商业周刊 中国高层的目标是稳定

中国高级官员有一个共同的重申，分为两部分：一是强调中国广大的农村人口，农民有大约8亿到9亿，他们的收入和生活水平远远落后于城市居民。因此，中国的收入差距可能威胁到社会稳定。因此中国的领导人已经定下目标：在二十年内，甚至到2020年，中国应成为全体公民的一个“中等富裕的社会”，大约就像今天的葡萄牙。领导们几乎异口同声地说，实现这个目标的机制理论上简单，实践中复杂。

　　高级领导人共同重申的第二部分是无论中国变得多么强大，它绝不会威胁其他国家。领导援引中国的非扩张主义历史，试图打消“中国威胁论”。他们务实地指出，为了获得时间和条件改善广大农村人口的生活水平，中国需要国际和谐以及稳定的全球经济秩序。中国领导人宣称要把重点放在减轻国内的收入差距，而不是扩大国家在海外的势力。

　　要理解中国对自己未来的看法，人们需要理解两个概念——稳定与自豪。中国领导人以多种形式反映这两个概念。稳定不仅是领导人和官员的口号，而且是大多数中国人的口号。文革的混乱和极端仍然是一个象征：绝不能让这种事情再次发生。

　　中国领导人竭力表述政改尽管不会奉行西式民主，但会提高政府的透明度，会提供集体决策以摒除专制和非理性的领导，会提供更多的代表选择（如果不是选举的话），会提高全国人大的权力，如此等等。他们表示，这些政改的趋势将持续到中国发展出与历史、文化、经济以及13亿中国人的社会需要相协调的、自己的民主。

　　自豪表达了一个文化和技术文明引领世界数世纪、但却遭到外国侵略者的压迫和凌辱、遭到国内暴君的阻碍和蹂躏的民族的内在感情。现在，中国已经重获它在世界大国之林的位置，而且涉足经济和国际事务的各个重要方面，中国人民为他们的复兴而自豪。

　　在人类事业的各个领域，从商业到文化，从奥运健将到太空飞船，从音乐艺术到现代科学和古代哲学，中国寻求它应得的世界领袖地位。中国为自己的能源公司、电信公司和银行的市值列席世界最大感到自豪。

　　至于私营领域，一位爱国官员表示，“我们并不公开强调这一点，但我们都知道私营企业驱动中国的未来，已经贡献中国GDP的一半以上。”“企业家已经成为中国一个事实上的党派，仅次于实际掌权的共产党。我们聆听企业家。我们留心他们的需要。”

　　经济增长仍然是优先的，但如今其他因素，例如污染和公平也得到考虑。

　　在刚刚结束的中共十七大上，中国主席胡锦涛61次提到民主。尽管这个词不等同于西方一人一票的意义，但胡锦涛和中国高级领导人是认真要实现渐进的、谨慎的政治改革的，包括党内民主和提高各层政府的问责性。尽管被西方低估（常常遭到西方奚落），胡锦涛增强民主的呼声继续漫长的、敏感的、把该国从一个专制国家转变为“精英民主”的进程。假设没有严重的经济混乱，胡锦涛的“民主构想”是中国社会逐步发展的好兆头。（作者 Robert Lawrence Kuhn）


China's Elite Aims for Stability

By boosting democracy and market forces, the country's leaders seek to raise living standards among the rural poor—and avoid potential upheaval

by Robert Lawrence Kuhn

(This is the second in a two-part series on how China's senior analysts and leaders think about the future of their country. The first part looked at

forecasts by researchers (BusinessWeek, 10/16/07)

at the Institute of Quantitative & Technical Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, an official Chinese government think tank housing more than 3,000 scholars and researchers.)

Government forecasters reflect one part of China's vision of its own future; political leaders reflect the other part. Senior officials voice a common, two-part refrain: The first stresses the country's vast rural population, some 800 million to 900 million farmers and peasants (roughly two-thirds of the country) whose incomes and standards of living lag far behind urban residents. Thus, China's income gap can threaten social stability. So China's leaders have set a goal: Within two decades, perhaps even by 2020, China should become a "moderately well-off [xiaokang] society" for all its citizens, something like Portugal is today. The mechanisms to achieve this, leaders say virtually in unison, are as complex in practice as they are simple in theory.

