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Predicting the Future of China (fwd)
Ca'c ba'c,
Quan ta^m dde^'n VN thi` pha?i quan ta^m dde^'n Ta`u. DDo' la`quan ddie^?m
cu?a nh~ ke? si'nh Ta`u nhu+ tui. Tu+` nga`y bo.n Ta^y va` ca'c cu. Duy
Ta^n ke'o da^n ta ra kho?i qu~y dda.o cu?a Ta`u (mo^.t ca'ch nu+?a vo+`i,
khie^'n ta cu+' nhu`ng nha(`ng "ddi thi` cu~ng do+? o+? kho^ng xong") da^n
ta kho^ng co`n ho.c chu+~ Ha'n, ta vu+`a ma^'t ca'i mo^'i lie^n he^. chu+~
nghi~a vo+'i to^? tie^n, vu+`a ma^'t ca'i co^ng cu. hu+~u hie^.u dde^?
hie^?u tha(`ng Ta`u. Vi` the^' so vo+'i ca'c cu. xu+a, ta nga`y nay kho^ng
hie^?u tha(`ng Ta`u trong gan ruo^.t cu?a no', la.i ddi hu`a vo+'i bo.n
Ta^y xi xo^ so+. bo'ng so+. vi'a tha(`ng Ta`u. DDo' cu~ng la` mo^.t ly' do
khie^'n ta nay không co`n cho+i ngang pha^n vo+'i tha(`ng Ta`u dduo+.c
nhu+ ca'c cu. ta nga`y xu+a.
Bo.n Ta^y tuy va^.y cu~ng kho^ng pha?i bo.n ngo^'c, ne^n co' chu+`ng
chu'ng nga`y nay co`n hie^?u Ta`u ho+n ca? ta. DDe^? cung ca^'p tho^ng tin
cho ca'c ba'c si'nh Ta`u, tui pho' uo^'t ba`i na`y mo+`i ca'c ba'c ddo.c.
Cu~ng la` dde^? thie^'t thu+.c la^.p tha`nh ti'ch cha`o mu+`ng nu+?a
the^' ky? tha`nh la^.p nuo+'c CHNDTH. Ba'o TIME tuy cu~ng co' khi dda(ng
ta?i nh~ tho^ng tin thie^'u chi'nh xa'c (vi' du. ba`i cu?a Bu`i Ti'n vu+`a
ru`i co' nh~ tho^ng tin sai va` do ddo' nha^.n ddi.nh sai ve^` Ho^` Chi'
Minh). Nhu+ng (nhu+ nh~ tho^ng tin duo+'i dda^y) cu~ng la` nh~ ddie^`u
ne^n tham kha?o dde^? bie^'t ho. nghi~ gi` (hoa(.c la`m ra ve? nghi~ gi`).
Ngoa`i ra, ta.p chi' Foreign Affairs trong so^' Sep/Oct 99 co' ba`i cu?a
Gerald Segal, chuye^n gia ha`ng dda^`u cu?a Anh ve^` chie^'n luo+.c va`
cha^u A' Tha'i bi`nh duo+ng, nhan dde^` "Does China Matter?" ddu+a ra
lua^.n ddie^?m "China is less a global rival like the Soviet Union than a
regional threat like Iraq" ma` tui cu~ng ra^'t ta'n ddo^`ng. Ga^`n mo^.t
ke^' hoa.ch na(m na(m sau ba`i ba'o cu?a Samuel Huntington cu~ng tre^n
Foreign Affairs nhan dde^` "Crash of Civilizations?" , ra^'t co' the^?
ba`i ba'o cu?a Segal dda'nh da^'u mo^.t ngoa(.t re~ trong dda'nh gia' cu?a
"phuo+ng Ta^y" ve^` Ta`u, thay cho mo^.t ca'i nhi`n run ra^?y
nhu+ cu?a Huntington la` mo^.t ca'i nhi`n tu+. tin ho+n va` pha?n a'nh
ddu'ng thu+.c lu+.c ho+n.
