政治如何适应社会和经济是中共最大的挑战

【韩国全球亚洲基金会】近年来，国崛起成为街谈巷议的话题。中国经济的增长、国际大都市的发展，以及知识分子的再度活跃都是受欢迎的，因为这对中国、对世界都有好处。过去30年，中国经济腾飞有诸多推动因素：通过发展劳动密集型产业形成比较优势 、致力于发展外向型经济、引进外国直接投资（FDI）以及发展非国有经济等等。但是，最重要的因素无疑是持续30年的政治稳定，这在中国近代史上是前所未有的。

　　这种政治稳定在毛泽东去世时是无法想象的。当时中国政体处于糟糕的状态。毛使得中国国家组织陷入严重混乱，导致国内暴力和派别斗争，进而彻底动摇了其一手创造的政治体制 。但意外的是，这种大震荡带来了一次大转机。我们常说，没有文化大革命，就根本不可能有改革开放。

　　邓小平从后毛时代的政治斗争中脱颖而出，成为中国无与争锋、毋庸置疑的最高领导人。在胡耀邦总书记和赵紫阳总理的协助下，邓小平创造了新的政治秩序——当时称为“拨乱反正”——和重新制定了经济体制。尽管邓小平创造的制度在80年代末面临严重挑战，但他击垮了反对者，并选择了不止一代，而是两代接班人——江泽民和胡锦涛。因此，我们可以说是邓小平的遗产是中国30年的政治稳定。没有这种政治稳定，中国可能就不会出现如此高速的经济增长。

　　因此，未来的一大问题是中国能否保持这种政治稳定。最近，有关中国政治"制度化"的话题谈论颇多。无疑，当今对——“游戏规则”的认同度远高于邓小平上台时。但无论在中央还是地方，中国仍然面临着各种各样的政治问题。这些问题可能会不断地削弱过去三十年形成的"默契"以及制度本身的合法性。完全可以说，中国的政治体制已经实现了充分的制度化，可以利用过去三十年业已证明成功的同一种调试机制应对新挑战。人们当然希望如此，但各种趋势都表明，这种调适机制可能变得愈加困难，中国政治的争论将开始变得越来越多。

　　变化中的经济增长方式

　　第一种挑战来自经济。过去三十年，中国以年均10%的速度发展。其他亚洲诸国在经济增长放缓之前，曾维持过二十年的高速增长，但是中国将经济增长的奇迹延长了十年。然而，经济增长放缓是不可避免的。中国未来仍可能维持一个强劲的增长速度，比如年均7%或8%，但年均10%的高速增长不可能无限延续。部分原因是出口市场不可能继续以同样的速度吸纳中国产品。与此同时，中央财政收入的增长似乎也可能放缓。人们往往将注意力集中在中国GDP的增长上，但近些年中央财政收入的增速是GDP的两倍。比如，在过去5年，中国GDP的年均增速略高于10%，但中央财政收入的增速每年高达21.5%。这样的增速是不可持续的。

　　高增长和中央财政的不断增加使中央领导人更容易解决问题 。1994年分税制改革之后，农业县镇的财政收入开始下降，导致地方干部采取强制手段向日益不满的百姓抽税。减轻农民负担的再三劝诫没有任何效果，但不断增长的财政收入使中央政府有财力取消农业税，并事实上能够提供种粮补贴。同样，当内陆地区无法负担教师工资以保证每个学生都能顺利完成九年义务教育时，中央政府也能够提供补贴。

　　然而，随着经济和中央财政收入的增速放缓，选择如何支配财政收入就变得更加困难。而且，随着中国不仅仅关注经济增速，而更加关注经济增长的质量，进一步加重了选择之难。增加对经济增长质量的关注--包括保护环境、改进社会服务和解决收入不平等--始于2006年第十一个五年计划，但实际上经济失衡几乎没什么改观。事实上，只要还是通过干部绩效年度考核鼓励地方干部追求经济增速，那么就难以重新聚焦经济增长质量。

