中国低速增长引起国内外激烈的争论。温家宝总理7月13-15日在四川，对着5个内陆省份的官员说，这是中国暂时的困难，而且困难还会持续一段时间。至于持续多久，就没有给出具体的答案。
我却认为不然，低增长不能被解释为困难，而是无可奈何的现实。如果低增长是困难，那就等于说过段时间，增长速度还会恢复到从前两位数增长的水平。其实，再回到两位数增长水平的可能性几乎为零，因为中国已经进入8%和以下的低增长路径，这是一种无情的结构性转变。
但是，许多国人还生活在中国可以长期保持两位数增长的梦想之中。抱着这种思想，就会认为8%以下的增长率就是灾难。其实，由于内外双重困难因素，中国继续保持10%的增长水平，不仅不可能，也没有必要，而且太快的增长还是有害的。
西方世界经济亢奋和衰退的经济周期，是市场经济不可抗拒的自然规律。中国也走市场经济的道路，所以也避免不了这种经济周期来回轮转的折磨。中国已经非常幸运了，34年连续不断的高位运行，从来没有发生过负增长的危机，造就了所谓的中国经济奇迹。
低增长，如果造成高失业率，那才能叫做灾难。为了避免这样的灾难，在低增长的同时，必须保证高就业。因此，每一个新的投资项目，都必须重新设计，以保证高的就业弹性和资源利用效率。
中国最大的挑战不是低增长率，而是社会不公、环境污染和腐败。既然低增长已经成为必然，哪么，那些短期的刺激措施就没有太大的作用了，只能造成今后更加复杂的麻烦。
日本、台湾和韩国是中国未来发展的良好模范。日本人口只有中国人口的十分之一，韩国人口只有中国人口的二十分之一不到，但是，丰田、索尼、现代和三星却是世界最有名望的知名品牌。
而中国有什么呢？中石油和中国工商银行是世界最大的上市公司之二，在中国却有‘万人坑’的骂名，也就是说，它们是靠坑害非国有中小企业、股民、存款者和普通百姓的利益来获取高额的垄断利润。
中国要进入低水平的发展路径，应该注重科技和教育，让企业有更加强大的人力资本和技术创新能力，在世界市场上有更加强大的竞争优势。
同时，政府必须打破大型国企的垄断，提高社会公平，控制腐败，才能保证国家长期的稳步发展。这样的话，老百姓就会感觉到低增长和高幸福。
Premier Wen Tells Leaders in South West China to Be Prepared for a Hard Time Ahead
Slow GDP growth in the second quarter of 2012 has attracted serious debates in and outside China. Premier WEN Jiabao visited the south western provinces of the country, telling local officials that they have to be prepared for a hard time in the second half of the year and beyond.
In fact, the rest of the world is also slowing down. The phrase ‘hard time’ may not be an appropriate description of the real situation in China today. Slow growth is an inevitable reality, not a hard time. If it were a hard time, it would imply that after a while, break-neck high growth would come back again.
However, the chance that China will go back to its past level of near two-digit level of growth is close to zero. In other words, slow growth is not temporal; it is permanent because a structural break has taken place.
People in China have been used to a near or even over two-digit level of growth for more than 30 years under economic reforms, particularly after its accession to the WTO, when China expanded its world trade volume, foreign exchange reserves and trade surplus at a phenomenal pace.
No country, including China, can be expected to continue such a break-neck growth without a pause, or a recession. Whether it is Europe, the US, or Japan, economic booms have always been accompanied with busts. The current financial crisis is no exception. It has merely followed a prolonged period of economic prosperity in virtually all parts of the world.
Economic boom and bust cycles are inevitable outcomes of a market economic system. Even though China has been capable of using a strong government hand to guide its socialist-style market economy, it is not unreasonable for China to experience a boom-bust cycle as well.
In fact, China has been very lucky compared to any other country in the world over the last three decades. The Chinese economy appears to have grown strongly and positively in every single quarter since economic reforms began in 1978, led by the late leader, Deng Xiaoping. This unbroken and rapid economic growth is termed as the China economic miracle in the literature, a miracle that no other country can match with such a large population.
Now that the world financial crisis is deepening and China’s domestic growth constraints have emerged, it is not unreasonable for a slowdown of growth. This slowing down process is probably a structural break, implying that once coming down from 10% to less than 8% per annum, it may not come back to its original level again. This structural break, in my view, is permanent. The Chinese government and people have to be prepared for the harsh reality and come up with a new development strategy, instead of trying to do short-term fixing activities that may lead to more long term complication and difficulty.
Heavy environmental pollution and extensive consumption of oil, coal and iron ores implies that China should not really continue with its past growth trajectory. Moreover, rising labour costs and structural shortage, relocation of manufacturing facilities westward from the coastal areas, all call for a slower growth of the economy.
Most people in China have not come to terms with this harsh reality and still dream in the world of 2-digit level of growth. Consequently, once they see the economy growing at less than 8% per year, they think it is a disaster for the country.
Slow growth can be a disaster only if it causes a rapid rise in unemployment. However, slow growth needs not be a disaster if every single new project can be re-designed to attract more labour and become more resource efficient. In that way, China can still manage a high level of employment with a much lower level of growth.
The biggest challenge that China faces is not slow growth, but its ability to improve income distribution, to reduce pollution, to eradicate poverty and to control corruption. If the government is fully aware of all these problems and take appropriate actions, people will become happier without rapid economic expansion.
Technology upgrading is important, too, but innovation and new products require time and patience to take place. As a result, more efforts should be focused on improving the country’s research and education systems so that industries will be equipped with better human resources and technologies to become more competitive in the world.
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are excellent examples for China’s future development and growth. Japan’s population is one-tenth of China’s. Korea’s population is less than one-twentieth of China’s. However, Japan and Korea have some of the world’s most admirable brand names such as Toyota, Sony, Sharp, Hyundai and Samsung.
What does China have? It has Petro-China and ICBC, which are two of the world’s largest companies by market value, but both of them have a Chinese nick-name called Wan Ren Keng, a tomb that buries tens of thousands of people. This nick-name implies that large Chinese firms have benefited from powerful natural monopoly at the expenses of shareholders, non-state small and medium sized enterprises, savers and consumers.
To create world-class brand names, China has to break down the monopoly power of its largest state-owned enterprises, subjecting them to tougher market competition and enabling other enterprises for easier market access with fair competition.
In the short term, China may still try to slow down the declining rate of growth through further cutting interest rate and reducing the bank deposit/reserves ratio. However, this kind of looser monetary policy can only have a limited short term effect at a price of creating more long term troubles.
Gradually, the government will realise that patience and better policies are needed to prevent China from a large crisis by accepting a much lower level of economic growth. Attention will then be focused on social justice and creation of a knowledge and technology-based economy.