(FYI: Foreign Affairs la` ta.p chi' cu?a Council of Foreign Relations,
mo^.t ddi.nh che^' nghie^n cu+'u chie^'n luo+.c va` ddo^'i ngoa.i so^' 1
cu?a My~, ta.p chi' FA la` no+i dda(ng ta?i nh~ y' kie^'n va` dde^` xua^'t
cu?a ca'c bo^. o'c chie^'n luo+.c ha`ng dda^`u cu?a phuo+ng Ta^y, no^m na
go.i la` bo.n mo+'m y' cho ca'c ba'c la~nh dda.o chi'nh tri.)
Lam
---------------------------
http://www.pathfinder.com/time/asia/magazine/1999/990719/china1.html
TIME
JULY 19, 1999 VOL. 154 NO. 2
Predicting the Future of China
With the People's Republic about to turn 50,
TIME and the World Economic Forum convened a
panel of experts in Beijing to envision the next
half-century
The Economic Puzzle
Nicholas Lardy, senior fellow, Brookings
Institution:
China's record in generating growth and improvements
in
productivity, as opposed to simply accumulating
capital, is
not very impressive. It is difficult to foresee how,
in the next
50 years, China can move to an economy where
technological innovation--a knowledge-based
economy--generates a large portion of its growth.
Fan Gang, director, National
Economic Research Institute: If
you look at the fast-growing
countries of the past 50 years, they
were all in one way or another run by
authoritarian governments, Japan
being an exception. But in the next 50 years
democracies
will have an edge. In the past, the best economic
model was
the fast and successful catch-up country. The
emphasis
was on assembly-type operations, labor discipline
and
low-end skills. It is quite possible in the next 50
years to
have a dramatically different model.
Andy Xie, executive director, Morgan Stanley Dean
Witter: The most important development in China's
future
will be the movement toward the rule of law. It's
the
foundation of a modern economy--in which people with
ideas
create wealth, not the people who have control over
capital.
This transition is not going to be an entirely
smooth
one. Too
many people in China are still focused on
capital-intensive
industries.
Fan: Globalization, especially of the financial
markets,
implies that entrepreneurs don't have to rely on the
local
capital market. So the role of the government in
managing
finance to provide capital is diminished. And that's
very good
for small, innovative entrepreneurs. In Asia it's
likely that
we'll have two business models: the more traditional
one that
emphasizes basic skills and disciplines, and another
that
emphasizes innovation and ideas. It is likely that
democracy
fosters the new model and creates conditions for it
to
succeed better than authoritarian governments could.
So the
relationship between politics and economics is going
to be
quite different from what the world has known
before.
Xie: If you look at ethnic Chinese in the region,
you'll see
they have a common set of characteristics. For
example,
they're very risk-taking, very entrepreneurial. On
the
other
hand, they have not been able to create big,
successful
corporations. In the next 50 years, we'll see
increasing use
of information technology. So a higher level of
organization
will not be as important as before. This is what
Bill
Gates
has been talking about: empowering individuals in
small
organizations. This works very much in favor of
Chinese
culture. If you're worried that somehow China has
not
created big successful corporations, in the
long-term
this
trend might work out in China's favor.
Fan: There's something else starting to emerge
that's
very
important. Recently we had a constitutional change
that
gave private ownership legal protection. More and
more
people realized the importance of the ownership
issue,
the
property rights issue.
Huang: But there has to be a dynamic process. In the
past,
growth came from the fact that society was stable.
In
the
future, returns will be coming from dynamic, mobile
people
and capital, and therefore there has to be some sort
of legal
system to accommodate that. The demand for a
different
type of political and legal system will increase
relative to the
demand for a stable and traditional system. I would
associate growth with democracy and the rule of law.
We
ought to invest more in creating those types of
political
institutions that reward people for their
innovativeness and
energy.
Fan: Why weren't democracy and growth compatible
before? Previously, growth was controlled by the
government. The ownership was in the state, so there
was
no middle class, no private owners, no fundamental
framework for democracy. Why couldn't China tolerate
demonstrations before? Because if you had a
demonstration
on the street, the whole economy stopped. Not like
in
South
Korea, where they can have student demonstrations
every
day but the economy keeps going. This is why I think
private
ownership is fundamental.
Huang: As long as you have growth, you can use the
benefits of growth to pacify the losers. Instead of
using a
political authoritarian system to suppress dissent,
what you
do is manage growth and then use its benefits to
pacify
those left behind. That's how democracy solved that
problem.