　　近年来，中国为改革干部绩效考核制度一直在不懈努力，但由于中国地域广阔、国情复杂，改革之路布满荆棘。过去，保持经济增长和维护社会稳定是地方干部的两大任务。如果还要求他们环境保护、发展卫生保健和提供社会保障，就难以对干部进行考核。如果两个干部一个快速发展经济，另一个更注重保护环境，那么如何比较两个干部的政绩？事实上，不同地区，甚至在同一个县里不同的乡镇，所面临的挑战都截然不同，因此很难制定一个共同的标准来考核不同地方的干部。这样会使得干部提拔的选择更困难、更富于争议。实际上，我们可以想象，这样会使得提拔决策更依赖于人际关系，因为干部都试图通过靠得住的关系网来解决靠不住的提拔标准。

　　我们还可以想象，随着中央政府竭力处理社会问题，地区之间的紧张态势会加剧。内陆地区会极力向中央表明他们的巨大需求，而沿海地区则会争辩说，不应以损害沿海的发展前景为代价满足内地的需求。每个人可能都认为有必要改善环境、发展社会保障和提高卫生保健，但在哪些地区该花多少钱方面则可能是有争议的。更何况，中国将在经济增速和财政收入可能放缓的背景下处理这些富有争议性的问题。

　　政治挑战

　　近代中国的政治发展充满坎坷。中国的政治经济问题可以追溯到乾隆晚期的财政危机（18世纪晚期）。当时中国做出一个决定，即使人口和经济快速发展，也不扩大官僚机构的规模。及至晚清，帝国极其脆弱的统治能力使其难以有力应对太平天国起义和外敌入侵带来的挑战。由此导致的结果之一就是革命四起和中国社会的日益政治化，至少从五四运动时期一直到1976年毛泽东逝世莫不如此。因此，邓小平对中国的贡献与其说是改革开放，不如说是允许改革开放得以推进的政治稳定 。

　　1997年邓小平去世之前，他小心平衡国内各种政治势力，以确保他去世之后不会出现像毛泽东去世之后出现的那种不确定性和政治冲突。通过指定不止一代，而是两代接班人，邓小平留给中国20年相对稳定的政治环境。许多人认为，从邓小平到江泽民，特别是从江泽民到胡锦涛的权力和平交接表明，中国政治已经"制度化"。实际上，这些交接班所表明的是，强人可以成功地平衡各方利益，至少出现的大量问题给强人政治所必然依赖的共识带来挑战之前如此。就中国而言，1980年代末的政治骚乱和在各种"颜色革命"中垮台的中亚威权体制大大强化了这种共识。这种支撑中国强人政治的共识潜规则是否能够维持，是中国仍要面对的问题。

　　目前至少有三种政治问题可能会削弱过去20年盛行的政治共识。第一个是老问题：地方治理。尽管地方问题纷繁复杂，但基本问题却非常明显。由于受中共历史上的游击队传统的影响，地方领导人手握很大权力。用这种制度为中国2000个县和30,000个乡镇挑选领导就会产生非常严重的"惟上是从"现象 。确保分级领导的"党管干部"原则使得党委领导对其直接下属有十分广泛的权力。这必然会导致下级官员"为上级服务"而不是所宣称的"为人民服务"。如果不遏制这种"惟上是从"的制度 ，中国将会产生一个传统的"委托-代理"问题--国家的地方代理人只满足他们自身及其上级的需求，而不是中央政府或当地选民的需求。这已经导致 权力滥用、腐败和群体性事件。

　　中央政府试图通过倡导"党内民主"来遏制权力滥用，但是中国共产党并不愿意放宽"党管干部"原则，结果削弱了预期的政策效果。中国共产党面临两种选择：或者为"党管干部"原则计继续容忍权力滥用和无视群众抗议，或者通过各种方式--比如放开对地方媒体的控制、鼓励广泛的公共听证会，甚至可能的话引入一些选举机制--设法修改这一原则。简言之，这种问题会引发截然不同的 意见；如果人们认为中国面临治理危机，那么这些不同意见就会削弱近年来积存的共识。

