比利时：中国！下一个西班牙帝国？ [比利时媒体]

China: The new Spanish Empire?

中国！下一个西班牙帝国？



The Spanish Armada

西班牙“无敌舰队”

The Chineseturmoil roiling markets right now presents a fresh and profound challenge tothe world economy: For the first time, a giant, non-European superpowerthreatens world financial stability and the powers that be seem at a loss. If the IMF and World Bank have stumbled with Greece,how are they going to get a hold on the stock market travails of CommunistChina? What tools do we even have to affect how it plays out?

面对跌宕起伏的中国股市，世界经济正面临着一种前所未有的、意义深远的挑战：世界金融的稳定，头一次，被一个庞大的，非欧国家的超级大国所威胁，这种能力着实有些让人沮丧。如果说IMF(国际货币基金组织)和世界银行被希腊绊了个踉跄，那么面对中国惨淡股市他们该如何应对？对于它的蔓延我们还需拿出什么方法施加影响？

But if theparticulars are novel, in the bigger sense this is amovie we’ve seen before. Though Chinahas been the global economic star of the last low-growth decade, it remains atotalitarian dictatorship, with its economy shrouded in state secrecy. What we’re encountering in this crisis is the spectacle of a closed societycolliding with the forces of complex, free-market capitalism. If we look beyondChina, we can find a long history of these collisions, dating back hundreds ofyears, as both closed societies and capitalism evolved and became more complex.And the history has a clear but unsettling lesson to offer: When such acollision happens, it’s a moment to genuinely worry.

如果把某些细节刨除在外，从更广的意义来讲，这更像是一部我们以前看过的电影。虽然中国之前经历过一个十年的低增长期后还是全球经济之星，但它依旧是一个极权独裁的，经济不透明的国家。我们所看到的这场危机，是一个封闭社会，与复杂的、自由市场资本力量相互碰撞的景象。让我们把目光掠过中国，我们会发现这种碰撞在历史上长期存在，甚至可以追溯到几百年之前，正是由于社会封闭和资本发展的不透明，所以才变得更加复杂。历史已有前车之鉴：一旦发生这种碰撞，忧虑就真的来了。

Since the dawnof capitalism, closed societies with repressive governments have — much like China —been capable of remarkable growth and innovation. Sixteenth-century Spain was agreat imperial power, with a massive navy and extensive industry such asshipbuilding and mining. One could say the same thing about Louis XIV’s France during the 17th century, which also had vast wealth,burgeoning industry and a sprawling empire.

萌芽中的资本主义，封闭的社会，专制的政府、有着显着的增长和创新能力，与中国十分相似。16世纪西班牙是一个伟大的强大帝国，拥有规模庞大的海军，拥有诸如造船、采矿等各种大量工业。到了17世纪，人们也都认为，路易十四统治下的法国同样拥有海量的财富，广泛发展的产业和庞大的帝国。

But bothcountries were also secretive, absolute monarchies, and they found themselvesthrust into competition with the freer countries Holland and Great Britain.Holland, in particular, with a government that didn’t try to control information, became theinformation center of Europe — the place traders wentto find out vital information which they then used as thebasis of their projects and investments. The large empires, on the other hand,had economies so centrally planned that the monarchhimself would often make detailed economic decisions. As these secretivemonarchies tried to prop up their economies, they ended up in unsustainable positions that invariably led tobankruptcy, collapse and conflict.

但这两个国家也有难言之隐，由于绝对的君主制，他们发现自己被迫陷入了与荷兰、英国这些自由国家的竞争之中。尤其是荷兰政府，从不封锁消息，因此它才成了欧洲的信息中心，这里的证券交易员们总能找到一些关键信息，并以此作为投资的基础。另一方面，庞大帝国经济的计划与实施，采用的都是君主自己所制定的经济政策。这些反复无常的君主想尽全力去维持他们的经济，但由于他们无法善终，（最后）总是导致破产，倒闭和冲突。

In Spain, theresult was a slow collapse, which has left it and itsformer empire suffering from perpetual economic crisis and politicalinstability. In France, an open society would eventuallybe born through monarchial bankruptcy that pulleddown banksaround Europe, and ended in violent revolution and thevastly destructive Napoleonic wars.

西班牙（帝国）开始步入衰败，逐渐消亡，这个曾经的帝国经历了长期的经济危机和政治不稳定。开放的法国社会，最终促使国王彻底破产，并终结于暴力革命和具有极大破坏力的拿破仑战争中。

More recently,Germany long struggled with the mix of modernindustry, capitalism and authoritarianism. Throughout the 19th century, andinto the 20th, Germany experienced massive economic growth under the hand ofBismarck’s central politicalauthority; the result was a period of great strength, followed bycrisis, war, political upheaval and the geopolitical and moral catastrophe ofWWII.

目前，德国长期游走于现代工业，资本主义和威权主义之间。19世纪20年代，德国在经历了俾斯麦中央集权统治时期下强劲的经济增长，虽出现过短暂的辉煌，但战争、政治动荡、二战地缘政治和道德灾难等这些危机也随之而来。

And though wetend to forget this now, the Soviet Union experienced massive economicexpansion for half a century. America feared it not only for its m military,but for the industrial might, expanding GDP and technological achievements thatadded heft to its ideological challenge around the world. Only after thecollapse of the USSR in 1991 did we fully understand what was really going onbehind the curtain. In financial terms, Soviet secrecy was very effectivelyshrouding the massive liabilities of the state. It had admirable steady growth,industrial production rates, and GDP rose — so much so that even until the early 1980s, the CIA saw the Sovieteconomy as a credible, competitive force. But in order to sustain economicgrowth, we can’t just look at output; we also need tosee the long-term cost of the output, and the Soviet system allowed its leadersto shroud the unsustainable costs in inefficiency, lives, and environmentaldestruction that eventually brought down the empire.

