沉思：美国兰德公司对中国人的评价 2008-06-30 18:49

Statement of William H. Overholt1

Asia Policy Chair

Director, Center for Asia Pacific Policy The RAND Corporation

Before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission May 19, 2005 Summary

China has transformed itself from the world’s greatest opponent of globalization, and greatest disrupter of the global institutions we created, into a committed member of those

institutions and advocate of globalization. It is now a far more open economy than Japan and it is globalizing its institutions to a degree not seen in a big country since Meiji

Japan. Adoption of the rule of law, of commitment to competition, of widespread use of

English, of foreign education, and of many foreign laws and institutions are not just

updating Chinese institutions but transforming Chinese civilization. All of China’s economic successes are associated with liberalization and globalization,

and each aspect of globalization has brought China further successes. Never in world

history have so many workers improved their standards of living so rapidly. Thus

popular support for globalization is greater than in Japan, where postwar recovery

occurred in a highly managed economy, or with the former Soviet Union, where shock therapy traumatized society. In consequence, China has effectively become an ally of

U.S. and Southeast Asian promotion of freer trade and investment than is acceptable to

Japan, India and Brazil. ____________ The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are the author’s alone

and should not be interpreted as representing those of RAND or any of the sponsors of its

research. This product is part of the RAND Corporation testimony series.

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Nonetheless, rapid Chinese globalization has required stressful adjustments. State

enterprise employment has declined by 44 million. China has lost 25 million

manufacturing jobs. 125 car companies are expected to consolidate rapidly into 3 to 6.

China’s globalization successes are profoundly influencing its neighbors. India has

learned from China the advantages of a more open economy. Asians schooled in

antipathy to foreign investment and Latin Americans with protectionist traditions are

going to have to be more open to foreign investment and less dependent on loans in order

to compete with China. This will transform third world strategies of development and

create broader global opportunities for our companies.

Contrary to early fears, China’s rise has stimulated neighbors’ trade and foreign

investment rather than depriving them. Indeed China’s recent growth spurt revived

Japan’s economy and saved key neighbors from recession, possibly averting a dangerous global downturn.

Chinese growth has brought American companies new markets. The flow of profits from China to the U.S. is as disproportionate as the flow of goods. Inexpensive products have

substantially improved the living standards of poorer Americans. Inexpensive Chinese

goods and Chinese financing of our deficit have kept U.S. inflation and

interest rates

down and prolonged our economic booms. At the same time, it has caused trade deficits

and social adjustments. Chinese misappropriation of intellectual property creates losses

for many of our companies. A manic construction and transportation boom has raised global raw materials prices, to the great benefit of producers and a great cost to consumers.

China’s success is one of the most important developments of modern history, but

projecting from current growth to Chinese global dominance or threats to our way of life

is just wrong. Unlike the old Soviet Union, reformist China does not seek to alter any

other country’s way of life. Its economy faces world history’s most severe combination

of banking, urbanization and employment challenges, and by 2020 a demographic

squeeze that will have few workers supporting many dependents. The best outcome for

us would be a China that is eventually like Japan, prosperous, winning in some sectors,

losing in others. Signs that China is making rapid progress in that direction should be welcomed, not feared.

China and Globalization

Before reform, China was the world’s most important opponent of globalization. It had

an autarkic economy. It opposed the global economic order. It opposed the global

political order and the major global institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. It

believed that global disorder was a good thing, and under Mao Zedong it actively

promoted disorder throughout the world, including promotion of insurgencies in most of

China’s neighbors, in much of Africa and Latin America, and even in our universities.

Accompanying foreign policy disaffection was domestic cultural despair on a scale the

world has seldom witnessed. In the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976,

China’s students

and others, under the guidance of Mao Zedong’s peasant chiliasm, humiliated a majority

of senior government and party leaders, attacked the country’s major educational, social and political institutions, destroyed much of China’s cultural heritage, and in general

tried to smash the country’s establishment.

For two centuries Chinese had tried a range of ways – socialism, capitalism, empire,

republic, warlords, religious fundamentalism, and others. All failed. Alienation was so

severe that, along with students, much of the country accepted that the world economic

and political order, and the Chinese economic and political order, were so stacked against them that any path to success had to start with destruction of the existing order.

The Cultural Revolution was actually just one small episode in the problems that Chinese

impoverishment and political division created for the world and specifically for us. Had

China been prosperous and unified throughout the twentieth century, we would have had

European War II rather than World War II and World War I would have been quite

different. China would have been able to deter or defeat Japanese aggression. The cost

of those conflicts to the U.S. would have been radically smaller because Pearl Harbor and

much else would not have happened. We and the world, not to speak of a billion Chinese

citizens, have paid a horrible price, over more than a century, for China’s weakness. The

world needs a healthy China.

Because of China’s successful globalization we no longer have such problems. China is

no longer a vacuum that sucks the world’s great powers into gigantic conflicts. China no

longer sponsors insurgencies in Southeast Asia and Africa and Latin America. China no

longer seeks to undermine the global financial institutions. We obtain benefits from a