独立报 中国的红色与绿色

从北京这周的十七大报告看，中国领导人深深关切轻率的增长对环境的压力。然而，他们更关切日益加剧的不平等，最迫切的是增长对价格，特别是能源和食品价格的影响，以及通胀对社会凝聚力的威胁。

　　既定的关键点是增长势头将保持下去。领导人承诺了这一点。中国主席胡锦涛呼吁人均国内生产总值增长在未来数年比五年前国家计划的更快。他表示，在优化结构、提高效益、降低消耗、保护环境的基础上，实现人均国内生产总值到2020年比2000年翻两番。

　　当然，如何达成这种平衡则相当含糊。但对任何到过中国的人而言，经济状况很明显：令人惊叹的增长处处显而易见，或者至少在全国的城市显而易见。在政治方面，党代表大会是有趣的，因为它来自领导循环的中间点：它开始了选择在2012年接管大权的领导人的进程。但对我而言，在经济方面它甚至更为有趣，因为迈向市场经济的行军比五年前更为先进。

　　只需要看看一个事实：世界十大银行（以市值排名）中有三个是中国的。市值？哈，五年前，只有少数中国公司上市。如今，至少在外表看来，中国拥有西方市场经济的大部分属性，包括股市交易的繁荣。因此政治领袖要对付的问题和五年前相当不同。经济更大（大约大了70%），而且给环境和资源加大压力。但从企业所有权从国有转到私人股东来看，它还更“资本主义”。

　　这是特大规模的私有化。世界上人口最多的国家，一个仍然由共产党掌权的国家，以我们这里都难以达到的热情拥抱撒切尔政策。

　　房产所有权也在变化，年轻人购买他们自己的房子，而且常常是在每座城市外边如雨后春笋般拔地而起的新公寓小区。我上月在中国，我明白为什么。我所理解的原因是地方当局重要收入来源之一就是把土地租给这些新的业主去建设。因此城市就有了经济诱因，鼓励更多人拥有房子，这个诱因比英国地方当局鼓励廉价出售公共住房给租客那时的诱因大得多，它增加房子供应，而不是仅仅改变现有库存的所有权。

　　在经济角度来看，所有这些都是有意义的：中国迈向全球经济市场资本主义标准。但即使它这样做的时候面对各种制约，但它确实做得非常快。因此，不平等以及市场体系的其他粗糙因素在全国冒出来。

　　然而最大的不平等不在于城市内部的贫富差距，而是西部省份（大部分是农村）与东南部城市之间的差距。中国在经历最大的人口迁移，数百万人从农村涌入城市寻找工作。

　　在中期，胡锦涛所寻求的那种增长应该是把大部分人口提高到一个可接受的生活水平。这不仅出于人道主义理由，而是出于政治理由。但增长的步伐也带来了巨大的紧张，而且对付这些紧张已经成为重点。

　　然而，北京应对这种压力的正确方法和西方的有相当大差别。我可能错了，但我在中国金融圈子的交流让我获得一种强烈的印象：在可见的将来，环境关切将仍然次要于增长。没错，人们关切污染、空气质量和公众健康，而且将会做些事情。领导层将带上更绿色环保的气息。但根本上来说，增长为先。只有当来自增长的压力在食品和能源价格高涨等影响群众的事情上体现的时候，领袖才会担忧。

　　在此刻，食品价格逐年上涨。通胀率6.5%。没错，城市工资上涨了12%，因此我猜想总体生活水平在提高。但如果人们被迫为必需品支付更多的钱，情况可能就不一样了。中国是粮食净进口国，而且是能源进口国，因此它已经更多地依赖世界价格。真相是，由于它要消耗很多世界资源，这种上涨的压力似乎还会继续。

　　这对我们其他人来说意味着什么？唉，我们不得不学会与复兴的中国共存。一个繁荣而满足的中国，一个采纳它自己的市场资本主义的中国，当然比一个不得不对付贫困与愤怒的中国更符合我们自己的利益。但关键问题（它不能完全追随西方高消耗模式，因为没有支持这样做的资源）还没有解决。

　　胡锦涛强调节约资源和保护环境的必要性，我们都应该对此感到鼓舞，但我们同样应该意识到增长为先。好戏在后头呢。（原标题：中国想着红色，但开始谈绿色；作者：Hamish McRae）

Hamish McRae: China thinks red but starts to talk green

Published: 17 October 2007

Is the Chinese leadership going green, or is it just running scared? Actually, I think it is a bit of both, though scared may be too strong. To judge by the reports from the 17th National People's Congress in Beijing this week, it is deeply concerned by the pressures that headlong growth has generated on the environment.