Heading to the City
Zhang Yunling, director, Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences: I think you'll see continuous
globalization
and
technological innovation in the future. China's
economy will
be based more on high-tech. However, since China is
such a
large country, vast areas will be relatively
backward.
In the
next 50 years, 80% of the population will move to
urban
areas. They will not rely on agriculture for their
livelihood.
That's a fundamental change in society: 500 million
people
will move, changing their lives, changing culture,
changing
values.
Fan: Yes, but the urbanization process itself will
create
jobs. The reason why is that in previous years rural
industry
was limited--it produced things, but it didn't
produce
many
consumers. Urbanization means more public
infrastructure,
more housing. The urban service sector itself
creates
jobs.
Xie: But urbanization also can create an ecological
disaster.
So in China people have to pioneer something like a
supercity. It will be something different from what
the United
States is experiencing. It's more like in Japan.
Take
Honshu
Island--the whole island is really a city with 60
million to 70
million people. That is the sort of scale we're
talking about.
Xie: The future of agriculture
depends largely on genetic
engineering and mechanization, so
it's very possible that the yields
could rise a lot. Look at the
development of new varieties of corn.
Corn crops in the U.S. have greater resistance to
pests, and
they are also less labor-intensive.
Fan: Labor is not the issue, because now the labor
productivity of Chinese farms is very low. Many
rural
people
are under-employed. Nominally, there are a lot of
workers.
Actually, they can be reduced by one-third to
one-half
without changing output.
Lardy: The real scarcity is land. The question is,
how
do
you overcome that problem? Technological change is
one
possibility. But because of this land scarcity, I
don't think
China can follow patterns previously found in Europe
and
America's industrialized towns, which ate up a lot
of
land.
Xie: China just has to grow differently, because its
population density is tremendously different from
anybody
else's. The challenge of urbanization is not that
you
can't
keep people on the land but that you are going to
have
an
ecological disaster when they move.
Hu Angang, professor, Qinghua University: During the
1990s natural disasters subtracted 3% to 5% from the
GDP.
Pollution now accounts for 3.5%. China's GDP is 57%
of
America's, but its consumption of water resources is
nearly
equal to America's. The question is how do we
encourage
new technology in solving these problems.
Zhang: Technology may mean that the environment
issue,
the problem of energy--all these important problems
might
be solved. Take the car industry. In the next 20
years, we
may have a totally new car, with no pollution and
lower
energy consumption.
The Population Trap
Hu: In the next 50 years China will have to face
three
population "peaks." First, by the year 2030 the
total
population will reach 1.6 billion. There are
concerns
as to
how to feed this many people. The second peak will
happen
by 2020, when the working population--aged 15 to
64--will be
1 billion. That means we will have to create a lot
of
new jobs.
The third peak involves the aging population--by
2040
the
population above 60 will be about 320 million. This
will make
the social security system a big issue--how to take
care of
the aging population.
Zhang: Most worrisome is the social safety network.
People
who are 20 now will be 60 and ready to retire in
2040.
During
the 40 years in between, they will have to
accumulate
wealth
for their retirement life. So it's urgent to start
planning for
them now.
Fan: That's a good point. The process of
urbanization
will go
on for another 50 years. That means in 50 years, we
have to
make sure that new arrivals in the city will come
into
a
social security network. But during this process,
the
social
security system will be very sustainable. That's
because
even though we have an aging population, most of the
newcomers to the labor force are young people. There
will be
more young people paying into the social security
system
than elderly taking money out. We'll have more young
people to create savings.
Zhang: But they can't accumulate wealth fast enough.
The
Europeans started building a social security system
very
early in the industrialization process, and they're
still having
trouble. We haven't even started.
Fan: I'm very optimistic about the next 50 years.
The
gap
between China and the developed world will be
narrower,
both in terms of economic growth and in
institutions.
Chinese are very pragmatic. They will find solutions
to the
current crisis.
Huang: It's also possible that China will not have
caught up
with the West in 50 years, even though China is
making
good economic progress. But the per capita income
gap
could become larger. China could be closer to the
West
politically, but economically it could be more
distant.
