中国模式已走到尽头 （双语）

　　August in China has been anything but the quiet month of myth. Developments in the equity and foreign exchange markets and even the appalling industrial accident in Tianjin might seem mere bad luck when considered individually. Together, however, they symbolise a slow-motion denouement of China’s economic and political model. The country is now going through a crisis of transition, unparalleled since Deng Xiaoping set out to put clear water between China’s future and the Mao era.

　　中国今年的8月绝不是一个宁静的神话之月。当单个考察时，股市和汇市行情，甚至耸人听闻的天津爆炸事故，似乎仅仅是运气糟糕的结果。然而，对这些情况综合考察会发现，它们标志着中国经济和政治模式正慢慢走向终结。中国正在经历一场转型危机，一场自邓小平开始在中国未来与毛时代之间画出清晰界限以来的前所未有的危机。

　　The signs are that it is not going so well. Rebooting the authority and primacy of the Communist party, the pursuit of often contentious reforms, financial liberalisation and rebalancing the economy while trying to sustain an unrealistic rate of growth are complex and mutually incompatible goals.

　　这些迹象表明，中国转型并不顺利。再推中共的权威和主导地位、实行经常有争议的改革、推动金融自由化，以及在保持不现实增速的同时实现经济再平衡，这些是复杂并且相互冲突的目标。

　　Deng’s task in a pre-industrial society without a middle class and social media was, in many ways, easier. Determined to avoid the concentration of power in one individual, he empowered government bodies and ministers, especially the State Council and the prime minister, and encouraged openness and a consensus-driven political model. This worked well enough until the 21st century, but gradually tended towards atrophy. The party succumbed to corruption and paid scant attention to citizens’ concerns about social, environmental and product safety. The economy built up high levels of debt, overcapacity and an addiction to misallocated and credit-fuelled investment.

　　在未出现中产阶层和社交媒体的前工业社会，邓小平的任务在许多方面来看更容易完成。他下定决心避免把权力集中到一个人手中，所以向政府机构和各部长、尤其是向国务院和总理赋权，鼓励开放和以共识为基础的政治模式。直到21世纪之前，这种做法都很管用，但其效果在逐渐地降低。中共受到腐败侵蚀，忽略了民众对社会、环境和产品安全的关切。中国经济积累了大量债务，产能严重过剩，沉迷于信贷驱动而又配置不当的投资。

　　To address these serious problems, President Xi Jinping has turned the clock back. He has accumulated more power than any leader since Mao and consistently emphasised the Leninist need for “party purity” to avoid the fate of the Soviet Communist party. Among his first policies was an extralegal anti-corruption campaign that continues to this day. He has usurped the authority of government institutions by establishing party bodies, known as “small leading groups”, that are more numerous than ministries and hold sway over the most important functions of the state.

　　为了解决这些严重问题，中国国家主席习近平让时钟倒转。他逐渐掌握了比自毛泽东以来任何一位领导人都大的权力，不断强调保持列宁主义式“党的纯洁性”的必要性，以避免苏共的命运。在他的第一批政策里，有一场延续至今的不受法律管辖的反腐运动。他通过建立党的机构——“领导小组”——取代政府机构的权威，这些小组比部委还多，对国家最重要的职能拥有决定权。

　　There was doubtless a strong case for some re-centralisation of power in China, especially to implement the party’s ambitious reforms. Yet while some reforms have made progress, many important ones affecting the role of the state in the economy and the introduction of market mechanisms have suffered from dilution and the opposition of vested interests. The clampdown on civil society, media, legal and non-governmental institutions has not helped. A strong central authority, perversely, has stifled important reforms, removed authority and accountability from those institutions responsible for carrying them out and produced conflicted decision-making.