尽管现在我们都快忘了，苏联曾经历了半个世纪的大规模的经济扩张。美国怕的不是苏联的军事力量，而是苏联的工业，上涨的GPD、科技成就，以及开始蔓延开来的影响世界的意识形态。但只有在苏联解体后，我们才完全知晓1991年幕后所发生过的真实故事。财政方面，苏联把该国巨额债务的秘密隐瞒的死死的。表面上它有令人羡慕的稳定增长、稳定的工业生产率，高GDP，以至于即使在20世纪80年代初，CIA还认定苏联经济稳定，具有竞争力 。但维持经济增长，我们不能光看产出，我们还要看远期产出成本，在苏联体制下，领导人可以以低效不计代价的方式维持生活水平，以致环境遭到破坏，最终导致苏联帝国覆灭。

China is a newcase, for it has mixed capitalism and totalitarianism in a unique way. Unlikethe USSR, there are privately owned companies and public investment. And yetbehind banks, companies and the stock market still lies the heavy hand of thestate. The Chinese government forces investment in the stock market andbolsters banks, companies and state entities with secretive cash infusions; itand hides toxic assets in its enormous and completely secretive sovereignwealth funds. The government may not be able to control the stock market, butit does successfully keep a veil over state finances. This is what closed,authoritarian governments have done since the 16th century.

拿中国来说，它以独特的方式把资本与集权主义捏在了一起。与苏联不同是，中国有私人企业和公共投资（集资）。但这里的银行、公司和股票市场的背后，仍由国家所牢牢控制。中国政府干预股票市场，还对银行、公司和国有机构，暗中注资进行扶持。中国政府或许控制不了股票市场，但它成功地把国家财政遮上了一层黑纱。这算隐瞒么?自从16世纪以来所有专制政府都是这么干的。

China is nowplaying in world financial markets, but those markets are dynamic and resilientin part because they are relatively open — they can fail, but it’s reasonably clearwhy, and, in the best cases, the paths to reform are debatedin public forums. In China, there are the mechanics of capitalism without theessential spirit of the system. As in imperial Spain, or Cold War Russia, thereis neither transparency nor trust.

此时的中国正影响着全世界的金融市场，但这些金融市场是动态的，有弹性的，因为它们是相对开放的--它们可能会失败，原因显而易见，乐观点说，这条改革之路会陷入舆论的漩涡中。没有资本主义机制的中国，何谈这个（资本）体系中内在的精神原髓。比如西班牙帝国，或冷战时期的苏联，既不透明又不被信任。

There is no question that China has massivegrowth potential until its population curve starts to turn, but what we areseeing in this current financial crisis is likely to be only the beginning ofthe political and societal crisis brought about by a dictatorship’s efforts to simulate the performance of a capitalist economy — but one that only grows. The stock market is not real; governmentfinancial statistics are fake and obscured.

毫无疑问，中国有着巨大的增长潜力，直到它的人口曲线发生转折。但当前我们所看到的金融危机，很可能是一个独裁的政府嗅出了政治和社会危机的苗头，为求增长，而试图模拟出的资本主义经济表现。股票市场是不真实的，政府财政统计数据是假的，被修饰过的。

There is nohistorical example of a closed imperial economy facing largecapital-driven, open states and sustainably competing over a long term.That is not to say that China isn’t an economic powerhouse and a remarkable site of energy andpotential. It is certainly both. But we also know Chinese debt — as secret as the state likes to keep it —is enormous, and that its financial system is like any other bubble. It ispredicated on inflated earnings reports and expectations. The great “Beijing Consensus,” China’s absolute commitment to showing 8% growth every year, isunsustainable, at least through legitimate means. And without it, China isbeginning to look like an enormous totalitarian ponzi scheme —a phenomenon common enough in world history, but extremelydangerous be near in the long run.

回顾历史，没有一个封闭的帝国能正视庞大的“资本影响”、国家开放和长期可持续竞争。这里并不是说中国就不是一个经济强国，也不是说它没有强大的能力和潜力。这两样它当然都具有。但我们也清楚中国的债务——正如该国喜欢保守秘密——巨大的秘密，它的金融体系好像跟其他任何一种泡沫没啥区别。它是以夸大盈利报告和预期为基础的。伟大的“北京共识”，中国所承诺每年8%的增长是不可能持续的，至少通过合法手段是不可能的。缺了它，中国开始看起来像一个凶暴的极权主义下的庞氏骗局——这种现象在世界上很常见，但长期运作的过程中定会殃及池鱼。

It’s tempting to look for quick policysolutions, or — for some political candidates — to wave around threats as a way to gain leverage. But almost by definition,a society like China is immune to our efforts: if we don’t actually what’s going on, it’s difficult to exert even our limited influence in an intelligentway. In the short term, the best goal to push for is more transparency, in thehope that sunlight helps mitigate whatever shock is still coming. And untilthen, a healthy skepticism might be the best protection we can offer ourselves.

寻找立见成效的解决政策，或是倾向对某一政治候选人——制造舆论威胁以获得影响力，不失是个好主意。但几乎可以肯定的是，一个像中国这样的社会对我们的努力根本不受影响：如果我们不以一种聪明的方式继续去做，我们将更难发挥其有限的作用。短期内，最适合的目标是促使提高透明度，公开了就可以减轻下一波任何可能带来的冲击。在那之前，善意的怀疑可能是最好的保护，我们自己可以做到。

JacobSoll, a professorof history and accounting at the University of Southern California, is theauthor of “The Reckoning: FinancialAccountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations.”

Jacob Soll，南加州大学历史与会计学教授，《因果报应：财政责任与国家的兴衰》一书作者。