The National Interest2016.1.25---Elizabeth C. Economy :理解中国经济的关键：政治

2016.1.25---Elizabeth C. Economy :The Key to Understanding China’s Economy: Its Politics
Over the past several months, it has become more than a full-time job trying to figure out what is going on in the Chinese economy. There have been many good efforts to make sense of all the disparate numbers that are coming out of Beijing and to tell people what to look for moving forward (including from George Magnus, Gabriel Wildau and Eswar Prasad), but it is challenging. One thing that should not be—but often is—forgotten in the sea of numbers is the politics of the reform process. The political dimension can provide some much-needed context as to the problems Beijing is facing. Let me suggest three political factors that may be contributing to Beijing’s disjointed and seemingly sub-optimal economic decision-making process. Economic Reform=Less Control=Risk to Legitimacy.
No matter how talented the economists sitting around the perimeter of Zhongnanhai may be, decisions are made by the mostly non-economist leaders of the Communist Party, and economic reform puts their legitimacy at stake in a very fundamental way. It is easy to forget that all the proposed reforms—currency, stock market, state-owned enterprise, among them—require that the Chinese leaders loosen or lift their levers of control over the economy, something they are loath to do. Their legitimacy hinges largely on economic growth, and the market introduces a significant degree of uncertainty into the equation and their ability to deliver that economic growth. The leaders will constantly be experimenting with how much they can let go to achieve the change they want while still holding on to as much power as they can. We should expect economic reform to continue in fits and starts.
Xi Jinping Is the Ultimate Decider.
The word on the hutong is that the buck stops with Xi Jinping. Some good may come from that, but here are a few of the reported challenges: First, the buck stops with Xi, but Xi does not necessarily understand the nuts and bolts of the economic issues he is trying to address; and when he does address them, it is not clear that he is entirely comfortable with the risk and volatility that transforming China into a market economy entails. Second, Xi is primarily concerned with how the economy can advance China’s position in the world, so appealing to Xi’s sense of China as a global power is the way to get an initiative approved: hence “One Belt, One Road” (which many Chinese economists are concerned will not actually provide any real benefits to the Chinese economy) and the aggressive push for the Chinese yuan to be added to the International Monetary Fund’s SDR basket (a move some Chinese analysts believe happened before the country’s financial institutions were ready). Third, there are multiple power centers in the economic decision-making process: Xi and his advisers, Wang Qishan and his economic kitchen cabinet, and Li Keqiang and his increasingly hapless team. Enough said. And finally, when Xi travels, economic decision-making grinds to a halt, and Xi travels a lot.
The Burden of Expectations.
With Xi Jinping and his team now beginning their fourth year in power, the pressure is on to deliver some significant reform success. Most analysts and businesspeople outside China believed that the Chinese government would roll right through its massive economic reform agenda broadly laid out in the November 2013 third plenum of the 18th Party Congress. It wasn’t a question of “if” but “when.” That is not happening. In addition, the Chinese people want their assets to be secure, their children to be well-educated, and their air to be clean. All of these are actually monumental reform agenda items. (Note: surely it cannot be chance that in 2012, Chinese nationals made up 1,675 of the ten thousand EB-5 visas—visas granted to people who invest one million dollars in a U.S. company and provide jobs for ten people—offered by the U.S . government and in 2014, they accounted for 8,308.) At the same time, labor protests have just about doubled during 2014-2015 to 2,500. Social stability remains the leaders’ paramount concern, and could easily be a trigger for a round of poor economic choices.
None of this is to say that economic reform in China won’t happen. But it will reflect all the messy and painful politics that plague any country trying to overhaul its economy, and then some.
Elizabeth C. Economy is the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This article first appeared in Asia Unbound.
Image: Flickr/Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

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The National Interest2016.1.25---Elizabeth C. Economy :理解中国经济的关键：政治
在过去的几个月中，它已成为一个多全职工作，试图找出什么是中国经济继续。已经有很多很好的努力，使所有正在走出北京的不同数量的意识，告诉人们如何寻找前进（包括乔治·马格努斯，加布里埃尔和威尔道普拉萨德的Eswar），但它是具有挑战性的。不应该，但往往被遗忘在数海一件事是改革进程的政治。在政治层面可以提供一些急需的情况下，以北京面临的问题。我认为，可能是导致北京的脱节，看似次优的经济决策过程中的三个政治因素。
 经济改革=较少的控制=风险合法性。
无论围坐中南海周边经济学家多么有才华而定，决定由共产党大多非经济学家领导人，和经济改革提出自己的合法性危在旦夕在一个非常根本途径。人们很容易忘记，所有提出的改革货币中，股市，国有企业，他们-要求中国领导人放宽或解除他们的控制杠杆对经济，这是他们不情愿做的事情。其合法性在很大程度上取决于经济增长，市场引入了一个显著的不确定性入方程，其提供经济增长的能力。与会领导人会不断尝试与他们多少可以让去实现他们想要的，同时仍然坚持着这样的权力，因为他们可以改变。我们应该期待的经济改革，在忽冷忽热继续。
  习近平是终极决胜局。
在胡同的话，就是降压与习近平停止。一些好的可能来自这一点，但这里有一些的报道挑战：一是责无旁贷习近平，但兮不一定明白，他正试图解决经济问题的具体细节;而当他不解决这些问题，目前尚不清楚他是完全满意的风险和波动性的改变着中国进入市场经济的限嗣继承制。二，西安是主要关心的是经济如何才能促进中国在世界上的地位，如此吸引中国的习近平的感觉作为一个全球大国的方式得到批准一项倡议：因此“一带，一之路”（其中有许多中国经济学家担心实际上不会为中国的人民币被添加到国际货币基金组织（IMF）的特别提款权（一招一些中国分析人士认为发生过该国的金融机构已准备好）的任何实际的好处对中国经济）和积极推动。第三，在经济决策过程中的多个权力中心：羲和他的顾问，王岐山和他的经济厨柜，以及李克强和他越来越倒霉的球队。说够了。最后，当Xi传播，经济决策嘎然而止，羲和旅行了很多。
预期的负担。
随着习近平和他的团队现在已经开始了他们的第四年在动力方面，压力是提供一些显著改革的成功。多数分析师和中国以外的企业家认为，中国政府将推出的权利，通过其庞大的经济改革议程大致奠定了在第18届党代表大会的2013年11月十六届三中全会。这是不是“是否”，而是“何时”。这是不会发生的问题。此外，中国人希望自己的资产是安全的，他们的孩子有良好的教育，他们的空气是干净的。所有这些其实都是巨大的改革议题。 （注：当然不能以此为契机，2012年，中国公民由一万EB-5到谁投资于一家美国公司一百万美元，并提供就业岗位十人获得签证，签证的1675人提供由美国，政府在2014年，他们占8,308）。与此同时，劳工抗议必须在2014 - 2015年到2500几乎增加了一倍。社会稳定仍然是领导者的首要考虑，并可以很容易地进行了一轮糟糕的经济选择的触发器。
这一切都不是说，中国的经济改革不会发生。但它会反射所有困扰任何国家试图彻底改革其经济，当时的一些混乱和痛苦的政治。
伊丽莎白C.经济是C.V。斯塔尔高级研究员和亚洲研究主任在外交关系委员会。这篇文章最早出现在亚洲没有限制。
图片来源：Flickr /外交及联邦事务部。



资料来源 :
The National Interest :The Key to Understanding China’s Economy: Its Politics
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-key-understanding-chinas-economy-its-politics-15015