few could have foreseen.

Of course, when the US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering a global financial crisis, China’s leaders were deeply worried. Their concerns were compounded by natural disasters – including severe freezing rain and snow storms in the south in January 2008 and the devastating Sichuan earthquake five months later, which killed 70,000 Chinese – as well as unrest in Tibet.

At first, China’s fears seemed to be coming true. Despite hosting an impressive Olympics in Beijing that August, its stock market plunged from its 2007 high of 6,124 to 1,664 in October 2008, in what amounted to a record-breaking crash.

But the Chinese authorities remained dedicated to their long-term plan to revise the country’s growth model, by shifting away from exports and toward domestic consumption. In fact, the global economic crisis served to strengthen that commitment, as it underscored the risks of China’s dependence on foreign demand.

This commitment has paid off. Over the last decade, many millions of Chinese have joined the middle class, which is now 200-300 million strong. With an average net worth of $139,000 per person, this group’s total spending power could amount to over $28 trillion, compared to $16.8 trillion in the United States and $9.7 trillion in Japan.

China’s middle class is already wielding that power. China accounts for 70% of global luxury purchases annually over the past decade. Though per capita car ownership is only around half the global average, since 2008, the Chinese have consistently been the world’s leading auto purchasers, surpassing Americans. In 2018, more than 150 million Chinese traveled abroad.

For China’s authorities, fostering the emergence of such a formidable middle class was a crucial strategic opportunity. As Liu He, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s top economic aide, wrote in 2013, the goal for China, prior to the crisis, lay in becoming a global production center; achieving it would attract international capital and knowledge. After 2008, China’s strategic imperatives shifted to reducing debt risk and boosting aggregate demand, while deploying massive economic stimulus to encourage domestic consumption and investment, thereby decreasing China’s vulnerability to external shocks.

As part of this initiative, China pursued large-scale infrastructure investments, such as building nearly 30,000 kilometers (18,600 miles) of high-speed railway. Increased connectivity – last year alone, that railway network carried nearly two billion passengers – facilitated much closer regional economic ties, propelled urbanization, and enhanced consumption substantially.

Thanks to such efforts – together with mergers and acquisitions to acquire key technologies and lucrative infrastructure investments in developed economies – China’s economy almost tripled in size from 2008 to 2018, with GDP reaching CN¥90 trillion ($13.6 trillion). Whereas China’s GDP was 50% smaller than Japan’s in 2008, by 2016, it was 2.3 times larger.

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To be sure, difficult challenges emerged. Land and housing values soared, with urban real-estate prices rising so fast that many feared a bubble. Credit growth raised further risks. Overall, however, expansionary policies supported China’s rapid emergence as a global economic power globally.

But China’s leaders did not plan one crucial feature of this growth pattern, let alone bring it about with industrial policy: the consumption-focused innovative industries that barely existed in 2008 and that are increasingly propelling the Chinese economy today.

China is now the global leader in e-commerce and mobile payments. In 2018, mobile payments in China amounted to $24 trillion – 160 times the US figure. The state-owned banks and petrochemical companies that were China’s top-ranking firms in 2008 have been surpassed by e-commerce and internet giants Alibaba and Tencent. Internet and technology firms are now creating tens of millions of jobs per year.

Meanwhile, the performance of the manufacturing sector – long the main engine of China’s development and still the country’s largest employer – has weakened, undermined in part by rapid wage growth. The result has been a fundamental change in the structural composition of China’s economy.

Yet rather than exploring this shift – which is not captured in traditional measures of GDP – many economists have focused on trying to poke holes in China’s growth narrative. A recent Brookings Institution study, for example, estimates that China’s economy is about 12% smaller than official figures indicate.

This does little good. The changes China’s economy has undergone over the last decade are sweeping, unprecedented, and essential. The world would be far better served by an effort to understand them than by attempting to prove that the country’s achievements are less impressive than they are.

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