時代周刊 來自中國的真正挑戰不是她的匯率，是她的人民

時代周刊  來自中國的真正挑戰不是她的匯率，是她的人民

我喜歡兩黨製，隻要想想民主黨和共和黨齊心協力地做事情就能讓我會心地微笑。我對自己說：“至少美國政府還在正常運作。”但是當我看到他們最近一致同意的一件事的時候，我開始盼望他們這個合作機製還是徹底破裂的好。

9月29日，眾議院通過了一項議案，這項議案得到了民主黨和共和黨絕大多數的支持。美國將通過對中國產品加征額外的稅費來懲罰中國刻意壓低人民幣的匯率。似乎每個人都認為這個議案來的恰逢其時，但實際上不是這樣。這項議案充其量不過是無意義的一種姿態表示，而其可能造成的最嚴重後果是危險的煽動和蠱惑。它不能解決預想中的問題，它不過是美國反華情緒的一種宣泄，而且它錯過了中國下一階段發展的真正挑戰所在。

毫無疑問，中國的確在有意壓低人民幣匯率，這可以幫助它在海外市場銷售廉價的玩具、毛衣和電子產品，尤其是在美國和歐洲市場。但這隻是中國成為世界主要生產基地的一係列原因之一。（其它原因包括低工資、優秀的基礎設施、友好的商業環境、溫順的工會組織和吃苦耐勞的工人。）把火力集中在人民幣匯率方麵不會奇跡般地改變這一切。

中國公司生產的產品成本要比美國公司低25％，讓這些產品的價格上升20％（這個數字的來源是有理由認為，如果中國政府不加幹預，人民幣對美元的匯率會上升20％）也不會讓美國的工廠更有競爭力。最有可能發生的結果是這會幫助那些其它低工資水平的經濟體，比如越南、印度和孟加拉，他們也會生產和中國同樣的商品。沃爾瑪的存貨標準依然是最低廉的價格，區別僅僅是現在這些貨物是來自越南和孟加拉。而且，這些位於亞洲的國家也會同樣采取刻意壓低匯率的策略。就像經濟合作發展組織發展中心的研究主任Helmut Reisen最近在一篇文章中寫道的，“世界上不隻有兩種貨幣”。

這樣的場景我們已經見過了。從2005年7月到2008年7月，在美國政府的壓力下，北京已經允許人民幣對美元的匯率上升了21％。盡管如此，中國對美國的出口依然呈強勁增長勢頭。當然，在經濟危機的衝擊下，中國的出口步伐放緩，但是放緩的程度並不比那些沒有讓自己的貨幣升值的國家來的更大。所以，即使商品的價格相對較高，中國也比其它出口國家成績要出色得多。

看看其它的例子你也會得出相同的結論。1985年，美國在廣場協議會議中威脅日本提高日元的匯率，但是在日元匯率上升了50％之後，美國的產品的競爭力並未提高。耶魯大學的Stephen Roach指出，自2002年以來，美元對所有主要貿易夥伴國家貨幣的匯率下降了23％，但是美國的出口業務並未蓬勃發展，美國從全世界90多個國家的進口量遠大於其出口量。是這些國家都在操縱匯率嗎？抑或是我們決定讓自己成為熱衷消費的國家而不是吸引投資的生產型國家所產生的必然結果？

新中國

我們麵臨的來自中國的挑戰並不是撲麵而來的廉價商品，而是其對立麵：中國正在向價值鏈的上遊前進，在將來有可能形成美國經濟的最大競爭對手。

在過去三十年的時間裏，中國一直致力於修建基礎設施。它不需要對人投資，因為它致力於生產低成本、低利潤的產品，隻要工人的待遇夠低、工作夠努力就足夠了。但是工廠要現代化、道路要世界級、港口要夠大、機場要有效率。所有這些設施的修建速度和修建規模在人類曆史上前所未見。

