提要：高速的经济增长将使中国超过美国成为世界最大的经济体。但对中国而言，更大未必意味着更强。目前，中国仍然高度依赖国外投资和技术，主要产业被外商所主导，并且缺少世界一流的公司。在保持经济高速增长的同时，中国应该力争成为最有竞争力的经济体。
（外脑精华·北京）中国经济的高增长率每年都会让西方的评论家和商业领袖敬畏交加。普华永道5月22日发布的一份题为《2050年的世界》（《外脑精华》，2006年6月1日）的预测报告肯定又会让西方世界更加忧虑。在这份报告里，普华利用一个宏观经济模拟预测模型，根据购买力平价标准，计算出中国将在2050年之前超过美国，成为全球最大经济体。
这份报告也对其他新兴经济体如巴西、印度和俄罗斯进行了预测。报告认为，新兴经济体的崛起一方面会使美国、日本和德国等丧失现有的经济地位，但另一方面也会给它们提供巨大的贸易机会。
我们当然不反对此种类型的预测，这是很有意思的尝试。普华也很清楚自己所用的方法和预测假设。但是，更大未必意味着更强。
摆脱技术依赖
无论是考虑当前、21世纪中叶还是2100年，关键问题不是哪个经济体总量最大，而是哪个经济体拥有最多的世界级公司。世界级公司是指那些拥有难以复制的关键的领先技术、并能推动生产率提高的公司。是这一点，而不是国内生产总值，真正决定了经济增长的质量和生活水准。
中国经济将继续会跳跃式增长，这应该是确定无疑的。但问题是几十年以后，中国是否依然要高度依赖于发达的西方和日本的技术和投资？现在中国自己似乎已经开始思考这个问题了。
20世纪70年代末，为了实现现代化，中国做出了一项战略决策，开始向外国资本和技术开放门户。自从放弃自给自足的经济政策，二十多年来，中国积极追赶世界技术进步的潮流。对于西方国家和日本的进入，中国往往要求有相应的技术转让协定，有些行业则完全不对外资开放。
外商主导外贸
改革开放以来，中国吸收的外商投资累计超过6000亿美元，是全球第三大贸易国。如果以进口额加外商直接投资额与总产出的比率来衡量，中国甚至比日本更加开放。成千上万的中国人在这个过程中脱离贫困。无论从哪个角度来看，这些都是中国取得的显著成就。
但也存在某些令人忧虑的趋势。比如中国的全球贸易盈余，2005年已达到了1020亿美元（对美顺差达到2020亿美元），是上一年的三倍还多。然而，实际上，中国大陆的出口差不多一半左右来自于跨国企业或者它们控股的合资企业。它们把中国当成了生产基地，先从国外进口原材料，然后把制成品重新销往海外其他市场。
在中国的高科技行业中，接近90%的出口额是由跨国企业创造的，其中摩托罗拉和诺基亚是最大的出口商。与此同时，外国品牌实际上控制了发展迅速的中国汽车制造业。国际汽车厂商如大众、通用、丰田、尼桑和本田占据了中国大陆的绝大部分市场份额。而汇丰、美国银行、高盛集团和花旗银行等则正在纷纷涌入中国快速增长的银行业和金融服务市场。
美国公司如卡特彼勒（Caterpillar）、可口可乐和柯达在中国大陆的业绩都非常不俗。根据中国国家发改委的统计，从80年代初以来，截至2005年底，美国公司在中国大陆共投资了510亿美元，有近5万家美国公司在中国大陆营业，其中大概81%是盈利的。实际上，对于一些公司如通用和福特来说，中国市场的收入已经帮助其抵消了美国本土糟糕的表现。
发展民族产业
有迹象表明，中国大陆已经开始担心本国公司的竞争能力。在汽车行业，中国已积极促进奇瑞、吉利和上海汽车等公司加大力度开发更多的自主品牌，并向海外市场出口。但中国是否能拥有具备全球竞争力的汽车品牌仍是个疑问。中国的汽车厂商在与欧美对手竞争时，并不像70年代末左右的日本厂商如丰田或者本田那样在生产效率方面拥有优势。
这并不是说中国就不具备很有前景的公司，联想、盛大、海尔、华为和百度等都可能成为世界一流的公司。而美国、日本和西欧国家也都有它们自身的重大问题，比如财政赤字和人口老年化。如果这些问题不能得到解决，几十年后它们也很可能成为二流国家。
但至少现在，中国仍然高度依赖于外国资本和技术，并且与高度工业化的经济体之间的差距仍然很大。改变这种状况对中国来说是一个重大挑战。毫无疑问，中国大陆会成为21世纪的一个巨大经济体，但是要说中国会成为最有竞争力的经济体之一还为时尚早。
英文原文：Keeping Tabs on China's Growth
Experts predict the Mainland will overtake the U.S. economy by 2050, but bigger isn't necessarily more competitive
With each passing year, China's hyper-growth story continues to inspire a mixture of awe and fear among commentators and business executives in the West. And I expect a forecast released on May 22 by the global accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers will ratchet up anxiety levels even more. In a crystal ball macro-economic modeling exercise, Pricewaterhouse sees China overtaking the U.S. as the world's biggest economy by 2050 if you adjust currency exchange rates to match forecasted living standards mid-century or so. Advertisement
Now, I have nothing against this kind of forecasting (even if this particular example surely won't hurt ricewaterhouseCoopers' own business prospects on the Mainland). Such efforts are interesting exercises, and the company is clear about its methodology and forecast assumptions.
