China Girds for Future Shock
Ghost City is doomed.
For years, it has been a popular stopping-off point for tourist steamers along China's Yangtze River. Visitors come for the temples and pavilions said to be haunted by spirits on their way to meet the King of Hell. But when the world's mightiest dam is built downstream, Ghost City will drown beneath the waters, along with the sites of hostels, souvenir markets and antique shops that once provided jobs for Ghost City's 40,000 living souls.
Meanwhile, across the river, construction crews are putting the finishing touches on the new city of Fengdu, built to house Ghost City's transplanted living residents. It boasts broad thoroughfares lined with malls, an imposing cultural center, a sports stadium, a "Grand Hotel" and neat residential blocks.
CHINA: BEYOND BEIJING
A Look at Strains Facing China's Hinterland
China is a tale of two countries. One, on the eastern coast and including cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, presents immense opportunity for the roughly 400 million Chinese who live there, for farmers who live nearby and can sell produce to the cities, and for migrant workers who come from the countryside to find work.
Then there is the other China -- inland and west, where more than 800 million Chinese live. These struggling farmers, laid-off workers, the unemployed and underemployed, pose an economic and political challenge to China's boom. China's leaders have made it a top priority to push growth deeper into the country. They, along with many foreign investors and analysts, fear the instability that could come from a widening wealth gap between the rich coast and poor interior.
This month The Wall Street Journal examines the country's prospects beyond Beijing, looking at the government's efforts to spur economic growth in the hinterland, the challenges facing foreign investors trying to do business there, as well as the political tensions and dramatic social changes already under way.
There is only one problem: The tourist steamers won't stop in the new town. All the temple attractions are far away on the other side of the river, surviving on high ground, while the shops and restaurants that surrounded them will vanish. So, while the new citadel sparkles on the outside, it is filled with despair. Unemployment runs at 60% among the 75,000 residents; many survive on less than $1 a day in government handouts.
Across the poorest stretches of rural China, the government is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure projects in an effort to bring the prosperity of booming cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou to the Chinese hinterland. Just as first-world infrastructure helped transform parts of southern China over several decades into an urban sprawl that became the factory floor of the global economy, so Beijing is applying the same formula to the poorer west of the country. It is all part of a monumental effort by Beijing to head off what is arguably China's biggest threat: social unrest engendered by a widening wealth gap between the rich coast and poor interior.
Overall, fixed-asset investment in China is expanding almost 25% each year; this year, total investment is likely to reach almost 50% of gross domestic product, a ratio far higher than was ever recorded by Taiwan, Japan or South Korea while they were racing at full speed toward industrialization.
But even as construction work picks up pace, millions of working-age people are being left behind -- too old to find jobs in factories along the coast, too young for a pension. By age 30, they are washed up. The state factories that once employed them are bankrupt and shuttered, and few new private businesses have come.
In Fuling, a city of 700,000 an hour upriver from Ghost City, Yan Yuzhong idles away his time playing poker at one of dozens of gambling joints that occupy vacant storefronts in what used to be a bustling commercial district. He once was a security guard at a state factory that went broke, and his card-playing companions fall about with laughter at a suggestion he might join the exodus to look for work along the coast. "I'm 36!" he shouts, tossing a crumpled bill into the pot. "I'm over the hill -- nobody wants me anymore."
For now, government spending is holding up the region's economy. The GDP of Chongqing municipality -- an area including Fengdu and Fuling that is the size of Austria and has a permanent population of almost 30 million -- increased 12.2% last year, well above the national rate of 9.5%. Expansion was fueled by $7.4 billion of infrastructure investment.
Shopkeeper Zhan Shen, who sells Korean-made women's fashions in downtown Chongqing, is being swept along by all the spending. He reckons more than 50% of his sales are to government officials, paid for out of secret slush funds bureaucrats use to pamper each other with expensive gifts.
The big question is when private investment will arrive to sustain growth -- indeed, whether that day will ever come. So far, only a small number of foreign firms have taken the plunge. Ford Motor Co. has a car plant; Britain's BP PLC has invested in chemicals. Like the newly built city of Fengdu, downtown Chongqing, dominated by a 46-story skyscraper modeled on the Empire State Building (and called New York, New York), is in some ways a mirage. On a holiday Sunday, the just-opened Maison Mode department store is practically empty, and a sales clerk offering $100 Armani T-shirts has nothing to do.