　　第二，随着时间的推移，选拔干部到最高领导层（中央政治局和常务委员会）将变得更加困难。革命胜利后，权力大致按照对革命贡献的大小进行分配（当然这并不是说摆明革命一代的功劳大小就很容易），但在一个革命一代已经退出历史舞台的新时期，评价领导人的功劳大小变得更加困难。例如，如何评价薄熙来在重庆、张高丽在天津、俞正声在上海以及汪洋在广东的功绩？

　　最高职位的候选人数总比最高职位多。谢茨施耐德(E．E．Schattschneider，1892-1971年)在1960年认为，在任何一种政治竞争中，即处于弱势的一方总是试图扩大决策机构的规模。尽管他考虑的是美国生活的日益民主化，但人们是不是可以设想在中国也会发生同样的事情？尽管在过去，官员的升迁一般是通过吸引庇护者的支持，但在将来，党内民主似乎会发挥更大的作用。1987年，中国共产党提名的中央委会候选人比其席位多5% （结果邓力群没有当选并引起强烈的政治反应）。2007年，党的十七大将差额选举的比例审慎地提升到8%。这种差额未来还会提升，尽管会非常慢。伴随差额的扩大，职位的"竞选"将不可避免地增多。由此产生的政治争夺似乎也会增加。

　　最后，另一个问题是，时间的流逝会日益削弱最高领导人的权力，如同邓小平的权力弱于毛泽东，江泽民的权力弱于邓小平一样。在一定程度上，这种趋势应该受到欢迎。它反映出中国政治的制度化水平提高了，因为政策专家扮演着更重要的角色。这也反映出滥用权力的能力受到限制。但是这也会产生一个问题：因为每一个领导人都有强化自身权力的倾向（不仅仅是中国），那么加强权力的手段是什么呢？迎合公共舆论是一种方法。但在中国，这种方法被认为有民粹主义倾向并会给同僚带来威胁。这就是近些年来这种方法受到限制的原因。扩大党内民主可能是另一种方法，但这会产生诸多涉及党内民主缺陷的问题。也许总书记可以藉由整个中央委员会（而不仅仅由中央政治局）选举产生，从而加强其委托统治权。但按照谢茨施耐德原则，这样一来，难道就不会有人施加压力让全体人大代表选举总书记吗？短期来看，这似乎不太可能，但它的确让人联想到，扩大领导人统治权的举动会引发政治竞争。

　　当然，中国的政治逻辑可能向一种截然不同的方向发展。因为扩大党内民主可能会带来预想不到的后果，因此，领导职位的竞争者可能会挖空心思打造政治派别。然而，政治派别永远是危险的：他们往往会扭曲公共政策，并最终会刺激其他人建立与之对抗的派别。政治派别还违反共产党的政治准则。因此，派别活动或设想的派别活动会导致竞争超过容忍警戒线。

　　最后，人们可能会推测，共识的需要非常强烈，因此职位和权力会相对均衡地分配给几个最高领导人。这种解决方案的危险是，由于不同利益集团之间会相互制衡和抵消，这可能会导致政策瘫痪。很多人已经担心强势利益集团的崛起会阻碍重要的政策和改革的推行。政治上一旦墨守陈规，不思变革就会引发更多问题 -随后肯定会在社会和政府内引起争论。

　　中国已经享有了30年相对稳定的政治环境。人们都希望这种稳定会持续下去。的确，中国的政治制度已经具有很强的适应社会、经济和国际等诸领域变化的能力。因此，人们最乐观的期待是这种灵活性和适应性会持续下去。然而，当今的经济和政治问题似乎会相互交织，从而可能挑战中国共产党的灵活性和适应性和近年来支撑强人政治的共识。由此，可能产生政治竞争和政治停滞。人们希望这两种情况都不要出现，因为无论对于政治稳定还是经济增长都有害无利。作者：傅士卓,译者原标题：中国现在是艰难时刻：迈入下一个十年

英文原文：

Now for the Hard Part: Into the Next Decade
By Joseph Fewsmith

One thing above all else has underpinned the economic fruits of China’s reform and opening up process that began in 1978, and that is 30 years of political stability unprecedented in the country’s modern history.
Boston University China scholar Joseph Fewsmith argues, however, that economic and political developments are raising the possibility that it could become more difficult in the years ahead to maintain that stability. 
 
