【经济学人】中国“特色城镇”发展失控 [英国媒体]

Sex-toy town, anyone?

情趣玩具城，有人来吗？

China pushes towns to brand themselves, then regrets it

中国鼓励城镇为自身打造品牌，却后悔了

Officials in Beijing fret that local boosters are getting carried away

支持该政策的地区失控引起北京官员担忧



NUCLEAR is the future for the small coastal city of Haiyan. Not just as a source of power but, local officials think, as a magnet for businesses and tourists. Home to China’s first domestically developed commercial reactor, Haiyan recently started calling itself “nuclear-power town”. It has opened a nuclear museum (pictured), broken ground on a nuclear-related industrial park and drawn up blueprints for homes and hotels that play up the atomic theme. Signs above the main road declare it a “city of hope”.

核能是沿海小镇海盐县的未来趋势。当地官员认为，核能不光是电力能源，也对企业和游客具有吸引力。海盐县是中国首台自主研发的商业反应堆所在地，最近自称为“核电城”。海盐县已建成核能博物馆，核能工业园区已破土动工，并计划建造原子主题的住宅和宾馆，主干道上挂起“希望之城”标语。

For those not so enamoured of nuclear power, other newly emerging cities a short drive away might be more alluring. Gourmands can opt for “chocolate town” or “shiitake town”, whereas fashionistas have “leather-fashion town” and “cosmetics town”. Aspiring fund managers are also well looked after. They can choose between four different “financial” towns.

离此不远的其他新兴城市对核能不太感兴趣，它们可能更具吸引力。吃货可以去“巧克力城 ”或“香菇城 ”，时尚达人可以去“皮革时装城 ”和“化妆品城 ”。踌躇满志的基金经理亦不例外，他们有四个“金融城”可去。

They are all part of China’s push to create tese xiaozhen, or “speciality towns”, a policy campaign that began in the wealthy eastern province of Zhejiang, where Haiyan is located, and that is now being rolled out nationwide. It is rooted in a long-standing effort to limit the size of big cities and keep the country’s population dispersed as it rapidly urbanises. Central planners view the speciality towns as a way to promote the growth of urban areas with populations of 500,000 or fewer (see chart). These are often far shabbier than the glitzy megacities.

它们是中国着力打造的“特色城镇”，这场政策运动始于东部发达的浙江省，即海盐县所在地，目前正在席卷全国。中国长期控制大城市规模，在快速城镇化的同时保持人口分散，这些是该运动的根源。对于50万人口以下的城市，中央规划者认为特色城市是它们发展经济的一种途径，它们的发展远不及繁华大城市。

Local officials have been asked to identify things that make their places unique—some combination of industry, tourist attractions and the local way of life—and then cultivate them into a full-fledged theme, a lodestar for development. The result, it is hoped, will be a mass of differentiated, thriving towns. Over the past 18 months the central government has approved 403 speciality towns and aims to have 1,000 of them by 2020. In the past, cities racked up massive debts by building vast new districts in the hope of developing a wide variety of businesses. The speciality towns, by contrast, are supposed to be focused on one particular industry, and much cheaper to build.

根据中央要求，地方官员要挖掘当地特色，将产业、旅游景点、本地生活方式相结合，打造全方位主题作为发展指导原则，最终形成大批差异化、繁荣城镇。18个月以来，中央政府已批准403座特色城镇，计划到2020年达到1000座。在过去，城市大兴土木建造新兴城区，希望培养出各类企业，结果欠下巨额债务。相比而言，特色城镇应聚焦单个产业，使建造成本大幅降低。

There are worries, though, that the campaign is veering off course. While the central government—fearful that local administrations might splurge on wasteful schemes—is trying to restrict approvals, lower-level officials are forging ahead, with or without permission. China Times, a newspaper in Beijing, estimates that as many as 6,000 speciality towns are being developed. The average investment so far has been about 5bn yuan ($755m) per town, according to Shenwan Hongyuan Securities, a brokerage. If that were spent on all the 1,000 towns in the government’s plan, the total cost would reach 5trn yuan, or nearly 7% of GDP—a huge amount, even by China’s standards.

