English Reading:关于中国成为世界第二的真相

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-truth-about-china-as-_b_684004.html

It’s official. China is now #2. Its economy (measured in nominal GDP for the second quarter) is now bigger than Japan’s (according to numbers released today from the Japanese government). And at the rate it’s growing, China could be the world’s biggest economy in a little more than a decade (Goldman Sachs says by 2027, PricewaterhouseCoopers says by 2020). Don’t be misled by these numbers. The important thing isn’t China’s ranking, nor the total value of China’s production, nor even the extraordinary speed by which China has reached #2. What’s most important is the share China’s production received and consumed by the Chinese themselves. The problem is it continues to drop. China has dozens of billionaires but the vast majority of the Chinese are still extremely poor. The typical Chinese lives off the equivalent of about $3,600 a year. That puts him behind workers in 126 other countries. (The typical Japanese earns the equivalent of about $39,000; the typical American, $46,400.) Yes, Chinese employers are starting to respond to new-found demands of Chinese workers for higher wages. But Chinese wages are so meager relative to China’s productive capacity that it would take a tsunami of labor agitation to push pay up to where it should be. China is now the world’s largest market for everything from cars to cell phones – but that’s not because these items are within easy reach of the average Chinese. It’s because, out of 1.3 billion people, a couple of hundred million can save enough to buy them. If the wages and purchasing power of Chinese households continues to rise more slowly than China’s capacity to produce goods and services — more slowly than China’s corporate profits and the government’s share of national income — we’re all in trouble. Think of China as a giant production machine that’s growing 10 percent a year (this year, somewhat less). The machine sucks in more and more raw materials and components from rest of world — it’s now the world’s #1 buyer of iron ore and copper, and close to the #1 importer of crude oil — and spews out a growing mountain of stuff, along with huge environmental problems. But because the Chinese consume a smaller and smaller proportion of this stuff, it has to be exported to consumers elsewhere (Europe, North America, Japan) to keep the Chinese working. Much of the money China earns by selling it around the world is reinvested in factories, roads, trains, and power plants that enlarge China’s capacity to produce far more. Another big portion is lent to or invested in the rest of the world (helping to finance America’s budget deficit at very low cost). But this can’t go on. China’s workers won’t allow it. Workers in other nations who are losing their jobs won’t allow it, either. The answer is not simply more labor agitation in China or an upward revaluation of China’s currency relative to the dollar. The problem is bigger. All over the world, we’re witnessing a growing gap between production and consumption, while the environment continues to degrade. The Chinese machine is fast heading for a breakdown only because it’s growing fastest. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

中国成了世界第二，这可是官方消息。根据日本政府今天公布的数字，它的经济总量以第二季度的名义GDP计算，现在已超过日本。而且按照中国现在的增长速度，在十年多一点之后它将成为世界上最大的经济体（高盛说是2027年，普华永道说是2020年）。 千万别被这些数字给误导了。重要的不是中国的排名，也不是中国的生产总值，甚至不是中国达到世界第二的超高速。 重要的是，在它的产量中，中国人得到了多少份额，中国人消费了多少。而这个问题正越来越严重。 中国是有一小群亿万富翁，但是绝大多数的中国人仍然非常贫困。通常一个中国人的年收入相当于3,600美元，这个水平排在全世界126个国家之后。（通常一个日本人年收入是39,000美元；而一个美国人年收入是46,400美元。） 是的，中国的老板们已经开始对工人最近提出的更高工资的要求做出了回应。但是中国人的工资和产能相比实在微不足道，以至于如果把工资水平提升到应有的水平，将可能会引发一场劳工骚乱的海啸。 从汽车到手机，中国都是世界上最大的市场——但是这不是因为普通的中国人可以轻易地拥有它们，而是因为在13亿人中，有几亿人终于存足够了钱，可以买了。 如果中国人的工资和购买力的增长速度继续低于中国生产产品和服务的增长速度，比起中国的企业利润和政府收入占全国比例的增长得更慢，那我们都会有麻烦。 把中国想象成一个巨大的，以每年10%（今年要低一点）的速度增长的大生产机器。这台机器从周围的世界吞进越来越多的原材料和零部件——它现在是世界第一大铁矿石和铜的买家，接近世界第一的原油进口国——吐出堆积如山的产品，同时产生严峻的环境问题。 但是因为中国只消费自己生产的产品中很小很小的一部分，它必须把这些产品卖给世界各地的消费者（欧洲、北美和日本）才能继续生产。通过把产品卖到世界各地， 中国赚到的钱又重新投资到工厂、道路、火车和发电厂来增加中国的产能，然后生产更多。另外一大部分钱被借给或者投资于世界的其它地区（以非常低的代价为美 国的赤字预算融资）。 但是这样的情况不能持续下去。中国的工人不允许，其它国家正在失去工作的人们也不允许。 简单的提高人民币对美元的汇率或者更多的工人闹事不是答案。这个问题其实比想象的还要大。在全世界，我们正在见证生产和消费之间的差距在不断增大，而同时自然环境在持续恶化。因为这台中国机器正在以最快的速度增长，它也正朝着崩溃飞速前进。 本文作者：Robert Reich 是前劳动部部长（克林顿时期），伯克利大学的教授 作者：Robert Reich 发表时间：2010年8月16日 译者：Fuge 校对：@xiaomi2020