The report, entitled "The World in 2050," also puts forward thought-provoking predictions about other emerging economies, such as Brazil, India, and Russia. It makes reassuring noises that the rise of these societies will offer up huge trade opportunities for the U.S., Japan, Germany, and other nations that are going to fall down in the pecking order of big economies. (You can download the report for free by filling out a quick registration form at pwcglobal.com.)
QUESTION OF RELIANCE. Yet the real issue -- whether you're thinking in terms of now, mid-century, or in the year 2100 -- isn't really which economy is the biggest. Rather, it's which economy is home to a preponderance of world-class companies? By world class, I mean those that enjoy leadership in technologies that matter and are hard to duplicate, and those that kick tail in economic productivity. These metrics, much more than aggregate gross domestic product, really determine the quality of economic growth and living standards.
The question isn't whether China's economy will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. It most assuredly will. But what if several decades out, China is still heavily reliant on foreign technology and investment from the industrialized West and Japan? Right now, the Chinese seem to be asking themselves that very question.
Decades ago, China made a strategic decision to modernize and then opened itself to foreign capital and knowhow to get there. Ever since Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping abandoned the insular policies of Maoist economic self-reliance in the late '70s, the Chinese have been anything but doormats. Entry by Western and Japanese companies has always come with strings attached regarding technology transfers, and some sectors were cordoned off entirely.
TRADE TRENDS. Still, China has absorbed more than $600 billion in cumulative foreign investment since opening up. It's the No. 3 global trading nation in volume terms. And its economy is far more open than Japan's in terms of the ratio of imports and foreign direct investment to total economic output. Millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty along the way. Any way you look at it, this is a remarkable achievement by post-Deng Chinese leaders.
But there are some disquieting trends. Take China's global trade surplus, which more than tripled, to $102 billion in 2005 over the previous year. (Its surplus with the U.S. clocked in at about $202 billion.) Approximately half the exports coming out of China are actually from big foreign multinationals, or joint ventures they back, that use the Mainland as a production base. They sell most of that stuff in China but also re-export to other markets.
In the Chinese high-tech sector, the percentage is actually closer to 90% penetration by foreigners. Motorola (MOT) and Nokia (NOK) are among the biggest Mainland exporters. Meanwhile, virtually all of China's booming domestic auto industry has been economically colonized by foreign brands (see BW Online, 5/17/06, "What Drives China's Car Buyers").
Global auto companies such as Volkswagen, General Motors (GM), Toyota (TM), Nissan (NSANY), and Honda (HMC) dominate market share on the Mainland. At the same time, global banks such as HSBC (HBC), Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS ), and Citibank (C) are making serious inroads into China's rapidly growing banking and financial services markets (see BW Online, 2/6/06, "Banking on China's Reforms").
HOMEGROWN AUTOS. American companies such as Caterpillar (CAT), Coca-Cola (KO), and Eastman Kodak (EK) are doing extremely well on the Mainland. Indeed, as of last year, nearly 50,000 U.S. companies operated on the Mainland, and they have invested $51 billion in China since the early 1980s, according to China's National Development & Reform Commission. About 81% are profitable. For some companies like GM and Ford (F), China has been an earnings lift that has helped offset big troubles at home.
There are signs the Chinese are starting to worry about the competitiveness of key Mainland companies. In autos, Beijing has urged such companies as Chery, Geely, and Shanghai Automotive to work harder to develop more of their own brands and exports for foreign markets. That's definitely going to happen, but whether China can field globally competitive auto brands is still an open question. Unlike the Japanese back in the late '70s or so, Chinese carmakers don't have the huge edge in manufacturing efficiency Toyota or Honda enjoyed back then against U.S. and European rivals.
MIND THE GAP. That's not to say China doesn't have companies that have tremendous promise for the years ahead. Lenovo, Shanda Interactive, Haier, Huawei Technologies, and Baidu.com, for instance, could all emerge as first-class players. And the American, Japanese, and Western European economies have major challenges of their own -- budget deficits and aging workforces to name two -- that if left unresolved could easily relegate them to second-class status several decades out.
Right now at least, China is still heavily reliant on foreign capital and technologies -- and the gap with advanced industrialized economies is still considerable. Changing that is still a huge developmental challenge for China. The Mainland will emerge as a giant economy of the 21st century, no question. But it's far too early to say whether it will be among the most competitive ones.
Brian Bremner is BusinessWeek's Asia Regional Editor based in Hong Kong
(以上文章摘自<商业周刊>,仅供参考) |
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