可令人担忧的是，这场运动正在偏离方向。中央担心地方政府在耗资巨大的计划上铺张浪费，虽然在努力限制审批，但无论审批与否，底层官员仍在大力推动。北京《中国时报》估算，发展中的特色城镇多达6000座。根据申万宏源证券公司统计，目前每座城镇的平均投资约50亿元（7亿5500万美元）。如果按照中央计划打造1000座特色城镇，总成本将达5万亿元，约合GDP的7%，即使按照中国标准衡量也是个庞大数字。

Some of the towns appear to deviate from what China’s leader, Xi Jinping, had in mind when he lent support to the idea. Yucheng, a hamlet in Zhejiang, aims to be “happy town”, complete with a sex-toy shopping street and a hotel for amorous couples. Zhongxian, a poor city in the west, wants to be an online gaming mecca. It is building a 6,000-seat stadium to host e-sport competitions, even though three other cities have similar plans.

有些城镇好像偏离了中央支持该想法的初衷，浙江小村庄Yucheng想成为“性福镇”，建成一条情趣玩具购物街和一家情侣酒店。西部贫困的忠县想成为网游天堂，正在建造的电竞场馆可容纳6000名观众，其他三座城镇也有类似计划。

As local officials get carried away, planners in Beijing are losing some of their enthusiasm. In July the housing ministry scolded local governments for “three blinds” in their projects: blindly demolishing old districts, blindly building skyscrapers and (horror of horrors) blindly copying foreign culture. In September Zhang Xiaohuan, a government researcher, warned of a familiar problem in this supposedly new approach to urbanisation. Municipal officials, he said, were seizing on speciality towns as a way to gin up short-term growth without any thought to the longer-term consequences of their debt-laden investments. On December 5th the government warned officials not to use the speciality push simply as an excuse for bingeing on yet more property developments.

随着地方官员的失控，北京规划者的热情有所减退。今年7月，住建部批评地方政府在项目上存在“三盲目”：盲目拆除老区，盲目建造高楼大厦，（最可怕的是）盲目效仿西方文化。今年9月，政府研究员张晓园警告，这种所谓的新城镇化道路存在另一个类似问题。他说市政官员正在以特色城镇为契机推动短期增长，不顾举债投资造成的长期后果。12月5日，中央警告地方官员勿以特色城镇为借口大肆投资房地产。

The central government may have a point. But it fails to acknowledge that it is at fault, too, with its top-down approach to urbanisation. As many economists note, trying to limit the size of the biggest cities and boost that of smaller ones is a recipe for inefficiency. Lu Ming, an economist at Shanghai Jiaotong University, notes that China has a long history of places that have prospered with the help of a single industry, especially along the coast. Examples have included towns focusing on products as diverse as zips, cigarette lighters and bras. Yet these have almost always developed organically, disciplined by the rigours of competition for global market share. “They cannot easily be replicated on a national basis,” says Mr Lu.

中央政府也许能自圆其说，但不承认在自上而下的城镇化道路上，自身也有责任。许多经济学家指出，试图限制大城市规模和扩大小城市规模是徒劳的。上海交通大学经济学家陆明指出，中国地方依靠单一产业得以繁荣由来已久，尤其是沿海地区。它们侧重的产品多种多样，包括拉链、打火机、胸罩，但几乎都是有机发展的结果，在严峻的竞争考验下争取全球市场份额。“而这些在国家基础上很难被复制”，陆先生说道。

At its best the speciality-town policy might give a boost to places that already have a good deal going for them. With a nuclear-power plant in operation for more than 20 years, Haiyan has long been a leader in China’s atomic-energy industry—even though few outside the city are aware of this. During the National Day holiday in early October, thousands of people lined up to visit its swanky new museum which portrays the science behind nuclear energy and its history in China. But it is a fair bet that it will not be tourism that powers Haiyan’s future growth.

最好的情况下，特色城镇政策能为已拥有成熟产业的地区注入强心剂。海盐县在中国原子能产业长期处于领先地位，拥有一座已运营20多年的核电站，但其他城镇很少有人认识到这一点。十月初国庆节期间，上千人排队参观时髦的新博物馆，它讲述了核能的科学原理以及在中国的发展历程。但可以肯定的是，未来推动海盐县发展的不会是旅游业。