The first highway of Beijing, China, Beijing.(Xinhua News Agency)
Recently, all parties in China have conducted a big discussion on the economic development and economic reform of the country, what should be done and how to do the next step?Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese economy has entered a new normal, and has entered a stage of medium -speed growth. It has steadily decreased from the previous two -digit growth to about 7%, and hopes to maintain a relatively long period.Although the expected mid -speed growth has been maintained over the years, the downward pressure on the economy has recently increased.There are both internal factors and external factors.
As far as internal factors are concerned, there are both objective levels of structural adjustment and changes in the business environment caused by policy intentions.Like many other countries, the imbalance of domestic economic structure is obvious.For many years, investment, consumption, and exports have drove economic growth, but now these three areas have problems.The peak investment peak of the country has passed, mainly investing in large -scale infrastructure construction.Technical investment is also ongoing, and the proportion has been increasing, but it is difficult for people to expect when new technologies can appear.Consumption is growing, but it also encounters bottlenecks.After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, officials who had occupied a lot of officials had been effectively controlled because of the continuous anti -corruption movement.
Because of the institutionalization of anti -corruption, this consumption may be gone.Due to the difference in high income, the rich group has excessive consumption, and the middle class with not much scale should also have it. In recent years, with the uncertainty of the economic environment in recent years, it is unwilling to consume.Compared with the middle class of developed countries, China's middle class does not have an effective institutional guarantee. Except for some young people, most of the middle class dare not consume excessive consumption.The poor are still under the state of insufficient consumption.
Although there have been large -scale accurate poverty alleviation campaigns in the government in recent years, to transform the poor into consumers, there is a long way to go.The difficulty of exports is more obvious.After joining the World Trade Organization, exports have effectively drove economic growth for a long time. However, in recent years, with the changes in the European and American markets, the share of exports to GDP's growth (GDP) has been declining.Now that the Sino -US trade war is carried out, it is hoped that exports to drive the economy are no longer realistic.
In addition to the above -mentioned export trade, external factors have an important technical factors.For a long time, the Chinese economy is a simple economic expansion based on cheap labor and land elements.Because there is a cheap production factors, Western technology has spread rapidly to China.To put it simply, Western technology and China's labor and land have quickly contributed to China to become a world manufacturing base (precisely, it is an assembly industry).At present, this simple expansion of the quantitative economy is not much space. From a quantitative economic growth to quality and economic growth, technology has become the most important element.China tries to pursue a high value -added economy through technological upgrades.
However, this is also the main reason for Western concerns about China.To a large extent, it is better to say that the Sino -US trade war is a trade war.The United States constantly lobbying Western countries (especially its allies) to block Huawei 5G, obviously the United States believes that Huawei has huge technical advantages in the United States in this regard.In terms of technology, although China has been emphasizing independent innovation, it takes time to innovate on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is not to say that China has closed the door to innovate itself, and technology exchanges with developed countries (especially Western) are still important.Anyway, although China has made breakthroughs in some technical fields, there are still great differences with Western technology.How to break through the West's technical blockage in China is a major challenge for China.
Political speech around the business environment
The subjective reasons are mainly changes in policy intentions that have led to changes in the business environment.It is mainly manifested in politics.In recent years, at the social level, the return of ideology in some fields, the extreme left remarks have continued to appear, and even the private economy has completed the historical mission argument in the previous paragraph.Extremely negative influence.
Although China has also worked a lot in the rule of law, the degree of institutionalization is still low, and changes in ideology have always been regarded as the vane of national policy.In historical perspective, the extreme left speech has always had a fatal impact on the business community, and this time the same.It was not until the highest leadership came out many times to express support for private enterprises, which slowed down the concerns of the business community.Furthermore, in recent years, the party building has become an important agenda for the ruling party. How to strengthen the party's leadership in all aspects is a issue that leaders at all levels have to consider.
However, at the level of implementation, the party building has evolved into all aspects of the party, and various types of enterprises and social organizations have been demanded to establish party branches.This has a huge impact on companies, especially foreign -funded enterprises, because they cannot understand what this is for.In fact, from the experience of party building, the final result of the partyization must be weakened rather than strengthening the party's leadership, because the process of partyization is also the process of party socialization. When the party and society (enterprises) have no boundaries,The party's leadership will inevitably weaken.
All these have caused downward pressure on the economy.However, development is still the last word.In the short term, if it cannot guarantee a long -term medium speed, China will still face the possibility of falling into a middle income trap.The expansion of the middle class still requires economic growth, and large -scale poverty alleviation requires sustainable economic development to support.More importantly, economic growth is the importance of achieving two steps in the future, that is, the realization of socialist modernization by 2035 and the real power in 2050.
what to do?Since the economy is affected by internal and external factors, reform must also be intended to improve the internal and external business environment.In fact, improving the business environment is also the focus of the two sessions in 2019.As far as internal reform is concerned, it is mainly focused on large -scale tax cuts.Obviously, tax reduction is important. If the tax is too heavy, it will affect the enthusiasm of enterprises and entrepreneurs.At the same time, many places have also changed the relationship between political and business in the previous anti -corruption movement, and some places have allowed and encouraged officials to make friends with entrepreneurs.