The second expression of senior leaders' common refrain is that no matter how strong China becomes, it will never threaten other countries. Leaders point to China's non-expansionist history in trying to defuse the "China Threat." argument. They make the pragmatic point that China requires international harmony and a stable global economic order if it is to have the time and conditions to improve the standards of living of the country's vast rural population. China's leaders claim to focus on mitigating the income gap at home, not on expanding the country's power abroad.

Developing Its Own Kind of Democracy

To understand China's vision of its own future, one need appreciate two concepts—stability and pride — which China's senior leaders reflect in diverse forms. Stability is the watchword of the large majority of the Chinese people, not just of leaders and officials. The self-immolating Cultural Revolution, during which, for a full decade (1966-1976), the entire country was in chaotic thrall to Mao Zedong's political extremism, remains an ever-present symbol of what never to let happen again.

China's leaders go out of their way to describe the kind of political reform that, while not embracing Western-style democracy, does provide for increasing transparency in government, for collective decision-making that makes dictatorship and irrational leadership impossible, for more representative selections (if not elections) of Communist Party officials, for increasing powers of the National People's Congress, and the like. These trends of political reform, they say, will continue until "China develops its own kind of democracy consistent with the historical, cultural, economic, and social needs of 1.3 billion Chinese people."

Pride expresses the visceral feelings of a people whose civilization of culture and technology led the world for centuries, only to be humiliated and oppressed by foreign invaders and stymied and scourged by domestic tyrants. Now that China has regained its position at the high table of the great nations of the world, and it is involved in every important aspect of economic and international affairs, the Chinese people are proud of their renaissance.

The Private Sector Drives the Future

In every sphere of human endeavor, from business to culture, Olympic athletes to space taikonauts, music and art to modern science and ancient philosophy, China seeks its fair share of world leaders. For example, in every industry of importance, China's senior leaders expect its corporations to become among the largest and most successful in the world. When Haier CEO Zhang Ruimin stated in the middle 1990s that Haier's goal was to become a leading global company, foreign analysts barely noticed. Today, Haier is the world's second-largest manufacturer of refrigerators (after Whirlpool (WHR), among the top 1000 manufacturers in the world, and its brand name has just joined the prestigious list of the World's 100 Most Recognizable Brands. China is proud that the market capitalizations of its companies in energy, telecommunications, and banking are among the largest in the world.

Regarding the private sector, a patriotic high official put it this way: "We don't stress this publicly but we all know that the private sector drives China's future, already generating more than half of China's GDP [gross domestic product]. We're not sure how much more than half—we're standardizing the data—but we are sure that its percentage will continue to increase during the early stages of our socialist market economy. The private sector produces roughly 60% of new patents (75% of high tech's), consumes 60% of investments, and creates 80% of new jobs. All of us support the overall sector with favorable policies and assist individual companies with targeted programs. We've amended rules to remove restrictions. for example, private companies can now do some defense-related business. Entrepreneurs—business owners—have become like a virtual party in China, second only to the Communist Party in real power. We listen to entrepreneurs. We are attentive to their needs."

Spiritual values will play a larger role in society. The official encouragement of traditional Chinese philosophy and teachings is a dramatic break from traditional Communism's official disparagement of religion. China now praises its indigenous religion, Daoism, and extols the timeless wisdom of Daoism's holy scriptures, the Daodejing.

Looking to Stand Out in Science and Technology

What about nationalism? Is there not emergent jingoism in China? Some senior leaders dismiss the notion, others admit concern (especially among young people). Most counter the question by asserting that controlling such nationalistic tendencies is another reason the party must, for the foreseeable future, continue to rule China and thereby continue to guide the country into responsible statecraft.

What about pollution, an increasingly devastating scourge? A senior leader put it this way: "We seek balance, optimizing economic growth with environmental protection, but when we must choose, we must still choose growth, because it is just not fair to comfort well-off urban residents by protecting their environment, while condemning disadvantaged rural residents to more generations of continuing poverty."