Huang: We tend to think about
democratic political institutions as a
result of economic growth. But
political and legal institutions can
also be important sources of
economic growth. To generate
growth you need an appropriate set of political and
legal
institutions first. Rather than thinking of these
things as a
result of economic growth, think of them as
preconditions of
growth. If that view is widespread, you may very
well
see
China moving ahead a little bit faster than it has
in
the past
20 years on the legal and political front.
Zhang: Globalization presents another challenge. It
is
too
massive, too quick. A country like China is still in
transition
from rural to industrialized, so it has to meet so
many
challenges suddenly.
Huang: True, but critics of globalization often look
at labor
displacement as a negative social impact. It's the
opposite
in developing countries, where it's the owners of
capital who
are hurt. Labor actually benefits from
globalization.
Capital
moves to places where capital is scarce, and that
creates
jobs. In China, peasants gain because they produce
things
that we have a comparative advantage in. Let me come
back
to the rule of law. There are two ways to create it.
One is
that politicians believe in the rule of law as a
good
system
and therefore implement it. But the more fundamental
driver
is globalization of the asset market. If you don't
have rule of
law, capital leaves. Capital earns low returns in
countries
that don't have good rule of law. Human capital also
leaves,
so if you don't have good
intellectual-property-rights
protection, then people with a lot of human capital
will leave.
That kind of driver is more important than the
ideology of the
politicians.
Fan: Let's just say it will be a bumpy road. More
Chinese
will integrate into the high-tech sector. America's
Silicon
Valley can be a partly Chinese territory; there are
so
many
Chinese working there. That's part of globalization.
Military Power
Zhang: If the economy continues to speed up, China
will
develop militarily. But I don't think it will become
a
major
power for two reasons. First, if it did, the society
and
economy probably would collapse. The experience of
the
Soviet Union shows that if you become a superpower
by
military but not economic means, you don't survive.
Second,
it's almost impossible for China to catch up. Why
should
we? As Deng Xiaoping said, China needs "a long-term
peaceful environment," to feed the people, to make a
stable
transition, to modernize. Economic development has
replaced military strength, and a stable,
cooperative
relationship has replaced the ideological gap of the
cold war.
Still, there's been a great shift since the Kosovo
crisis.
Chinese are worried about future U.S. domination.
It's
clear
that the U.S. will dominate the world in the next 50
years. If
we fail to maintain a stable and peaceful
relationship, China
will have to use more resources to develop its
military
strength. I don't think China wants to dominate
Asia,
but its
influence in the region will become bigger. If the
U.S. can
accept China's growing influence in the region and
China can
accept the continuing U.S. influence in the region,
we'll find
a common space where we can sit together. Otherwise,
there will be confrontation.
Can the Center Hold?
Huang: Within China, the localities will gain more
independence from the center politically. They have
gained
economic resources in the reform era. The movement
toward
more political autonomy, with local elections at the
county
level or higher--that can very well be a
possibility.
There's a
complexity in managing such a large country, and
it's
only
going to increase. As that complexity increases, it
favors
local government over central government. Currently,
there's
a division of labor between central government and
local
government. Local government manages the economy,
and
the central government manages politics. In the
future
that
relationship can reverse a little bit: the central
government
takes on more of a financial role, and local
governments take
on a more political role.
Lardy: It is inevitable as you move to a market
economy
that the central government is the big loser in the
short run.
But if the market really takes hold in China, local
governments are going to lose a lot of the power
that
they
have accumulated over economic functions during the
last
two decades.
Huang: The reason why those centralizing traditions
prevailed over the past 2,000 years was that China
didn't
have any growth, right? And international
integration
was
non-existent. We're going to see a mixture of
traditions--old
political traditions, but there are new factors on
the
horizon
that would move against those political traditions.
Fan: All East Asian countries have a few common
things:
morality is important, social norms are important.
In
Asian
countries there isn't much religion. So when you
have
economic growth you always face this problem because
there is no religion or strong ideological identity
for the
people.
Huang: Also market interactions require trust,
right?
Regardless of what the government does, there is an
objective demand for those social things. They are
stabilizers, and I'm absolutely mystified why the
government
is cracking down on a group like Falun Gong.
Apparently the
movement was born in the northeast where there's a
lot
of
unemployment. So people sought this sort of mystic
way
of
life to help deal with their economic problems. A
government
should welcome that, because it's pacifying these
people.
It's kind of an opiate of the masses.