However, in terms of experience, these measures may have some short -term effects, but they cannot solve long -term problems.The government still needs income after tax reduction, and after tax reduction.Although it can be vigorously advocated to save expenses, this is a saying after all.If there is no large -scale essence and minimalist administration and reduce the government scale, it is difficult for government spending to reduce.With the reform of the new wave of institutions, the government's scale is under pressure to expand again.
Where does the government's income come from?It is nothing more than three sources, namely land and real estate (especially local governments), government debt and issuance of currencies.However, to a large extent, these three resources have been excessive and limited.More importantly, China's social income has been highly unequal and socially differentiated. The state needs to adjust the distribution of income through tax policies; that is, with the development of the economy, China will tend to develop a high tax direction.This is the need for social stability and development; without social stability, economic development will lack the foundation.
From the perspective of world economy and historical experience, the development of China's economy to the present stage is crucial to protect the lives and property of entrepreneurs.These two aspects are more important than anything.Entrepreneurs' private property is also part of the overall wealth of the country and needs to be effectively protected.If it is not safe, it will run away with its owner (entrepreneur).In response to tax cuts, some entrepreneurs said that thanking me for this opportunity to make money, but the safety of my money was still not guaranteed.In the case of wealth zero at any time, and threatened by entrepreneurs' lives at any time, all other economic stimulus measures will appear pale and weak. Seeking higher internal openness
In fact, the loss of Chinese entrepreneurs and their wealth has been too serious, and this problem was ignored intentionally or unintentionally in the past.In East Asia, Japan and Asia's four -dragon economies (South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan) have reached about 70%of the middle class in the two or three decades after the economy took off.However, the situation in China is very different. In the past 40 years, China's economic growth even exceeded the four dragons of Japan and Asia, but the size of the middle class was still small, less than 30%.Where did the wealth go?This account needs to be calculated.In any case, the departure of entrepreneurs and their wealth is one of the important reasons.Life safety should also include the safety of government officials and state -owned enterprise officials.Anti -corruption requires the construction system, and cannot rely on the moral level and party discipline of officials.The corruption of many officials is also caused by an unopened system, not simply human nature.
The construction of regulatory government needs to be accelerated and strengthened.As far as political and business relations are concerned, there is no relationship between the two entities of the government and the enterprise, and it has always been at the level of personal relations between entrepreneurs and officials.After this round of anti -corruption, both are now afraid of having a relationship with each other, because once the relationship occurs, the supervision department will come to the door at any time.In other words, the relationship between the two still has no transformation and is still the personal relationship between officials and entrepreneurs.As long as it is a personal relationship, it is still easy to corruption.From the relationship between the two individuals, it is possible to transform into the relationship between the two entities, and at least from the experience of Singapore and other countries, it can be seen.
The market economy is the rule of law economy. Everyone understands this, but it is still not reflected at the practical level.Leaders at all levels continue to frequently use political and policy means (such as speeches and policy statements of leaders at all levels).At the practical level, the effectiveness of politics and policy means is getting lower and lower.And these are temporary means, not sustainable development.After the beginning of modern Western capitalism, it is not unreasonable to emphasize the right to life and property rights.At least from the logic of economic development, these two rights provide entrepreneurs with legal guarantee.The experience of Japan and Asia's four dragons also fully illustrates this.
However, it should be emphasized that protecting the right to life and property of entrepreneurs is not to say that capital can do whatever they want.In the West, the socialist movement has led to the establishment of social policies in all aspects to effectively protect the society and realize the balance between capital and society.China can also learn a lot of experience lessons from the experience of developing in the West and other Asian economies.
To the outside world, people should not misunderstand the current trade protectionism and economic nationalism in Western countries.Western capital will not be isolated, no matter what the situation, the essence of capital expansion will not change.The entire West is now in the stage of institutional adjustment and reconstruction, and the re -departure is to find new openness and expansion policies.It can be said that the competition in the future does not depend on who is closed, but to see who is more open, which is the competition for openness.
For China, not opening and failure leads to beating and failure is a history of great history.Therefore, China will not go back.In recent years, even if Western trade protectionism has prevailed, China has always insisted on continuing open policies.From the Davos Forum to the Boao Asia Forum, ... the importance of repeated emphasis on China itself and the world.Policy discourse is also manifested at the policy level, including the free trade pilot zone after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the free trade port pilot zone after the 19th National Congress, and the recent Guangdong -Hong Kong -Macao Greater Bay Area.In addition to actively participating in the multilateral trade system at the international level, these experiments are focused on internal opening.
Internal openness has unilateral openness, which is intended to seek higher openness through its own efforts.In this regard, the Guangdong -Hong Kong -Macao Greater Bay Area has special significance.Because it is carried out in the environment of one country, two systems, the Greater Bay Area can learn from the European Union, North American Free Trade Zone and Cross -Pacific Partnerships (CPTPP) and other multilateral trading systems to learn from Hong Kong and Macao first, and then gradually expand the scope.
Although the implementation details of the Foreign Investment Law issued recently have yet to be formulated, a new round of trend of integration with international standards has been revealed.China is now the second largest economy, with powerful capabilities and absorbing the cost of digesting unilateral openness.In fact, in the 1980s, please come in with the 1990s, and to a large extent, it also has the meaning of unilateral openness.The larger unilateral open policy is not only conducive to the development of China itself, but also the development of regional and world economy.
In other words, China's next stage of development and reform is not only internal, but also in the international level.This is the new version of internal reform and opening up.
(The author is the director of the East Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore)
(The article only represents personal point of view)
