最近几周从中国传来的消息很吓人。几乎每天都有关于罢工和示威的报道，当中有些是暴力的，有些参与人数上万人。数以百万计的工人正要失业，经济指示器似乎预兆着更为惨淡的前景，10月电子行业生产下降4%，这是十年来首次下降。甚至连看似永不满足的石油需求也在下降：中国国家石油公司近日表示，由于工业生产放缓，最近几个月的需求“大幅度”下降，而且还会进一步下降。
那么，被一位历史学者称为“脆弱的超级大国”的中国是否将经历它的领导人和外界许多分析家以及学者多年来所担心的事情——中国经济猛烈收缩，可能导致社会动荡在十多亿人口中蔓延？
一些受人尊敬的学者确实这么认为。纽约大学斯坦恩商学院教授罗比尼（Nouriel Roubini）多年来一直警告未来金融破裂的危险。他最近写道：“中国硬着陆的风险明显提升。中国2009年的经济增长率非常可能降至7%（仅比‘硬着陆’的6%好一点），而且不能排除更糟糕的结果。”但有些分析家（当中很多是中国问题专家）认为，中国的众多独特因素将令中国得以回避最糟糕的全球经济放缓，而且可以让中国2009年的经济保住体面的8%增长率。
该相信谁呢？毕竟这不是一个小问题。美国、日本和欧洲同时步入衰退，中国作为世界经济支柱之一独自屹立，它可能安然度过这次金融海啸，并甚至可能带动部分亚洲地区。
在我看来，我会赞成那些本土经济学家，他们的评估考虑到中国一些不一定可以精确量化的特性。这一群体普遍认为，尽管未来几个月情况相当不好，但北京在11月中旬宣布的近6000亿美元财政方案，加上一系列其他措施，中国经济不至于深陷麻烦。诚如身在北京的经济学家葛艺豪（Arthur Kroeber）所言，驱动中国非凡经济增长的那些因素将为GDP增长提供高达6%或7%的基础。经营咨询公司龙洲经讯（Dragonomics）的葛艺豪认为，如果不从这个基础上看，可能就会错过一些潜在的驱动器。首先，普通工人需要照顾的人数大约是1976年时的一半，腾出了很多可支配收入，这个事实带来了庞大的人口红利。然后，中国可以从海外公司那里或多或少地取得免费的新技术，发展经济学家把这种现象称为“技术赶超”。目前每年大约有1500万人搬到中国城市，道路、桥梁和医院等基础设施的的投资给经济带来极大的推动力。
美林最近也预计明年的增长会多加三个百分点。在别的经济体，这样的增长是无法实现的。例如，无论美国拿出怎样的刺激方案，增长都不大可能增长一个百分点。但中国是不同的。它仍然是独特的混合体：狂暴的资本主义栖身于国有企业基础之上。美林指出，中国国有企业仍占工业生产的33%，占中国城市投资的45%，而且北京仍然掌握国内银行业，特别是当危机可能威胁到党的权力的时候。一位有十年中国经验的投行分析家表示，从外界看来，中国的银行确实很像普通的西方商业银行，但每一位高管都是党员，当党说‘跳起来’否则‘我们都身陷麻烦’的时候，他们会问‘跳多高？’就是这么简单。”同样的规则可以应用于国有企业。
如今，政府处理经济重大变化的能力特别重要，因为中国面临的许多麻烦其实是由北京一手造成的。由于十分担心经济过热以及不断高涨的通胀率，国家去年设法降温。这意味着引入新的更严厉的劳动法以及其他意在关闭玩具和服装等低端生产行业的措施，如今正是在这些生产领域，成千上万的农民工将要失业。在2008年初的泡沫房市，当局向潜在的买家转达：暂缓购买是明智的选择。那位投行分析家表示，“政府基本上是再说，‘你现在买房就是傻瓜，因为我们准确确保价格直线下跌。’如今政府告诉他们，可以买了，而且这是买房的好时机，而且银行很乐意借贷。人们当然会再次开始购买。”换言之，很多问题是因为北京打算重构国家经济而故意造成的，北京应该可以相对迅速相对容易地扭转很多问题。
12月18日将是邓小平改革中国经济三十周年纪念日。目前折磨全球的金融和经济危机把全世界带到无人领地。如果葛艺豪和罗斯曼等人的说法是正确的，那么，在一个没有什么是固定的世界里，唯一不变的就是中国让我们再次吃惊的能力。
英文原文:
Is China Headed for a Hard Landing?
The news from China in recent weeks has been dire. Strikes and protests — some of them violent and involving as many as ten thousand people — are reported almost daily. Millions of workers are being thrown out of their jobs, and economic indicators seem to presage more gloom, with electricity production for industry falling 4% in October, the first time it has declined in a decade. Even the country's seemingly insatiable thirst for oil to fuel its decades' long boom seems to be fading: China's national oil company said late in November that demand had declined "sharply" in recent months as industrial production slowed and was set to fall further.
