时代周刊 来自中国的真正挑战不是她的汇率，是她的人民

时代周刊  来自中国的真正挑战不是她的汇率，是她的人民

我喜欢两党制，只要想想民主党和共和党齐心协力地做事情就能让我会心地微笑。我对自己说：“至少美国政府还在正常运作。”但是当我看到他们最近一致同意的一件事的时候，我开始盼望他们这个合作机制还是彻底破裂的好。

9月29日，众议院通过了一项议案，这项议案得到了民主党和共和党绝大多数的支持。美国将通过对中国产品加征额外的税费来惩罚中国刻意压低人民币的汇率。似乎每个人都认为这个议案来的恰逢其时，但实际上不是这样。这项议案充其量不过是无意义的一种姿态表示，而其可能造成的最严重后果是危险的煽动和蛊惑。它不能解决预想中的问题，它不过是美国反华情绪的一种宣泄，而且它错过了中国下一阶段发展的真正挑战所在。

毫无疑问，中国的确在有意压低人民币汇率，这可以帮助它在海外市场销售廉价的玩具、毛衣和电子产品，尤其是在美国和欧洲市场。但这只是中国成为世界主要生产基地的一系列原因之一。（其它原因包括低工资、优秀的基础设施、友好的商业环境、温顺的工会组织和吃苦耐劳的工人。）把火力集中在人民币汇率方面不会奇迹般地改变这一切。

中国公司生产的产品成本要比美国公司低25％，让这些产品的价格上升20％（这个数字的来源是有理由认为，如果中国政府不加干预，人民币对美元的汇率会上升20％）也不会让美国的工厂更有竞争力。最有可能发生的结果是这会帮助那些其它低工资水平的经济体，比如越南、印度和孟加拉，他们也会生产和中国同样的商品。沃尔玛的存货标准依然是最低廉的价格，区别仅仅是现在这些货物是来自越南和孟加拉。而且，这些位于亚洲的国家也会同样采取刻意压低汇率的策略。就像经济合作发展组织发展中心的研究主任Helmut Reisen最近在一篇文章中写道的，“世界上不只有两种货币”。

这样的场景我们已经见过了。从2005年7月到2008年7月，在美国政府的压力下，北京已经允许人民币对美元的汇率上升了21％。尽管如此，中国对美国的出口依然呈强劲增长势头。当然，在经济危机的冲击下，中国的出口步伐放缓，但是放缓的程度并不比那些没有让自己的货币升值的国家来的更大。所以，即使商品的价格相对较高，中国也比其它出口国家成绩要出色得多。

看看其它的例子你也会得出相同的结论。1985年，美国在广场协议会议中威胁日本提高日元的汇率，但是在日元汇率上升了50％之后，美国的产品的竞争力并未提高。耶鲁大学的Stephen Roach指出，自2002年以来，美元对所有主要贸易伙伴国家货币的汇率下降了23％，但是美国的出口业务并未蓬勃发展，美国从全世界90多个国家的进口量远大于其出口量。是这些国家都在操纵汇率吗？抑或是我们决定让自己成为热衷消费的国家而不是吸引投资的生产型国家所产生的必然结果？

新中国

我们面临的来自中国的挑战并不是扑面而来的廉价商品，而是其对立面：中国正在向价值链的上游前进，在将来有可能形成美国经济的最大竞争对手。

在过去三十年的时间里，中国一直致力于修建基础设施。它不需要对人投资，因为它致力于生产低成本、低利润的产品，只要工人的待遇够低、工作够努力就足够了。但是工厂要现代化、道路要世界级、港口要够大、机场要有效率。所有这些设施的修建速度和修建规模在人类历史上前所未见。

现在，中国意图进入高品质的产品和服务领域，这是中国经济发展下一阶段的目标。中国政府官员明确地指出，这一阶段的发展需要人力资源的投资，其力度要与投资修建高速公路的力度不相上下。北京从1998年开始大规模扩充教育范围，教育支出占GDP的份额几乎是原来的三倍。十年来，中国的大学数量翻了一番，学生人数增长了4倍，从1997年的1百万人变为2007年的550万人。中国锁定了9所顶级大学，把它们当作自己的常青藤。当欧洲和美国的公立大学在大规模削减预选的影响下纷纷倒闭时，中国在走一条相反的道路。耶鲁大学董事长Richard Levin在今年早些时候的一次演讲中指出：“这种扩张的规模史无前例。中国在短短十年的时间里建立了世界上最大规模的高等教育系统。实际上，在千年之交的时候，中国高等教育的招生人数就超过了美国高等教育的招生人数。”

智慧的力量

这种史无前例的教育投资对中国意味着什么？又对美国意味着什么？诺贝尔奖得主芝加哥大学的经济学家Robert Fogel对受过良好训练的工人的经济影响做了一番估计。在美国，受过高中教育的工人是九年级毕业的工人的生产力的1.8倍，而大学毕业工人的生产力则是3倍。中国在大规模扩张其高等教育的受众范围。尽管中国在服务领域还远远落后于印度——英文水平和技术教育程度都是起作用的因素——中国公司依然会进入这片广阔的市场。Fogel认为，接受高等教育的工人数量的增加，会极大地提升这个国家一代人的的经济年增长水平，2040年的GDP会达到惊爆眼球的123兆美元。（没错，按他的估计，中国在2040年是全球最大的经济体。）

暂且不论这令人瞠目结舌的数字是否正确——在我个人看来Fogel对中国的增长过于乐观了——明显的一个事实是中国正在向价值链上游移动，试图进入曾经被认为是西方世界专属的行业和职业。这才是中国的真正威胁所在。威胁的来源并不是北京的汇率操纵手段或者秘不告人的补贴，而是策略性的投资和脚踏实地的工作。对此最好、最有效和回应方式不是威胁和关税，而是深入、系统地进行改革，引入投资，让美国经济充满活力，让美国工人更加有竞争力。这或许才是两党代表应当达成一致的意见。有什么人反对吗？

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?

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转贴，仅供参考，不负责核实其内容真实性。




美国凡国内危机就找中国的事儿不是一次两次了，1857经济危机后排华法案就这么通过的，我们早该习惯了。