 
China’s rise has been on everyone’s lips in recent years. The growth of China’s economy, the development of world-class cities, and the re-emergence of a vibrant intellectual class have been welcome developments, good for China and good for the world. There are many reasons why China’s economy has taken off over the past three decades: the development of comparative advantage through the development of labor intensive industry, the pursuit of an export-oriented economy, the introduction of foreign direct investment (FDI), and the growth of the non-state economy, to name a few. But the most important factor was no doubt the political stability that has prevailed now for 30 years, an unprecedented length of time in China’s modern history.

This political stability was not something that could have been predicted at the time of Mao Zedong’s death. Mao left the Chinese polity in terrible shape, having presided over internal violence and factionalism that had shaken the system that he himself had created to its core. That, it turned out, was a good thing. As we often say, without the Cultural Revolution, there could have been no reform.

Deng Xiaoping emerged from the post-Mao struggles as the indisputable, if not unquestioned, paramount leader of China. With general secretary Hu Yaobang and premier Zhao Ziyang, Deng presided over the creation of a new political order — creating stability out of chaos, it was called at the time — and the redesign of the economic system. Although Deng’s system confronted deep challenges in the late 1980s, he was able to outlast his opponents and select not just one, but two successors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. As a result, we can say that Deng bequeathed three decades of political stability, and without this political stability, the economic growth China has experienced would not have occurred.

So the big question looking forward is whether China can maintain this political stability. There is much talk these days about the institutionalization of Chinese politics, and there is no doubt that there is greater acceptance of the “rules of the game” today than when Deng Xiaoping came to power. But China continues to confront a variety of political issues, at both the highest levels and at the local level, that constantly threaten to undermine the understandings worked out over the past three decades and the legitimacy of the system itself. It may well be that the Chinese political system has become sufficiently well institutionalized that new challenges will be dealt with through the same process of adaptation that has proven so successful the last three decades. One hopes that this will be the case, but there are a variety of trends that suggest that this adaptation may become more difficult and that contention in Chinese politics will begin to increase.

Changing Patterns of Economic Growth
The first challenge will come from economics. China has grown rapidly over the past three decades, averaging 10 percent growth per year. Many other Asian nations have been able to maintain two decades of high-speed growth before slowing down, but China has been able to extend its period of high-speed growth an extra decade. Nevertheless, a slowed rate of growth is inevitable. It may still maintain a robust rate of growth, say 7 or 8 percent a year, but it cannot sustain growth rates of 10 percent indefinitely, in part because export markets cannot continue to absorb Chinese products at the same rate they have been. At the same time, the growth of central government revenues seem likely to slow. Much attention has been focused on the growth of China’s gross domestic product (GDP), but central revenues have grown twice as fast as GDP in recent years. Over the past five years, for instance, China’s GDP has grown at just over 10 percent per year, but central government revenues have increased 21.5 percent per year. Such rates are not sustainable.

The combination of high-speed growth and increasing central revenues has made problem solving easier for central government leaders. The fiscal revenues of rural counties and townships fell after the 1994 tax reform, resulting in local cadres resorting to coercive measures to extract revenues from a resentful population. Repeated exhortations to lighten the burden of peasants had no effect, but increasing revenues allowed Beijing to abolish the agricultural tax and, indeed, to subsidize farmers for growing grain. Similarly, when inland areas were not able to afford the teachers necessary to insure everyone could go to school through ninth grade, the central government was able to subsidize efforts.
 
 
However, as growth rates and central government revenues slow, choices about how to spend revenue will become more difficult. These choices will be exacerbated by China’s efforts to focus more on the quality of economic growth, not just its speed. The effort to focus more on quality — including protecting the environment, providing better social services and addressing income inequality — began in earnest with the adoption of the 11th Five-Year Plan in 2006, but in fact little was done to rebalance the economy. It was difficult to refocus attention on quality when, in practice, local cadres are rewarded — through the annual cadre performance review — for pursuing speed.

