A Brief History of China’s Economic Growth

文/托马斯·赫斯特 译/周坤

China’s meteoric1meteoric迅速成功的。rise over the past half century is one of the most striking examples of the impact of opening an economy up to global markets.

[2] Over that period the country has undergone a shift from a largely agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse.In the process it has seen sharp increases in productivity and wages that have allowed China to become the world’s second-largest economy.

[3] While the pace of growth over recent decades has been remarkable, it is also important to look at what the future might hold now that a large chunk of the gains from urbanization have been exhausted. A paper published by the NBER attempts to do just that, looking back over China’s growth story between 1953-2012 and using the data to model plausible scenarios for the country up to 2050.

半个世纪以来中国经济增长速度“风驰电掣”，而这一切可以说是向全球市场开放的经济体所受影响的最令人震撼的案例。

[2]在这段时间，中国经历了从以农业为主到拥有强大工业的转变，生产力和工资都实现了迅速增长，成为世界第二大经济体。

[3]尽管近几十年来中国发展速度惊人，对于中国经济的未来发展做一些展望也同样重要，因为都市化进程的红利已经用尽大半。美国国家经济研究局发表的一篇论文尝试回顾中国在1953—2012年间经济发展的历程并利用研究所得数据对中国当前至2050年的经济形势进行建模预测。

Lessons from history

[4] The first two decades following the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was marked by periods of substantial growth in per capita GDP growth, the growth of output per person, followed by sharp reversals.

The authors of the NBER paper suggest this represented the success of the First Five-Year Plan, during which “6000 Soviet advisers helped establish and operate the 156 large-scale capital intensive Soviet-assisted projects”, significantly increasing the pace and quality (productivity) of industrialization in the country.However, it was followed by the Great Leap Forward (1958-1962), which undid many of the gains through worsening of incentives by banning material incentives and restricting markets.

[5] These reforms were then unwound2unwind放松。between 1962 and 1966, leading to another period of productivity and per capita GDP growth, before the events of the “Cultural Revolution” set the economy back once again.

[6] According to the authors, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party in December 1978 was the defining moment in shifting the country from its unsteady early economic trajectory on to a more sustainable path. It laid the groundwork for future growth by introducing reforms that allowed farmers to sell their produce in local markets and began the shift from collective farming to the household responsibility system.

历史经验

[4] 1949年中华人民共和国成立后的前两个10年中，人均国内生产总值（即人均产出）增长显著，之后急转直下。

美国国家经济研究局的论文作者指出，这代表第一个五年计划取得了成功，在这期间“6000名苏联顾问帮助中国建立并运行了156个大的资本密集型苏联援助项目”，显著推动了中国的工业化进程，提升了工业化品质（生产力）。但是，在紧接着的“大跃进”（1958—1962），由于政府对物质激励的禁止以及对市场的严格限制，民众的生产积极性遭遇了重击，于是许多前期取得的成果都被毁之殆尽了。

[5]好在1962至1966年间，“大跃进”时期的改革得到了及时的纠正，社会生产力和人均国内生产总值又出现了复苏性增长。之后的“文革”让经济再度陷入低迷。

[6]论文作者表示，1978年12月召开的中国共产党第十一届三中全会标志着中国从不稳定的早期经济发展轨道迈向了更稳定的可持续发展道路。允许农民在当地市场自由售卖自己生产的农产品，改集体制农业生产模式为农业生产责任制，实行包产到户，这些都为将来的经济增长奠定了基石。

[7] A year later the Law on Chinese-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures was introduced, allowing foreign capital to enter China helping to boost regional economies although it took until the mid-1980s for the government to gradually ease pricing restrictions and allow companies to retain profits and set up their own wage structures. This not only helped to boost GDP from an annual average of 6% between 1953-1978 to 9.4% between 1978-2012 but also increased the pace of urbanization as workers were drawn from the countryside into higher-paying jobs in cities.

[8] This process of market liberalization led to the establishment of China as a major global exporter. It eventually allowed for the reopening of the Shanghai stock exchange in December 1990 for the first time in over 40 years and,ultimately, to China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation.

