另外的8亿人如何生活

中国领导人意识到了农村的问题，却对解决途径心存疑惧

一个幽灵，农村不安定的幽灵，在中国游荡。[1] 农民们的绝望引发了革命，而革命的继承者——中国共产党领导人，也只有他们深谙农村动荡的危险，生怕农村局势的不安。在本周中国最高立法机构（即总是操持 着那套陈腔滥调的全国人民代表大会）召开其一年一度、为时十天的会议上，解决农村贫困境况这个任务被提到了议事日程上的首要位置/或简单译成被给予高度关 注也可以。但担心是一回事，而根治这个问题则完全是另一回事。

两位数的经济增长使中国发生了翻天覆地的变化，一些经济最发达的地区已跻身全亚洲最充满活力的大都市行列。然而，问题不仅仅是农民在这个过程中沦落为 了遭人遗忘的边缘群体 ；而且对于中共领导层来讲，其所面对的真正问题在于：从某些方面来看，大量农村贫困人口的境况进一步恶化了。旧有的共产主义体制使得广大农民毕生都只能从 事单调乏味的工作，但其至少保证了一定的基础生活保障，包括免费或者基本免费的医疗保障和教育。而随着中国越来越向市场经济靠拢，以上的这些保障体系大都 已不复存在了。

与此同时，许多农民失去了他们赖以生存的根本。城市日新月异的发展使得乡村大量土地被国家征收，用于经济开发。农民在这个过程中，仅得到寥寥无几的补 偿，有时则完全没有。最近几个月来中国国内最激烈的社会冲突，不象过去那样主要来自于下岗工人，而是源于农民对政府这种强取豪夺的抗议 [2]。共产主义在中国或许已是名存实亡，但一旦触及到最后的“禁区”，其立场依然毫不松动——私人拥有土地所有权的希望依然渺茫。而掌握大量土地的地方 政府又管理不善。由于大部分资金在从中央政府下拨到县级政府的过程中受到一长串官僚主义涓滴作用 [3] 的侵蚀，地方政府长期缺乏资金来源，因而不得不尽其所能地压榨农民。

认识到了农村问题的严重性之后（中国总理温家宝将其称为“不容忽视”的“深层矛盾”），本周全国人大批准追加15%的经费，专用于农业发展、农村服务 以及诸如此类的方面。然而尽管如今这笔津贴的数额已经增加到3400亿元（相当于420亿美圆），占政府总预算的8.9%，但考虑到中国国土的广袤、辽 阔，这笔补助不过是杯水车薪。中国有大约8亿人依然居住在乡村地区，因此若按人均水平来算的话，这笔新的政府支出每年能带给农民的津贴增加不超过7美圆。

那么中央政府还能在哪方面加大努力呢？最为明显的是，其可以引进一套合理的土地所有权制度。[4] 如果因为意识形态上的鸿沟，使得其依旧显得遥不可及的话，那么至少从现在来看，中国政府至少还可以不惜血本地援助其贫困省份，这或许意味着在那些更贫困、 更落后的乡村地区，农民的境遇能大有改观。届时，省际转移支付的频率就会大大高于现在的水平。

最后，中国政府在促进省级政府和地方政府提高管理效率的问题上还有很大的努力空间。该问题的一个重要方面在于这些下级政府的官员无能，导致管理绩效低 下。原因并不难解释。因为缺乏新闻自由（而即使有一定的新闻自由，如今媒体对发表自己观点也越来越畏首畏尾，这都要“归功于”中央高层进一步压制媒体自由 的指示。），官员们对将身家性命交付给他们的贫苦百姓则完全不必承担责任。

讳莫如深的解决措施

那么如何使得官员们承担帮助百姓脱贫的责任呢？中国目前也的确开展了一些基层选举，比如村委会的选举——尽管受到了很大的限制。许多年来，就是否应该 将诸如此类草根民主的选举体制普及到镇级层面，甚至是上升到县级结构乃至更高水平的问题，社会舆论一直议论纷纷。过去国内曾有过在镇级层面进行类似试点选 举的先例，然而就目前来讲，中国共产党决心保留其对政治权力的垄断，将会竭尽全力寻求解决、驾驭农村问题的出路。历史暗示世人，这种努力一定只会徒劳无 功。徘徊在中国农村的“幽灵”在领导人承认民主的必要性之前不会有偃旗息鼓的可能。

注:

[1] A SPECTRE is haunting China—the spectre of rural unrest.这个句子的写法是效仿了以下这个名句：A spectre is haunting Europe— the spectre of communism. 一个幽灵，共产主义的幽灵，正在欧洲游荡。