So is China — the "fragile superpower" as one historian memorably called it — about to experience the one thing its leaders and many analysts and academics outside the country have feared for years: a violent contraction in its economy that some fear could spark widespread social unrest among its billion inhabitants? (See pictures of the global financial crisis.)
Some respected voices certainly think so. Nouriel Roubini, a professor at the Stern Business School at New York University, has warned for years of the dangers of a coming financial implosion. "The risk of a hard landing in China is sharply rising," he wrote recently. "A deceleration in the Chinese growth rate to 7% in 2009 — just a notch above a 6% "hard landing" — is highly likely, and an even worse outcome cannot be ruled out at this point." But other analysts, many of whom are China specialists, believe that a range of factors unique to the nation will not only likely preserve it from the worst of the global meltdown but keep its economy chugging along at a respectable 8% GDP growth in 2009.
Who's right? This is after all, not a trivial question. With the U.S., Japan and Europe all heading simultaneously into recession, China stands alone as one of the pillars of the world economy that might at least carry itself through the turmoil, and perhaps even bring along parts of Asia on its coattails.
For my money, I'd go with the homegrown economists, who make their calculations taking into account some of China's peculiarities that aren't necessarily amenable to accurate quantification. This group is in broad agreement that while things will be pretty ugly over the next several months, the nearly $600 billion fiscal package announced by Beijing in mid-November, along with a host of other measures, will keep the Chinese economy's head well above water. As Beijing-based economist Arthur Kroeber points out, the same factors that driven China's extraordinary growth will provide a base of GDP growth that could amount to as much as 6 or 7% a year. "People who don't follow China on a regular basis can miss some of the underlying drivers," says Kroeber, who runs the consulting firm Dragonomics. First, Kroeber says, there's a large demographic dividend provided by the fact that the average worker now has roughly half the number of dependents to care for they did in 1976, freeing up much more disposable income. Then you have the boost of adopting new technology more or less for free from overseas companies, a phenomenon development economists cal "technology catch up." And lastly, he says, there's urbanization. Some 15 million people are currently moving to Chinese cities every year, giving the economy an enormous boost from the investment in infrastructure like roads, bridges, and hospitals.
A recent estimate by Merrill Lynch also expects a 3% point addition to growth next year. In other economies today, that kind of growth would be unachievable. Whatever stimulus package finally gets put in place in the U.S., for example, is unlikely to add even one percentage point fillip to growth. But China, as it has proved repeatedly over recent decades, is different. It remains a unique mixture of raging, visible capitalism resting on a foundation of state-owned enterprises, which, the Merrill report points out, still account for 33% of industrial production and 45% of investment in China's cities. Beijing also still holds sway over its domestic banking sector, particularly in times of crisis that threaten the Party's power. "On the outside, China's banks do look a lot more like normal Western commercial banks," says one investment bank analyst with a decade of experience in China. "But every single senior officer — right down to the manager of the smallest branch in Outer Mongolia — is a Party member. And when the Party says, 'Jump,' or 'We're all in trouble,' they say, 'How high?' It's that simple." The same rule applies to state owned enterprises, which still account for about a third of GDP.
The ability of the government to engineer major changes in the economy is particularly important today, considering many of the problems China faces were directly created by Beijing. Deeply concerned about an economy growing at a blistering 11% or more per year and a spiking inflation rate, the state set out to cool things down last year. That meant introducing new, tougher labor laws and other measures designed to shut down lower value-added production of goods like toys and garments, precisely the area where now, months later, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are losing jobs. In the early 2008 bubbling property market, authorities conveyed to potential house buyers that they would be wise to hold off. "The government basically said, 'You'd be a complete idiot to buy an apartment right now because we're going to make sure that prices drop like a stone,'" says the investment bank analyst. "Now the government is telling them it's not just okay to buy, it would be a great time to buy and the banks will be happy to lend to you. Of course people will start buying again." In other words, having deliberately caused much of the problem in the first place with an eye to restructuring the country's economy, Beijing should be able to reverse much of what it put in place relatively quickly and easily. (See pictures of China on the wild side.)
This Dec. 18 will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the moment when Deng Xiaoping pushed a Communist Party plenum into adopting the first measures that would launch the country into the most extraordinary burst of economic development the world has ever seen. Outsiders have been predicting that it couldn't last ever since. The financial and economic crisis currently plaguing the globe has lead the whole world into unchartered territory. If the likes of Kroeber and Rothman are right, the one thing that could remain constant in a world where nothing seems fixed is China's ability to surprise us once again.