[9] These reforms had a significant impact both on per capita GDP and the pace of the falling share of the labour force working in agriculture.

What the future holds

[10] The good news for the global economy is that the authors of the NBER paper claim that the Chinese economy can continue to see relatively robust levels of growth, albeit significantly lower than we have seen over recent decades.

[7]一年后《中外合资经营企业法》诞生，允许外国资本进入中国市场帮助促进地区经济发展。尽管该法已经实施生效，但直到1980年代中期，中国政府才逐渐放开价格管制，允许企业保留利润并建立自己的工资体系。这不仅令国内生产总值从1953—1978年的平均6%的年增长率提升到1978—2012年的9.4%，同时由于高收入工作的吸引，人们不断从农村涌入城市务工，从而大大加快了都市化的进程。

[8]市场自由化的过程把中国打造成了全球贸易出口大国，促成了1990年12月上海证券交易所在40多年后首次重张，并最终促使中国加入了世贸组织。

[9]这些改革不仅对中国的人均国内生产总值产生了重大的影响，还推动了中国农业劳力比重下降的进程。

未来经济发展前景

[10]作者在论文中提到，对于世界经济，令人欣慰的是尽管中国经济可能明显不及之前几十年增长那么快， 但仍将继续保持相对强劲的增长水平。

[11] While the average growth rate of real GDP between 1978-2012 has been an impressive 9.4%, that figure could decline to between 7-8% between 2012-2024 in the authors’ base case. This is signi ficantly higher than most commentators believe is likely given clear signs of a slowing economy in China’s recent economic data.

[12] Of course, such long-range projections should be treated with a great deal of caution but the trajectory of travel is already clear—growth is slowing.

[13] This is to be expected for an economy of China’s size, as compounding makes it harder and harder to deliver the same rate of growth from a higher level of GDP.

[14] Moreover, the factors that have driven the country’s expansion over recent decades will also have to shift in their relative importance. For example,the numbers of people making the shift from agricultural jobs into higher value add city jobs are likely to decrease and the process of urbanization will therefore not be able to add as much to output per worker as it has done in the recent past.

[11]基于作者的论证，虽然1978—2012年间的真实国内生产总值的平均增长速度达到了令人震惊的9.4%，但这个数字很可能在2012—2024年间跌至7%—8%。鉴于中国最近经济增长明显放缓的种种迹象，这个数据比很多经济评论家的估计还是高出许多。

[12]当然，在跨度如此大的时间范围内对中国经济做出预测必须极为慎重，但是整个经济发展的轨迹已经很清晰——增长正在逐渐放缓。

[13]对于像中国这样庞大的经济体，这是难以避免的趋势，因为国内生产总值越高，复合增长就会让其越来越难呈现出恒定速度的增长。

[14]而且，近几十年来驱使中国经济快速发展的诸多因素也将变得不那么重要。比如，选择进城务工的农村人口数量可能会减少，而都市化进程对人均产出的提升作用将大不如前。

[15] Also, the catch-up process that has delivered significant productivity growth in the country is also likely to slow as Chinese industry gets closer to the technological sophistication of its Western counterparts, while the initial gains of adding hundreds of millions of workers to the global labour supply are also quickly fading.

[16] Instead of allowing low-cost exports to drive growth, China will increasingly have to rely on expanding its own domestic demand to meet the government’s ambitious growth targets. Achieving this, however, will require further reforms to release Chinese consumers’spending power and build the foundations of a more balanced economy. ■

[15]此外，曾给中国带来生产力显著增长效应的“追赶强国”进程很可能放缓，因为在科技精工化上中国的工业已经非常接近西方国家，而让数亿工人进入全球劳动力市场带来的初始收益也在快速减少。

[16]相比以低成本贸易输出来带动经济增长，中国政府将会越来越重视通过拉动内需来实现雄心勃勃的经济增长目标。只不过，要实现这样的目标，需要进一步推动经济改革，释放中国消费者的消费能力，建立一种更加平衡的经济。 □