　　在中国，一定程度上重新集中权力无疑有很强大的理由，尤其是对于实施中共雄心勃勃的改革而言。不过，尽管一些改革取得了进展，但与政府在经济中的职能以及引入市场机制有关的许多改革，遭到了既得利益势力的稀释和抵制。对公民社会、媒体、律师和非政府机构的压制于事无补。强大的中央集权反而抑制了重要改革，使负责执行这些改革的机构丧失权威和问责，还产生了彼此冲突的决策。

　　That is why August’s events matter. Encouragement of the stock market was supposed to be a weathervane for market mechanisms and a more efficient allocation of capital. But equities suffered a relapse, following extraordinary support measures estimated at more than $150bn. The indices are still flirting with the nadir reached in early July. Caught between its roles as cheerleader and regulator, the government has shown a lack of trust in the very market forces it sought to introduce.

　　这就是8月动态很重要的原因。对股市的鼓励本应是政府支持市场机制和资金更有效配置的风向标。但在估计逾1500亿美元的非常托市措施之后，中国股市却再度恶化。股指仍在7月初的低点徘徊。中国政府一会儿做拉拉队长，一会儿做监管者，表现出对于自己寻求引入的市场力量的不信任。

　　This month’s mini-devaluation of the renminbi was explained officially as an incremental change to China’s financial liberalisation, designed to help the currency’s admission later this year to the International Monetary Funds’s accounting unit, the Special Drawing Right. Yet the action was communicated poorly at best. Again, the authorities have been conflicted, torn between a strong renminbi policy to help rebalance the economy, and a softer one to respond to weakening growth. Economic statistics this summer, especially for exports, manufacturing and investment, were disappointing, underscoring that weaker performance for the past four years has become impervious to stimulus measures, which this year already add up to more than 1 per cent of gross domestic product.

　　本月人民币小幅贬值被官方解释为中国迈向金融自由化的一次阶段性调整，旨在推动人民币在今年晚些时候被纳入国际货币基金组织(IMF)的核算单位——特别提款权(Special Drawing Right)。不过，中国有关该举动的沟通委婉地说也很糟糕。当局再一次处于矛盾之中，在推动经济再平衡的人民币升值政策和应对增长不断放缓的人民币贬值政策之间左右为难。今年夏天的经济统计数据、特别是出口、制造业和投资方面的数据令人失望，这凸显出刺激措施对过去4年走弱的经济表现已经无能为力了。今年，这些刺激措施已经推动国内生产总值(GDP)增长超过1%。

　　A central part of the challenge for China will be its ability to manage employment, a more politically sensitive indicator than GDP. The official unemployment rate, supposedly about 4 per cent over many years, is fiction. Current developments in investment and labour-intensive construction, the low registration for unemployment benefits among those without urban registration status, the weakness of the benefit system and the difficulties of finding suitable work for 7m graduates a year are among many reasons to believe that the jobless rate may not only be higher than the 6.3 per cent estimated by the International Labour Organisation but rising.

　　中国面临的挑战的核心部分将是其控制就业的能力，这是在政治上比GDP更为敏感的指标。官方失业率（据说多年来一直处于4%左右）是捏造出来的。投资和劳动密集型的建筑业当前的态势、无城市户口人群较低的失业补贴登记率、福利体系的缺陷、以及每年700万毕业生寻找合适工作的困难程度等诸多原因让人相信，失业率可能不仅比国际劳工组织(International Labour Organisation)估计的6.3%更高、而且还在不断上升。

　　China’s economic transition was always going to be difficult, but developments this year suggest that things are not going according to plan. The centralisation of power is proving to be a double-edged sword for reform, the anti-corruption campaign is choking off initiative and growth and the economy cannot be kept on an unrealistic expansionary path by unending stimulus.

　　中国的经济转型一直很艰难，但是今年的事态表明，事情并没有按计划进展。事实正日益证明，权力集中化对改革是一把双刃剑，反腐运动正在遏制经济中的主动性和经济增长，经济无法再通过无休止的刺激来维持不切实际的扩张路线。

　　The time for accepting a permanently lower growth rate is drawing closer. It will test the legitimacy and reform appetite of China’s leaders in ways that will determine the country’s prospects for years to come.

　　接受长期较低增长的时刻正日益临近。它将以影响中国未来发展前景的方式，检验中国领导人的合法性及改革愿望。