计划中的社会主义新农村

中国政府为平民怨对农村增大支出

温家宝在他对全国人民代表大会（一年只召开十天）的年度工作报告中指出“主要历史任务”，目标是给远远落后于发达城市地区和不稳定因素增加的农村带来迅速和显著的改变。尽管温总理承诺对目前北京所说的“社会主义新农村”投入更多，他提出的改进办法中切实可行的却不多。新的五年计划暗示城乡差距的悬殊程度将保持到2010年。

温总理在3月5日直陈中国当前面临的诸多困难。包括企业、机械和其他固定资产的投资过热；存货增加而价格下降；以及因公司利润下滑和损失剧增而造成的“更大的潜在金融风险”。但是他的讲话重点在于处理中国农村问题的任务，该任务最近受到共产党的高度关注。

温总理所列的问题对于国家目前的高速发展是虽有远虑却无近忧。他预计今年的GDP将增长8%。但是因为担心更高目标可能刺激盲目投资，高层官员们有低估GDP增长的倾向。许多人预测今年的GDP增长将接近于去年的9。9%。新的五年计划则更保守，预期到2010年GDP年平均增长7.5%。

尽管大张旗鼓的宣传，温总理的农村建设却鲜有新招。包括去年开始取消农业税，在40%的市县推广试点的农村合作医疗保险计划以及在明年年底前取消农村学生接受义务教育的学杂费。中央政府的从农村合作医疗保险到种粮农户补贴等等对农村支出今年将增长14。2%达到3400亿元（420亿美金）。政府对基础设施的支出也将向农村转移。政府将把更多钱用于兴建农村公路、水和能源供应以及学校和医院。

这些措施没有表现出显著的政策倾斜。中央政府对农村的支出仍将只占政府总支出8。9%，比去年的8。8%略增而比2004年的9。2%略减。农业税和其他向农民征收的费用的取消每年将为每个农村居民省下156元（19美金）——约占其纯收入的4。8%。但尽管政府承诺每年转移支付1030亿元以填补地方财政漏洞，这笔钱是否能满足需求并不明朗。这笔钱的1/4要来自地方政府的配套，而地方政府可能将其用做他途。

在未来五年内政府将花费额外的2180亿元用于农村学校以补偿学杂费的取消。温总理说中央和地方分担这笔开销的办法将逐渐成形。但即使各级政府能在规则上达成一致，这笔钱是否会弥补整个缺口还是未知数。

农村基础设施建设上的开销还将有多少仍不清楚。在中国，开销的细节通常保密。预算报告指出去年中央政府的农村基础设施支出为813亿元。但没有给出2006年的数据。预计的14。2%的中央政府对所有农村项目总开销的增长也不是那么的显著。它只比今年计划政

府支出增长数的13。8%多一点点。也低于2810亿元的2006年计划军费增长14。7%的水平。（西方分析家说真正的军费支出还要更高）

政府的确有能力投入更多。政府预算总收入一直强劲增长。去年增长了20%而今年预计增长12%。2006年预算赤字的目标是控制在GDP的1。5%，比去年的1。6%略低。

诚然，增加支出只是农村诸多复杂问题的一种解决办法。许多问题根源于政府内部的财政转移体制，这个体制给提供公共服务的基层政府带来了沉重的财政负担。问题更因地方和中央分享财政收入的有利于发达地区的体制而深化。农民处境更加不利，因为他们对自己的土地没有明确合法的权限，使得他们在面对开发商的反复无常时非常脆弱。温总理号召坚定“加速改革”的决心，但中央和地方领导者对如何改革尚存争议，而温总理也没有指明他期待他们怎么去解决分歧。

鉴于约2亿中国农村人口几乎都没有工作，致富途径之一就是让他们在城市里从事更多劳务工作。但是中国的领导人和许多城镇居民，已经对流入城市的农村人口数量表示担忧。如果突然去除现存的对农民进城的障碍，这个担忧还将加剧。新的五年计划预计官方许可的进城农民数会小幅增长，从前五年平均的800万人到后五年的900万人。即使实际数会更高，这也只是从政治高压下的不安静的中国农村突围的最少数目。 翻译：xwei

