Will China's Politics Imperil Its Economy?
In the 1990s, Robert Burgelman, a Stanford University professor, told executives taking his business-strategy class that if they didn't know the answer to a question they should just say: "the Internet." More often than not, they would be right.
Today, he offers a different stock answer: "China."
It is a joke well-rooted in reality. China has become what the Internet used to be: executives' default solution to problems that plague them. Expenses too high? Outsource to China. Revenue growing too slowly? Expand in China. With a quarter of the world's population and an economic growth rate approaching 10% a year, China has become the new business El Dorado.
Write to Alan Murray at
business@wsj.com. If you want to share your thoughts but don't want your letter published, please make that clear. He will share readers' thoughts and reply in Saturday's Talking Business column.The irony, of course, is that China has achieved its status as capitalist paradise without ever abandoning communism, or at least authoritarianism. Its very success is a direct challenge to a belief that so many in the West hold dear -- the belief that economic freedom and political freedom go hand in hand.
"Unlike the United States and almost all other nations that have become successful global commercial powers, China has an authoritarian and often paranoid political system that crushes dissent, controls information and injects itself into every facet of business," writes my former colleague James McGregor, in a new book titled "One Billion Customers: Lessons From the Front Lines of Doing Business in China."
Truth is, many Western executives will admit they find China's political system more of a blessing than a curse. The Chinese government is relentlessly focused on developing trade and commerce. As a result, it often can help foreign businesses cut through problems with a ruthless efficiency that is impossible in messy democracies such as India.
But for those of us who still believe political and economic freedoms are inextricably linked, there remains the question: How long can this last?
This weekend, I had the opportunity to ask that question of a man who took history in a very different direction: former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. He was in the charming, small town of Lindsborg, Kan. -- population: 3,000 -- as part of the launch of an international "Chess for Peace" program. Lindsborg, for obscure reasons, is home to a chess school founded by grandmaster Anatoly Karpov, a good friend of Mr. Gorbachev who lured the former Russian leader to the event. (Capitalism also played a role: Mr. Gorbachev, who is said to command on occasion as much as $50,000 a speech, gave nine during his eight-day tour, all of them in Russian. His aides declined to comment on the speaker's fees.)
Mr. Gorbachev, of course, put his country on a wrenching path to political reform, ending the Cold War and ultimately bringing about the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In his conversation with me on Saturday, he insisted he deserved credit for significant economic reforms as well. But the contrast with China, which pursued economic reform and largely ignored political reform, remains striking. Ask the average Russian if he or she is better off than 15 years ago, and odds are high the answer will be no. Ask anyone in China the same question, and you will almost certainly get a yes.
Mr. Gorbachev is quick to argue that Russia and China are "very different nations with different experiences and different cultures." They can't easily be compared. The Chinese have turned out to be far more suited to the entrepreneurialism necessary for success in the modern world.
When I asked Mr. Gorbachev whether, in retrospect, he should have pushed economic reform more and political reform less, he gave a prompt "Nyet." He blames former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin for taking economic reforms too far and too fast. "Instead of a strategy of gradual, evolutionary change, he chose a cowboy approach that resulted in a breakup of the economy." Vladimir Putin, in Mr. Gorbachev's view, now has the difficult task of cleaning up Mr. Yeltsin's mess.
Moreover, Mr. Gorbachev is convinced China will soon have to follow the path he blazed. "China will inevitably someday have to undertake political reform," he told me. "It never works to have an open economic system and this kind of political system." His aides note that in the past three years, the Chinese have permitted the publication of Gorbachev's memoirs in China -- perhaps a sign of changes to come.
And if those political changes don't come? Well, then the Chinese economic miracle could fizzle. I'm no China expert, but those who are see some of the same problems developing in China that appeared in Japan decades earlier. Even the most pro-business government can't allocate capital and other resources with the efficiency and flexibility of the marketplace. Japan showed that intense government direction can help a capitalist economy while it's playing catch-up; but it becomes a fatal flaw as the path to the future becomes less clear.