現在，中國意圖進入高品質的產品和服務領域，這是中國經濟發展下一階段的目標。中國政府官員明確地指出，這一階段的發展需要人力資源的投資，其力度要與投資修建高速公路的力度不相上下。北京從1998年開始大規模擴充教育範圍，教育支出占GDP的份額幾乎是原來的三倍。十年來，中國的大學數量翻了一番，學生人數增長了4倍，從1997年的1百萬人變為2007年的550萬人。中國鎖定了9所頂級大學，把它們當作自己的常青藤。當歐洲和美國的公立大學在大規模削減預選的影響下紛紛倒閉時，中國在走一條相反的道路。耶魯大學董事長Richard Levin在今年早些時候的一次演講中指出：“這種擴張的規模史無前例。中國在短短十年的時間裏建立了世界上最大規模的高等教育係統。實際上，在千年之交的時候，中國高等教育的招生人數就超過了美國高等教育的招生人數。”

智慧的力量

這種史無前例的教育投資對中國意味著什麽？又對美國意味著什麽？諾貝爾獎得主芝加哥大學的經濟學家Robert Fogel對受過良好訓練的工人的經濟影響做了一番估計。在美國，受過高中教育的工人是九年級畢業的工人的生產力的1.8倍，而大學畢業工人的生產力則是3倍。中國在大規模擴張其高等教育的受眾範圍。盡管中國在服務領域還遠遠落後於印度——英文水平和技術教育程度都是起作用的因素——中國公司依然會進入這片廣闊的市場。Fogel認為，接受高等教育的工人數量的增加，會極大地提升這個國家一代人的的經濟年增長水平，2040年的GDP會達到驚爆眼球的123兆美元。（沒錯，按他的估計，中國在2040年是全球最大的經濟體。）

暫且不論這令人瞠目結舌的數字是否正確——在我個人看來Fogel對中國的增長過於樂觀了——明顯的一個事實是中國正在向價值鏈上遊移動，試圖進入曾經被認為是西方世界專屬的行業和職業。這才是中國的真正威脅所在。威脅的來源並不是北京的匯率操縱手段或者秘不告人的補貼，而是策略性的投資和腳踏實地的工作。對此最好、最有效和回應方式不是威脅和關稅，而是深入、係統地進行改革，引入投資，讓美國經濟充滿活力，讓美國工人更加有競爭力。這或許才是兩黨代表應當達成一致的意見。有什麽人反對嗎？

原文：

I love the idea of bipartisanship. Just the image of Democrats and Republicans coming together makes me smile. "Finally," I say to myself, "American government is working." But then I look at what they actually agree on, and I begin to pine for paralysis.

On Sept. 29, the House of Representatives passed a bill with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans. It would punish China for keeping its currency undervalued by slapping tariffs on Chinese goods. Everyone seems to agree that it's about time. But it isn't. The bill is at best pointless posturing and at worst dangerous demagoguery. It won't solve the problem it seeks to fix. More worrying, it is part of growing anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S. that misses the real challenge of China's next phase of development.

There's no doubt that China keeps the renminbi, its currency, undervalued so it can help its manufacturers sell their toys, sweaters and electronics cheaply in foreign markets, especially the U.S. and Europe. But this is only one of a series of factors that have made China the key manufacturing base of the world. (The others include low wages, superb infrastructure, hospitality to business, compliant unions and a hard-working labor force.) A simple appreciation of the renminbi will not magically change all this.

Chinese companies make many goods for less than 25% of what they would cost to manufacture in the U.S. Making those goods 20% more expensive (because it's reasonable to suppose that without government intervention, China's currency would increase in value against the dollar by about 20%) won't make American factories competitive. The most likely outcome is that it would help other low-wage economies like Vietnam, India and Bangladesh, which make many of the same goods as China. So Walmart would still stock goods at the lowest possible price, only more of them would come from Vietnam and Bangladesh. Moreover, these other countries, and many more in Asia, keep their currencies undervalued as well. As Helmut Reisen, head of research for the Development Center at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, wrote recently in an essay, "There are more than two currencies in the world."