原文：Planning the new socialist countryside

Spooked by angry peasants, China raises spending

IN HIS annual state-of-the nation address to the National People's Congress, the Chinese parliament that meets for only ten days a year, China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, set out what he described as a “major historic task”. The aim, he said, was to bring about rapid and significant change in rural areas, which have lagged far behind the booming urban ones and witnessed growing unrest. But although Mr Wen pledged more spending to build what Beijing is nowadays calling a “new socialist countryside”, he offered few durable remedies. A new five-year plan suggests that the rural-urban divide may remain just as wide at the end of the decade

Speaking on March 5th, Mr Wen was blunt about China's many difficulties. His list included continuing overheating of investment in factories, machinery and other fixed assets; rising inventories and falling prices; a decline in corporate profits and mounting losses that were creating “greater potential financial risks”. But his speech focused on what has lately become the Communist Party's much proclaimed mission of addressing rural China's woes

None of the problems on Mr Wen's list appears to pose any immediate threat to the country's high-speed development. Mr Wen predicted that GDP should grow this year by 8%. But officials have a tendency to underestimate, fearing that higher targets might encourage reckless investment. Many expect something closer to last year's 9.9%. The new five-year plan makes an even more modest prediction of 7.5% annual growth, on average, through to 2010. But the double-digit targets already set by some local governments suggest fewer inhibitions.

Despite the hype, Mr Wen's remedies for the countryside contained little new. They included the scrapping of agricultural tax this year, extending an experimental health-care insurance scheme to 40% of counties and the elimination by the end of next year of tuition and other fees for rural students receiving compulsory education. Central-government spending on rural areas for everything from health care to subsidies for grain producers is to increase by 14.2% this year to 340 billion yuan ($42 billion). And government spending on infrastructure will be shifted towards rural areas. More will be spent on projects such as rural roads, water and power supplies, schools and hospitals

These measures do not herald any remarkable policy shift. Central-government spending on the countryside will still amount to only 8.9% of total government expenditure, up from last year's 8.8% but down from 9.2% in 2004. Abolishing the agricultural tax and other fees imposed on peasants will save each rural dweller an average of 156 yuan ($19) a year—about 4.8% of net income. But despite promised transfers of 103 billion yuan annually to fill the resulting hole in local finances, it is not clear that these funds will be sufficient. A quarter of the money is supposed to come from local governments, which may well have other plans for it

To compensate for the abolition of school fees, the government will spend an extra 218 billion yuan on rural schools over the next five years. Mr Wen said a way of sharing this between central and local governments would be worked out “gradually”. But even if governments at various levels can agree on a formula, it is not clear whether this money will make up for the whole shortfall.

How much more will be spent on rural infrastructure is also unclear. As usual in China, the spending detail is mostly secret. The budget report put last year's central government spending on rural infrastructure at 81.3 billion yuan. But it gave no figure for 2006. Even the proposed 14.2% increase in total central spending on all rural projects is not that remarkable. It is only a little higher than the projected increase of 13.8% in all government spending (central and local) this year. And the increase is smaller than the 14.7% rise, to 281 billion yuan, planned in military spending in 2006. (True military expenditure is much higher, say western analysts.)

The government certainly has the ability to spend more. Total government revenues have been growing strongly. Last year they increased by nearly 20% and are predicted to rise by 12% this year. The target for the budget deficit is a manageable 1.5% of GDP in 2006, down from 1.6% last year.

However, spending can only be one part of a solution to the complex woes of the rural areas. Many of these

stem from a system of inter-governmental fiscal transfers that place enormous burdens on low-level governments to finance public services. They are aggravated by a system that shares tax revenues between central and provincial governments to the benefit of the richer regions. The peasants are at a further disadvantage in that they do nothave clear legal title to their fields, making them vulnerable to the whims of developers. Mr Wen called for strengthened resolve to “accelerate all reforms”. But central and local leaders dispute how best to tackle such issues, and Mr Wen provided no details about how he expects them to resole their differences.

Given that some 200m rural Chinese have little or no work, one way to spread wealth would be to let them to take more productive jobs in urban areas. But China's leaders, and many town-dwellers, are already anxious about the numbers flowing into the cities. Such fears would increase if the remaining barriers to migration were suddenly removed. The plan predicts only a modest increase in officially allowed migrant numbers, from an annual average of 8m in the last five years to 9m in the next. Even if the true number is much higher, this is only the smallest of escape valves in the great political pressure-cooker that is China's troubled countryside.