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发帖数: 3620 | 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/what-china-can
By DANIEL A. BELL
Published: January 7, 2012
FROM the outside, China often appears to be a highly centralized monolith.
Unlike Europe’s cities, which have been able to preserve a certain identity
and cultural distinctiveness despite the homogenizing forces of
globalization, most Chinese cities suffer from a drab uniformity.
But China is more like Europe than it seems. Indeed, when it comes to
economics, China is more a thin political union composed of semiautonomous
cities — some with as many inhabitants as a European country — than an all
-powerful centralized government that uniformly imposes its will on the
whole country.
And competition among these huge cities is an important reason for China’s
economic dynamism. The similar look of China’s megacities masks a rivalry
as fierce as that among European countries.
China’s urban economic boom began in the late 1970s as an experiment with
market reforms in China’s coastal cities. Shenzhen, the first “special
economic zone,” has grown from a small fishing village in 1979 into a
booming metropolis of 10 million today. Many other cities, from Guangzhou to
Tianjin, soon followed the path of market reforms.
Today, cities vie ruthlessly for competitive advantage using tax breaks and
other incentives that draw foreign and domestic investors. Smaller cities
specialize in particular products, while larger ones flaunt their
educational capacity and cultural appeal. It has led to the most rapid urban
“economic miracle” in history.
But the “miracle” has had an undesirable side effect: It led to a huge gap
between rich and poor, primarily between urban and rural areas. The vast
rural population — 54 percent of China’s 1.3 billion people — is
equivalent to the whole population of Europe. And most are stuck in
destitute conditions. The main reason is the hukou (household registration)
system that limits migration into cities, as well as other policies that
have long favored urban over rural development.
More competition among cities is essential to eliminate the income gap. Over
the past decade the central government has given leeway to different cities
to experiment with alternative methods of addressing the urban-rural wealth
gap.
The most widely discussed experiment is the “Chongqing model,” headed by
Bo Xilai, a party secretary and rising political star. Chongqing, an
enormous municipality with a population of 33 million and a land area the
size of Austria, is often called China’s biggest city. But in fact 23
million of its inhabitants are registered as farmers. More than 8 million
farmers have already migrated to the municipality’s more urban areas to
work, with a million per year expected to migrate there over the next decade
. Chongqing has responded by embarking on a huge subsidized housing project,
designed to eventually house 30 to 40 percent of the city’s population.
Chongqing has also improved the lot of farmers by loosening the hukou system
. Today, farmers can choose to register as “urban” and receive equal
rights to education, health care and pensions after three years, on the
condition that they give up the rural registration and the right to use a
small plot of land.
While Chongqing’s model is the most influential, there is an alternative.
Chengdu, Sichuan’s largest municipality, with a population of 14 million —
half of them rural residents — is less heavy-handed. It is the only city
in China to enjoy high economic growth while also reducing the income gap
between urban and rural residents over the past decade.
Chengdu has focused on improving the surrounding countryside, rather than
encouraging large-scale migration to the city. The government has shifted 30
percent of its resources to its rural areas and encouraged development
zones that allow rural residents to earn higher salaries and to reap the
educational, cultural and medical benefits of urban life.
I recently visited a development zone composed of small firms that export
fiery Sichuan chili sauces. Most farmers rented their land and worked in the
development zone, but those who wanted to stay on their plots were allowed
to. So far, one-third of the area’s farmland has been converted into larger
-scale agricultural operations that have increased efficiency.
More than 90 percent of the municipality’s rural residents are now covered
by a medical plan, and the government has introduced a more comprehensive
pension scheme. Rural schools have been upgraded to the point that their
facilities now surpass those in some of Chengdu’s urban schools, and
teachers from rural areas are sent to the city for training.
Empowering rural residents by providing more job opportunities and better
welfare raises their purchasing power, helping China boost domestic
consumption. And in 2012, Chengdu is likely to become the first big Chinese
municipality to wipe out the legal distinction between its urban and rural
residents, allowing rural people to move to the city if they choose.
Chengdu’s success has been driven by a comprehensive, long-term effort
involving consultation and participation from the bottom up, as well as a
clear property rights scheme. By contrast, Chongqing has relied on state
power and the dislocation of millions to achieve similar results. If Chengdu
’s “gentle” model proves to be more effective at reducing the income gap,
it can set a model for the rest of the country, just as Shenzhen set a
model for market reforms.
There are fundamental differences, of course: Chengdu’s land is more
fertile and its weather more temperate, compared to Chongqing’s harsh
terrain and sweltering summers. Life is slower in Chengdu; even the chili is
milder. What succeeds in one place may fail elsewhere.
Ultimately, the central government will decide what works and what doesn’t.
And that’s not a bad thing; it encourages local variation and internal
competition.
European leaders ought to take note. Central authorities should have the
power not just to punish “losers” as Europe has done in the case of Greece
, but to reward “winners” that set a good example for the rest of the
union. |
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