There have been many efforts in recent years to reform the cadre performance review system, but it is difficult to do because China is such a large and varied nation. In the past, local cadres have had two major concerns: economic development and social stability. If they are also required to protect the environment, develop health care and provide social security, it will become more difficult to evaluate cadres. How does one compare two cadres, one of whom has developed the economy rapidly and another of whom has focused greater attention on protecting the environment? Indeed, the challenges facing different areas, even within the same county, are quite different, and it will be difficult to devise a common standard by which cadres in different localities can be evaluated. This will make promotion decisions more difficult and contentious. Indeed, one can imagine that it would make promotion decisions even more reliant on personal relations as cadres try to overcome the uncertainty of promotion criteria through the certainty of personal networks.

One can also imagine regional tensions being exacerbated as the central government tries to address social issues. The interior regions will note with vigor that their needs are great, while coastal areas will argue that the needs of the interior should not be addressed by crippling their growth prospects. Everyone might be able to agree on the need to improve the environment, develop social security and improve health care, but agreeing on how much should be spent in which regions is likely to be contentious. And China will be tackling such contentious issues when the rate of economic growth and fiscal revenues will be slowing.

Political Challenges
Politics have not been kind to China in the modern age. Problems in China’s political economy can be traced back to the fiscal crisis of the late Qianlong period (in the late 18th century). China made a decision at that time not to expand its bureaucracy even as the population and economy grew rapidly. The extremely thin governance of the late imperial period made it very difficult for the Qing to respond adequately to the challenges of the Taiping Rebellion and the encroachments of foreigners. One result was revolution and the increasing politicization of Chinese society, which extended at least from the May Fourth period straight through the death of Mao in 1976. Deng’s contribution to China was thus not so much reform and opening as it was the political stability that allowed reform and opening to happen.

Before Deng died in 1997, he carefully balanced the different political forces in China, ensuring that his passing would not be accompanied with the sort of uncertainty and conflict that Mao’s death had generated. By designating not just one general secretary but two to manage China after his death, Deng bequeathed to China 20 years of relative political stability. Many people have argued that the peaceful passing of political power from Deng to Jiang and especially from Jiang to Hu show that politics has been “institutionalized.” What these successions have shown in fact is that an oligopoly can manage to balance different interests, at least until problems emerge in significantly large numbers that they challenge the consensus on which oligopolistic rule necessarily rests. In China’s case, that consensus was strongly reinforced by the political turmoil in the late 1980s and the various “color revolutions” that have brought down authoritarian regimes in Central Asia. Whether that consensus and the implicit rules undergirding China’s oligopolistic political system can be maintained is the question China continues to face.

There are at least three political issues that could fray the consensus that has prevailed the past two decades. The first is the continuing problem of local governance. Although local issues are complex, the basic political problem can be stated simply. Arising out of a guerilla tradition that placed a great deal of authority in the hands of local leaders, the personnel system that picks leaders for China’s 2,000 counties and 30,000 towns and townships is extremely personalistic. The principle of the “party controls the cadres” that has ensured hierarchical control gives party leaders at one level a wide range of power over their subordinates at the next lower level. This ensures that cadres at the lower level will pay attention to their superiors and not the people they are allegedly serving. Without checks on this personalistic system, China has a classic principle-agent problem — local agents of the state serve their (and their superiors’) needs, not those of the central government or their local constituents. This has led to the abuse of power, corruption and mass protests.

The central government has tried to curtail these abuses of power by encouraging “inner-party democracy,” but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been unwilling to loosen the “party controls the cadres” principle, thus undermining its own policy prescriptions. The CCP faces two choices: It can either continue to tolerate abuse of power and popular protest in the interest of preserving the principle of the “party controls the cadres,” or it can try to modify that principle in various ways — opening up, for instance, controls on local media, encouraging more public hearings and perhaps even some electoral mechanisms. In short, this is the sort of issue that could lead to substantially different opinions; if it is felt that China faces a crisis of governance, these different opinions could undermine the consensus that has prevailed in recent years.