政治改革缺位是否会危及经济奇迹？
上世纪90年代，斯坦福大学(Stanford University)教授罗伯特o伯格曼(Robert Burgelman)对听他商业战略课的企业管理人士说，如果他们不知道某个问题的答案，只需说"互联网"就可以了，因为这样做他们每每可以蒙对。
现在他又推荐了另外一个笼统答案：中国。
这是一个有广泛现实基础的玩笑。中国已经承担起互联网曾经扮演过的角色──企业管理人士所面临问题的默认解决方案。经营费用太高吗？那就将业务外包到中国。嫌收入增长太慢？那就到中国寻求业务扩张吧。凭借自己占世界四分之一的人口以及每年近10%的经济增长率，中国已经成为企业界眼中新的黄金国。
当然，具有讽刺意味的是，中国是在从未抛弃其共产主义理想的前提下取得资本主义天堂这一地位的，人们至少不能说中国已经放弃了极权主义。中国的成功对西方人的一个普遍信念构成了直接挑战，许多西方人认为经济自由和政治自由密不可分。
笔者的前同事麦建陆(James McGregor)在其新书《十亿消费者：第一手中国经商经验》(One Billion Customers: Lessons From the Front Lines of Doing Business in China)中写到："与美国和其他几乎所有商业化强国不同的是，中国有一个专制而且往往近乎偏执的政治体制，这种体制下，异己受压制，信息被把持，政府的触手渗透到了商业领域的各个层面。"
但现实情况是，许多西方管理人士承认，中国的政治体系对他们而言更多是祝福而不是诅咒。中国政府矢志不渝地执著于发展贸易和商业。其结果是，它往往能大刀阔斧地帮助外资企业解决在华经营遇到的问题，而这在印度等乱糟糟的民主国家是不可能做到的。
但对于我们中那些仍相信政治和经济自由不可分割的人而言，问题依然存在：中国的这种局面能持续多久？
上个周末，我有机会向一位曾将历史向一个完全不同的方向推动的人提出这个问题，此人就是前苏联总统戈尔巴乔夫(Mikhail Gorbachev)。他此次来美是出席在堪萨斯州迷人小城林兹柏格举办的"为和平下棋"这一国际活动的。国际象棋大师卡尔波夫(Anatoly Karpov)创办的一家象棋学校就位于林兹柏格，他本人则是戈尔巴乔夫的好朋友，戈尔巴乔夫此次正是受卡尔波夫之邀来美出席这项活动的。（资本主义在戈尔巴乔夫的此次美国之行中也扮演了一个角色：据说戈尔巴乔夫有时一次演讲的收费高达5万美元，而他在此次美国之行中演讲了9次，全部以俄语进行。戈尔巴乔夫的助手拒绝谈论他的演讲费问题。）
当然，戈尔巴乔夫使他的国家走上了政治改革的不归路，他结束了冷战并最终导致了苏联的解体。在上周六与笔者的谈话中，戈尔巴乔夫坚持说，他在经济改革方面采取的重大步骤也可圈可点。但与只进行经济改革而基本不搞政治改革的中国相比，中俄两国的经济改革结果仍然形成了巨大反差。当问普通俄罗斯人他或她的日子是否比15年前好过时，人们做出否定回答的几率很高。如果问中国人这个问题，你得到的答案几乎都是肯定的。
戈尔巴乔夫对此的解释是，俄罗斯和中国是"迥然不同的国家，两国的经历和文化不同"，因此很难将两国相互比较。事实证明，中国人身上更具备在当今世界获得成功应必备的企业家精神。
当笔者问戈尔巴乔夫，他当初是否应该多推动一些经济改革、少推动些政治改革时，戈尔巴乔夫迅即做出了否定的回答。他指责俄罗斯前总统叶利钦(Boris Yeltsin)在经济改革方面步子迈得太快、走得太远。戈尔巴乔夫说："他采取的不是一种循序渐进的改革策略，而是一种牛仔方式，这导致了经济的崩溃。"在戈尔巴乔夫看来，俄罗斯现任总统普京(Vladimir Putin)在收拾叶利钦留下的烂摊子方面目前面临很大困难。
但戈尔巴乔夫确信，中国很快就将不得不走上他开创的那条道路。他对笔者说："中国总有一天将不得不进行政治改革。中国从未致力于创建一个开放的经济体系以及一个开放的政治体系。"戈尔巴乔夫的助手们指出，过去3年中，中国已允许在中国出版戈尔巴乔夫的回忆录，这或许是变革即将到来的一个迹象。
如果这些政治变革没有发生呢？那么，中国的经济奇迹届时将不复存在。笔者不是中国问题专家，但那些中国问题专家们发现，一些几十年前在日本出现过的问题正在中国露出苗头。即使是一个对商界最友善的政府，其在分配资本和其他资源方面的效率和灵活性也无法与市场相媲美。从日本的情况看，密集的政府指导对一个资本主义经济体赶超他人会有帮助，但当它的未来发展之路不再那么清晰时，这种做法就会成为该经济体的致命伤。