We've seen this movie before. From July 2005 to July 2008, under pressure from the U.S. government, Beijing allowed its currency to rise against the dollar by 21%. Despite that hefty increase, China's exports to the U.S. continued to grow mightily. Of course, once the recession hit, China's exports slowed, but not as much as those of countries that had not let their currencies rise. So even with relatively pricier goods, China did better than other exporting nations.

Look elsewhere in the past and you come to the same conclusion. In 1985 the U.S. browbeat Japan at the Plaza Accord meetings into letting the yen rise. But the subsequent 50% increase did little to make American goods more competitive. Yale University's Stephen Roach points out that since 2002, the U.S. dollar has fallen in value by 23% against all our trading partners, and yet American exports are not booming. The U.S. imports more than it exports from 90 countries around the world. Is this because of currency manipulation by those countries, or is it more likely a result of fundamental choices we have made as a country to favor consumption over investment and manufacturing?

Coming: The New China

The real challenge we face from China is not that it will keep flooding us with cheap goods. It's actually the opposite: China is moving up the value chain, and this could constitute the most significant new competition to the U.S. economy in the future. 

For much of the past three decades, China focused its efforts on building up its physical infrastructure. It didn't need to invest in its people; the country was aiming to produce mainly low-wage, low-margin goods. As long as its workers were cheap and worked hard, that was good enough. But the factories needed to be modern, the roads world-class, the ports vast and the airports efficient. All these were built with a speed and on a scale never before seen in human history.

Now China wants to get into higher-quality goods and services. That means the next phase of its economic development, clearly identified by government officials, requires it to invest in human capital with the same determination it used to build highways. Since 1998, Beijing has undertaken a massive expansion of education, nearly tripling the share of GDP devoted to it. In the decade since, the number of colleges in China has doubled and the number of students quintupled, going from 1 million in 1997 to 5.5 million in 2007. China has identified its nine top universities and singled them out as its version of the Ivy League. At a time when universities in Europe and state universities in the U.S. are crumbling from the impact of massive budget cuts, China is moving in exactly the opposite direction. In a speech earlier this year, Yale president Richard Levin pointed out, "This expansion in capacity is without precedent. China has built the largest higher-education sector in the world in merely a decade's time. In fact, the increase in China's postsecondary enrollment since the turn of the millennium exceeds the total postsecondary enrollment in the United States."

The Benefits of Brainpower

What does this unprecedented investment in education mean for China — and for the U.S.? Nobel Prize–winning economist Robert Fogel of the University of Chicago has estimated the economic impact of well-trained workers. In the U.S., a high school-educated worker is 1.8 times as productive, and a college graduate three times as productive, as someone with a ninth-grade education. China is massively expanding its supply of high school and college graduates. And though China is still lagging far behind India in the services sector, as its students learn better English and train in technology — both of which are happening — Chinese firms will enter this vast market as well. Fogel believes that the increase in high-skilled workers will substantially boost the country's annual growth rate for a generation, taking its GDP to an eye-popping $123 trillion by 2040. (Yes, by his estimates, in 2040 China would be the largest economy in the world by far.)

Whether or not that unimaginable number is correct — and my guess is that Fogel is much too optimistic about China's growth — what is apparent is that China is beginning a move up the value chain into industries and jobs that were until recently considered the prerogative of the Western world. This is the real China challenge. It is not being produced by Beijing's currency manipulation or hidden subsidies but by strategic investment and hard work. The best and most effective response to it is not threats and tariffs but deep, structural reforms and major new investments to make the U.S. economy dynamic and its workers competitive. That's where we need bipartisan agreement. Someone? Anyone?

----------------------------------------
轉貼，僅供參考，不負責核實其內容真實性。




美國凡國內危機就找中國的事兒不是一次兩次了，1857經濟危機後排華法案就這麽通過的，我們早該習慣了。