"It's the wealth gap," says a perfume saleswoman at the Yves Saint Laurent counter, explaining the lack of customers. "In China, the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor."
The best hope for the area may be projects like a $1.2 billion effort directed by Maximus Li, the local manager of Hong Kong's Shui On Land Ltd. Authorities were so keen to attract Shui On that they agreed to relocate 32,000 people, eight factories, two schools, one prison, police stations and a colony of artists so that the closely held company can create a service center for all the new manufacturing Chongqing expects to attract to help relieve unemployment in the surrounding countryside.
Optimists recall that, a decade ago, the department stores of Shanghai were deserted, too. Shui On's Mr. Li says he doesn't think companies now in the booming Pearl River delta industrial area of southern China will pack up and move to Chongqing. Still, he figures they will decide to expand their operations there. He predicts that when his river-view apartments come onto the market a few years from now, they "will sell like hot cakes."
Local economists are more cautious. "There isn't an easy answer" to unemployment, says Pu Yongjian, a finance professor at Chongqing University and an adviser to the municipal government. He predicts the problem will last for 20 to 30 years. In the short term, he says, infrastructure spending has done little to improve lives in poorer areas of Chongqing. "Quite the opposite," he admits. "The results have been very bad."
More than one million people will be made homeless by the Three Gorges Dam. To stroll through the new housing estates of Fengdu, the refuge for Ghost City's inhabitants, is to enter a world of hopelessness. Residents say crime is endemic.
Tan Guozhen, 62, a half-blind woman petitioning the government for better compensation for farmland it seized from her and other peasants, says, "They think I'm crazy." She shows visitors a large, black trash bag filled with scavenged plastic cups that will earn her a few pennies from a recycling plant. "They've turned farmers into garbage collectors," she snorts.
Dong Yuanjiang's hair is graying at the temples, and her face is creased with worry. But the retired primary-school teacher can afford to dress better than most in Fengdu. She says many of her neighbors rely on remittances from family members working in factories along the coast to put food on their tables.