[2] 类似这种通过强行征收或者给予微薄补偿的手段获得农民耕地的行为前些年在中国屡有发生，广大良田被许多工业项目搞得土质败坏、严重危害了生态环境。更重要 的是，这些不公平的交易，甚至可以说是强盗式的交易使得广大农民生活日渐窘迫，失去土地的农民，为了维持生计，只能涌向城市，谋取生路。除开各城市亮出的 政策“红灯”或者各项限制之外，农民还会遭遇歧视和侮辱。试问这种问题是谁造成的？有些地区的农民抗议政府征收他们土地的行径，而作了一些本能的反抗，最 后时常被政府以扰乱社会治安、防碍政府公务的罪名拘留逮捕，有些甚至还失去了生命，译者曾看到CNN上的一则新闻，讲述国内某县农民抗议政府“无偿”征收 他们土地的行径，最后双方爆发暴力冲突，导致5名村民身亡。而译者记得去年，抑或是今年的一期TIME上有一个专题就叫做Chinese farmers' outrages，有兴趣大家可以看看。

[3] 涓滴效应（Trickle-down effect，又译作渗漏效应、滴漏效应）也称作“涓滴理论”（Trickle-down theory，又译作利益均沾论、渗漏理论、滴漏理论），指在经济发展过程中并不给与贫困阶层、弱势群体或贫困地区特别的优待，而是由优先发展起来的群体 或地区通过其要素的扩散而带动贫困地区的经济增长。译者不是学经济学的，对这个理论的理解不是很到位，大家可以去查阅经济学家赫希曼提出的这个理论，并结 合中国学者利用这个理论分析中国经济的论述，更好地理解这个学术概念。

[4] 关于中国产权改革，尤其是土地所有权的问题可以参见复旦大学世界经济研究所所长华民教授的论著：《中国和印度经济发展面对的挑战》，《国际经济评论》2006年第5-6 期

翻译：Andreas_nt

原文：China: How the other 800m live

China's leaders are aware of the problem in its rural areas. They are terrified of the solution

A SPECTRE is haunting China—the spectre of rural unrest. The leaders of the Communist Party know it, and fear it as only the inheritors of a revolution born of rural desperation can. This week, as China's supreme legislative body (aka the rubberstamping National People's Congress) met for its annual tenday session, addressing the plight of the country poor was at the top of its agenda. But worrying about something and curing it are two very different things.

It is not just that China's farmers have missed out on the double-digit growth that has transformed urban China and turned its richest cities into some of the most dynamic in Asia. The real problem for the leadership is that, in some ways, the lot of the rural poor has got worse. The old communist system offered a life of terrible drabness, but at least it guaranteed certain basics, including free or nearly free health care and education. As China has become more of a market economy, those support systems have largely collapsed.

At the same time, many farmers have lost their livelihoods. The rapid growth of the cities has resulted in their land being seized for development with little or no compensation. Many of the most violent disturbances in recent months have come not from laid-off factory workers, as in the past, but fromfarmers protesting about these depredations. Communism may be nearly dead in all but name in China,but it survives in the form of one last taboo: the fact that the right of individuals to own agricultural land is tenuous at best. And the local governments that control most of that land do not administer it well. Perennially strapped for cash, because so much of it is consumed in the long bureaucratic trickle-down from the central government to the counties, they are more or less forced to squeeze farmers as hard as they can.

Beyond recognising the problem (China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, called it a “deep-seated conflict”that “cannot be ignored”), this week's congress approved a 15% increase in the money earmarked for agricultural development, rural services and the like. But even though the amount to be spent has now risen to 340 billion yuan ($42 billion), or 8.9% of the entire budget, China's vastness makes it trivial. Some 800m people still live in the countryside, so the new spending amounts to less than an additional $7 a year each.

What more could the central government do? Most obviously, it could introduce a proper system of land rights. If that remains an ideological bridge too far, for the time being at least, it could at least fund its provinces adequately, which would mean that the poorer, more rural ones could afford to treat farmers better. That would involve inter-province transfers at a much higher rate than now.

Finally, it could do a lot more to encourage efficient government by provincial and local governments. A big part of the problem is that these lower tiers of government are run incompetently. The reason is hardly a mystery. With a press that is muzzled (and, if anything, getting tamer, thanks to a media crackdown directed from the very top), officials are in no sense accountable to the people whose lives they control.

The remedy that dares not speak its name

How, though, to make officials accountable? China does hold some highly constrained elections for village councils. For many years, it has talked of extending the election system upwards to townships, to counties and perhaps higher. There have even been some electoral experiments at township level. For the present, however, the Communist Party, intent on retaining its monopoly of political power, will try to spend and manage its way out of trouble. History suggests that it will fail. The spectre in China's countryside will not be laid to rest until Chinese leaders accept the need for democracy.