Second, simply as a function of the passing of time, it is becoming more difficult to evaluate and promote cadres to the highest levels of power — the Politburo and its Standing Committee. Following the revolution, power could be distributed roughly in accordance with contributions to the revolution (not that sorting out relations among the revolutionary generation was easy), but in a period in which the revolutionary generation has departed from the scene, it gets ever more difficult to sort out the merits of one leader versus those of another. How does one compare the accomplishments of, say, Bo Xilai in Chongqing, Zhang Gaoli in Tianjin, Yu Zhengsheng in Shanghai and Wang Yang in Guangdong?

There will always be more candidates for the highest positions than there are seats. In 1960, E. E. Schattschneider argued that in any political contest, there is a tendency for the weaker side to want to expand the size of the decision-making body. Although he was thinking in terms of the increasing democratization of American life, can one imagine something similar occurring in China? Although in the past, people were generally promoted to high positions through appealing to patrons, inner-party democracy seems bound to play a greater role in the future. In 1987, the CCP proposed 5 percent more candidates than seats for membership on the Central Committee (resulting in Deng Liqun’s failure to be elected and considerable political backlash). In 2007, the Seventeenth Party Congress expanded this differential modestly to 8 percent. This differential will expand again in the future, however slowly, and as it expands there will inevitably be more “campaigning” for office. Greater contention seems likely.

Finally, another issue that the passage of time is bringing to the fore is the decrease in the power of the paramount leader. Just as Deng was no Mao, Jiang was no Deng. To a certain extent this trend should be welcomed; it reflects greater institutionalization (yes, there is some happening) as policy specialists play a greater role, and it certainly reflects a decline in the ability to use power arbitrarily. But it also raises a question: Since every leader (not just in China) will try to enhance his or her power, what are the levers for doing so? Appealing to public opinion is one way. In China, such appeals seem likely to be populist and threatening to colleagues. That is why such appeals have been limited in recent years. Expanding inner-party democracy might be another way, but that raises many questions about the limits of inner-party democracy. Perhaps the general secretary could be elected by the whole Central Committee (not just the Politburo), thereby enhancing his mandate. But then, following the Schattschneider principle, why wouldn’t someone else press to have the general secretary elected by all the delegates to the party congress? This seems unlikely any time soon, but it does suggest the contention that could result from efforts to expand a leader’s mandate.

Of course, China’s political logic might evolve in a rather different direction. Perhaps concerned about the unintended consequences of expanding inner-party democracy, contenders for leadership could focus their attention on building up factions. However, factions are always dangerous: They tend to distort public policy and ultimately stimulate others to form countervailing factions. And they are against the norms of CCP politics, so factional activity, or perceived factional activity, could open up contention over what should be allowed.

Finally, one might speculate that the need for consensus would be so great that positions and power will be distributed more or less equally to several top leaders. The danger in this solution, of course, is the probability of policy paralysis as different interests balance each other out. Many people already worry about the growth of powerful interest groups preventing important policies and reforms from being enacted. Political immobilism, if it occurs, would result in problems mounting — and then there would certainly be contention in the society and polity.

China has enjoyed three decades of relative political stability. One hopes that such stability can continue. Indeed, China’s political system has exhibited a remarkable ability to adapt to changes in society, the economy and the international arena, so one’s best guess is that such flexibility and adaptability will continue. Nevertheless, economic and political issues seem to be coming together in a way that is likely to challenge the flexibility of the party and the consensus that has underlain the oligopolistic politics of recent years. Both political contention and political stagnation are possible outcomes. One hopes that both can be avoided because neither would be good, either for political stability or economic growth.

Joseph Fewsmith is Professor of International Relations and Political Science and Director of the Boston University Center for the Study of Asia. He is the author of China Since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition (2001, 2nd edition, 2008), Elite Politics in Contemporary China (2001), The Dilemmas of Reform in China: Political Conflict and Economic Debate (1994), and Party, State, and Local Elites in Republican China: Merchant Organizations and Politics in Shanghai, 1890-1930 (1985).

英文原文url：http://globalasia.org/V5N2_Summer_2010/Joseph_Fewsmith.html