"Sure, the environment over here is better" than in the old Ghost City, she says. "But where are the jobs?"
三峡大坝雄起鬼城魂飞魄散
“鬼城”真的要见鬼去了。
丰都，这座长江岸边的古城，以城中比比皆是的庙宇亭阁吸引了无数黄泉路上的魂灵在此歇脚而获得了“鬼城”之名，而多少年来，与此相关的种种民间传说也给这座古城引来了数不清的游客。然而，随著下游世界最大的三峡大坝的建成，这座鬼城，连同那些曾给城中40,000生灵提供了生计的旅馆、古玩店和纪念品市场一起，将永远没入水底，遁入苍茫。
与此同时，在旧城的对岸，用于安置移民的丰都新城的建设已经进入了收尾阶段。新城街道宽阔、店铺林立；另外建有一座宏伟的文化中心、一个体育馆和一个大酒店，再就是一个个整洁的居民小区。
只是还有一个问题：长江上的游轮不会再在这里停靠。旧城中那些吸引游客的庙宇亭阁由于建于高处而得以幸存，而它们周围的那些店铺和餐馆却要永远湮灭。新城从表面看固然不错，然而它未能解决一个最根本的问题。在拥有75,000常住人口的丰都，失业率高达60%；城中许多居民都只能靠每天不到1美元的政府救济生活。
“我们的要求不高，只要能有饭吃就行，”62岁的当地居民谭国珍(音)说。政府为建设丰都新城征用了她的耕地，她多次上访要求提高征地补偿，结果惹怒了当地官员。为此，已有一只眼睛失明的她上个月还曾经被警察拘禁。
中国政府正将成千上万亿美元的资金投向最贫困的农村地区进行基础设施建设，以期将像上海、北京、广州一样的富裕城市的繁荣延伸到内陆地区。一如来自发达国家的基础设施在几十年的时间里将中国南方部分地区引向城市化，并进而使之成为全球经济的制造业基地，中国希望把这种成功的模式也照搬到贫穷的西部地区。而所有这一切都是为了一个目的，那就是尽力缩小沿海和内陆之间的贫富差距，将可能由此引发的社会动荡消弥于无形。
双向六车道的高速公路正在呈放射状向四面八方延展。公路隧道和高架桥正在日益将贫困地区和大城市联通。三峡大坝将产生充裕的电能，在高耸入云的大坝背后将出现一个长达650公里的人造湖，整个长江从重庆到上海将成为一个可航行巨轮的内陆航道。
总体而言，中国的固定资产投资正在以年均近25%的速度增长，今年的固定资产投资占国内生产总值(GDP)的比例有可能达到近50%。即便是台湾、日本、韩国等经济体全速走向工业化社会的过程中，也远未达到过这样的水平。
然而，尽管基础设施建设规模日益加大，但数百万劳动力却面临著被时代大潮抛弃的窘境。想要随打工的人潮一起去沿海地区找一份工作，他们的年纪已经太大，而想要靠养老金过活，他们的年龄还远不够格。这些30岁上下的劳动力成了社会的弃儿。他们曾经工作过的国营工厂纷纷破产停业，而又没有多少民营企业能吸纳这些下岗的工人。
在距丰都大约一个小时船程的上游的涪陵市，严玉忠（音）整天打扑克消磨时光。在原本是繁华商业区的一家现已空空如也的商店店堂里如今并排放著十几张赌钱的牌桌，这就是严玉忠和他的牌友们每天消磨光阴的地方。严原是一家国营工厂的保安员，但后来工厂破产了，他也从此没了工作。当有人提议他也去沿海打工时，他的牌友们忍不住大笑起来。“我都36岁了，”他大声说道，同时把一张皱皱吧吧的纸币扔到了牌桌中央。“我上了年岁了，再没人愿意要我了。”
涪陵市本身就是中国贫富差异现象的一个缩影：下岗工人拥挤在河边拥挤的房屋里，而那些有技术有门路的城市新富们则集中居住在上游地区。
如今支撑著地方经济发展的是政府开支。以丰都和涪陵所在的重庆直辖市为例。该市所辖区域面积与奥地利大小相仿，有常住人口近3,000万人。去年重庆的GDP增幅达到12.2%，远远高于9.5%的全国平均水平。如此高的增幅全赖政府总计74亿美元的基础设施建设投资。
据加拿大驻重庆领事馆领事欧阳飞(Philippe Rheault)所言，他认为中国政府千方百计提高内地人民的生活水平也是出于一种更广泛的战略考虑，那就是防止出现社会动荡。他说，中国政府是要确保将贫富差距控制在可能触发社会骚乱的临界点之下。为每年流向城市的1,300万流动人口提供就业机会便是其为此所作出的努力的一个重要组成部分。
现在一个重要的问题是私人投资何时才能跟进起到维持经济增长的作用，或者乾脆说，到底会不会有这一天。到目前为止，只有为数不多的外国公司来重庆投资。福特汽车(Ford Motor Co.)在这里有一家轿车制造厂；英国石油公司(BP PLC)投资在这里兴建了化工厂。
与丰都新城一样，重庆市市中心那座仿造纽约帝国大厦建成的叫作“纽约?纽约”的46层摩天大楼看上去总有些海市蜃楼的感觉，与之相隔不远的刚刚开业不久的美美百货(Maison Mode)即便在周日也是顾客稀少、门庭冷落。货架上放著标价100美元的阿曼尼(Armani)T恤衫，售货员完全无事可做。
“贫富悬殊呀！”圣洛朗(Yves Saint Laurent)专柜一位卖香水的售货员感叹道。“在中国，富的太富，穷的太穷。”
重庆最大的希望可能要寄托在像瑞安房地产发展有限公司(Shui On Land Ltd.)那样的开发项目上。为吸引瑞安这个12亿美元的项目从而藉此缓解附近乡村地区的失业压力，重庆市政府不惜同意搬迁32,000名住户、8座工厂、2所学校、1个监狱和几个派出所。
当地经济学家对通过这种方式解决失业问题持较为谨慎的态度。重庆大学(Chongqing University)的金融系教授蒲勇健表示，失业问题的解决不会一蹴而就。他预计失业问题将持续20-30年的时间。他表示，短期而言，基础设施投资对改善重庆较为贫穷地区的生活水平并无多大帮助，相反，结果非常不如人意。
兴建三峡大坝使得100多万人举家迁移。走在丰都的移民安置区，到处可以看到人们脸上的无望。
上文提到的那位一只眼睛失明的老妇人如今靠拣垃圾卖废品维持生计。
退休小学教师董源江的日子比大部分丰都居民要好过一些。她说她的许多邻居只能靠在沿海地区打工的家人寄来的钱生活。
“新城的居住环境当然是比原来好了，”她说。“可是工作没了。”