It is in the arena of science and technology that China seeks to shine. President Hu Jintao calls for creativity and innovation to be hallmarks of the country's educational and industrial future. Hu's policy of "Scientific Development Perspective" rejects economic growth as China's sole objective but seeks integrated sets of optimized solutions to complex arrays of multifarious problems.

Looking to the Fifth Generation of Leaders

Economic growth is still prioritized, but now other factors, such as pollution and fairness (i.e., income imbalances), are also considered. For example, in Jiangsu Province, Party Secretary Li Yuanchao rejected making the city of Taizhou into a major cement center. Though it would have generated high growth, the plan would have also created high pollution. Instead, he devised a long-term strategy to establish Taizhou as a major pharmaceutical and biomedical center featuring 100 world-class specialty hospitals. (It does not escape our notice that future-oriented Taizhou is President Hu's hometown.)

In his work report to the just-concluded 17th National Congress of the Communist Party, held every five years, President Hu mentioned "democracy" 61 times. Though not giving the word the same one-person-one-vote meaning that it holds in the West, Hu and China's senior leadership are serious in bringing about gradual, careful political reform, including "inner-party democracy" (i.e., meaningful voting within the party in the selection of officials and the establishment of laws) and increasingly accountable government at all levels. Underappreciated (and often counterproductively ridiculed) in the West, Hu's enhanced call for democracy continues the long, sensitive process of converting the country from an authoritarian state into what I (not Chinese leaders) call a "democracy of the elite" (the elite, of course, being the party). Assuming no severe economic dislocations, which could trigger chaos and crackdown, Hu's "democratic vision"augurs well for the progressive development of Chinese society.

Finally, there can be no better bellwether of China's future than to assess the background and orientation of the two just-designated leaders of China's next generation, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, both this week appointed to the standing committee of the Politburo, the highest ruling body of the Chinese government. As so-called Fifth Generation leaders (after Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao), Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are now odds-on favorites to assume the two pinnacle-of-power positions for consecutive five-year terms commencing in 2012, which therefore end in 2022. Xi is in line to become general secretary of the Communist Party, president of China, and chairman of the Central Military Commission, while Li is a shoo-in for premier.

A Pro-Business Perspective

Both have PhDs (earned while on the job): Xi in law (from prestigious Tsinghua University, where his undergraduate degree was in chemical engineering) and Li in economics (from equally prestigious Beijing University, where his undergraduate degree was in law). Both have run two large provinces (Xi having recently taken charge of Shanghai after a political scandal). Both are proudly pro-business and show great sensitivity to President Hu's "scientific development perspective." Both are energetic and innovative and like to make things happen.

In meeting Xi Jinping when he was party secretary of eastern China's Zhejiang Province—where the private business sector accounted for 70% of total output value, paid 60% of local taxes, and provided 90% of all jobs—I learned that one of his primary concerns was to maintain harmony between business owners and workers. Such harmony, he said, was the only way that economic development of the country and social well-being of the masses could both be advanced.

In meeting Li Keqiang when he was party secretary of northeastern China's Liaoning Province, I learned that one of his primary challenges was to animate the then-new national policy of "revitalizing the Northeast," the region that had been China's industrial center in the 1950s and 1960s but had fallen far behind other parts of the country during China's transformation from a planned to a market economy. The key, Li said, was to find market-sensitive ways to restructure large-scale, state-owned enterprises while at the same time creating a healthy environment for private business to flourish.

So, pulling it all together, how does China see China's future? How to sift the data of government forecasters and the ideas of senior leaders? As a Chinese minister said, "Everyone always exaggerates China. In the past, when the world thought us weak, we weren't so weak, and now, when the world thinks us strong, we aren't so strong."

Dr. Kuhn, an international investment banker and senior adviser at Citigroup, is the editor of China's Banking and Financial Markets: The Internal Research Report of the Chinese Government and the author of The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin, China's best-selling book in 2005.