It is, however, even more concerned about rising inequality and, most immediately, the impact growth is having on prices, particularly of energy and food, and the threat to social cohesion this inflation creates.

The given point is that growth will continue to race along. The leadership is committed to that. Hu Jintao, the president, called for gross domestic product per capita to rise even faster over the coming years than had been planned at the previous Congress five years ago. "We will quadruple per capita GDP of the year 2000 by 2020 through optimising the economic structure and improving economic returns while reducing consumption of resources and protecting the environment," he said.

Quite how that balance will be achieved is, of course, opaque. But for anyone who visits China, what is happening in the economy is not opaque at all: the astounding growth is evident everywhere, or, at least, in the cities all over the country, but so are the costs. This Congress is interesting, in political terms, because it comes at the mid-point of the leadership cycle: it is starting the process to choose the next set of leaders who will take over in 2012.

But, aside from the point that the Chinese do their leadership planning in a more orderly way than our political parties do here, it seems to me that it is even more interesting in economic terms because the march to a market economy is much more advanced than it was five years ago.

To take just one fact: three of the 10 largest banks in the world, ranked by market capitalisation, are Chinese. Market capitalisation? Huh? Five years ago there were only a handful of Chinese companies whose shares were traded at all. Now, in outward appearance at least, China has most of the attributes of a western market economy, including a stock-exchange boom. So the political leadership has to cope with quite different issues from five years ago. The economy is larger, sure – about 70 per cent larger, and that is putting strain on the environment and resources. But it also much more "capitalist" in the sense that ownership of businesses is shifting from the state to the private shareholder.

This is privatisation on a mega scale. The world's most populous country, and one still ruled by a Communist party, is embracing the policies of Margaret Thatcher with an enthusiasm that we never quite managed to generate here.

Housing ownership is shifting, too, with young people buying their own homes, often in the new apartment blocks that are springing up outside every city. When I was in China last month I understood why. It was explained to me that one of the main sources of revenue for local authorities was to lease land to these new homeowners for building. So there is a financial incentive on cities to encourage more home ownership, a much stronger one than that on British local authorities when they were encouraged to sell off council housing to tenants, and one that increases the supply of housing, rather than just changing the ownership of existing stock.

In economic terms, all this makes sense: China is moving towards the proven global economic standard of market capitalism. But even though it is doing so with all sorts of checks, it is doing so very fast indeed. As a consequence, the inequalities and other rough elements of the market system are bursting out all over the country.

The visitor catches only a glimpse of these. The new wealth of the winners may be evident but the human cost to the losers is less so. For me, one of the sharpest memories last month was catching a glimpse of an elderly women in a state of collapse being carried by her family out of one of the few houses still standing on a building site on the outskirts of Shanghai, as new flats were springing up all around.

The greatest inequalities, however, are not between rich and poor within the cities, but, rather, between the western mostly rural provinces and the eastern and southern cities. China is experiencing the greatest population movement that has ever occurred, as millions of people flock from country to town in search of jobs.

In the medium term, the sort of growth that President Hu is seeking, if shared reasonably equitably, should bring most of the population up to an acceptable living standard. That has to happen not just for humanitarian reasons, but also for political ones. Having embarked on this long forced march to a modest prosperity for its people, the country can't really stop now without catastrophic political consequences. But the pace of growth also leads to huge strains, and coping with those strains has shot up the priorities.

The perception of the right way to cope with the pressure is, however, rather different in Beijing than it is in the West. I may be wrong, but I got the strong impression from talking with people in the financial community in China that concern about the environment will remain secondary to growth for the foreseeable future. Yes, there is concern about pollution, air quality and public health, and things will be done. The leadership will take on a greener tinge. But, ultimately, growth comes first. Only when pressure from growth shows itself in something like higher food and energy costs – which affect the mass of the population – will the leadership worry.

At the moment, food prices are running 18 per cent up year on year. Inflation as a whole is 6.5 per cent. True, urban wages are up about 12 per cent, so I suppose overall living standards are rising. But if people are forced to pay more for necessities, it may not feel like that. China is a net importer of food as well as an importer of energy, so it has become much more dependent on world prices. The truth is, it is scooping up so much of the world's resources that this upward pressure seems likely to continue.

The implications for the rest of us? Well, we have to learn to live with a resurgent China. It is surely in our self-interest to have a prosperous and contented China, adopting its version of market capitalism, than to have to cope with a poor and angry one. But the key issue – that it cannot follow exactly the high-consumption model of the West because there aren't the resources to support that – is unresolved.

We should all be encouraged by this emphasis of President Hu on the need to conserve resources and protect the environment, but we should equally be aware that growth comes first. We ain't seen nothing yet.