作者：经济学人 2012年10月27 翻譯：Eco中文论坛
Xi Jinping will soon be named as China’s next president. He must be ready to break with the past
习近平很快将会被任命为中国的下任国家主席，他必须颠覆过去，改弦更张。
JUST after the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which starts in Beijing on November 8th, a short line of dark-suited men, and perhaps one woman, will step onto a red carpet in a room in the Great Hall of the People and meet the world’s press. At their head will be Xi Jinping, the newly anointed party chief, who in March will also take over as president of China. Behind him will file the new members of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s supreme body. The smiles will be wooden, the backs ramrod straight. Yet the stage-management could hardly be more different from the tempestuous uncertainties of actually governing.11月8日中共十八大将在北京召开，会议之后，一行身着深色西装的人——或许有名女性——将会踏上人民大会堂某间大厅的红地毯，接见全世界的媒体。为首的将是新任党的总书记——习近平，明年3月他将接任中国国家主席。在他身后，整齐排列着最高权力机构——政治局常委的新任成员。他们的笑容无比机械，腰板无比僵硬。不过后台的管理跟存在巨大不确定性的实际统治相比，并无多大不同。
As ruler of the world’s new economic powerhouse, Mr Xi will follow his recent predecessors in trying to combine economic growth with political stability. Yet this task is proving increasingly difficult. A slowing economy, corruption and myriad social problems are causing growing frustration among China’s people and worry among its officials.
要治理这个活力无限的世界最大的新兴经济体，习近平将会向其刚刚离职的前任学习，让中国在经济增长的的同时，努力实现政局稳定。但这个担子的艰巨程度更胜从前。经济增速减缓，腐败滋生，再加上无数个社会问题，已让中国老百姓愈发失望，也让官员们愈加忧虑。
In coping with these tensions, Mr Xi can continue to clamp down on discontent, or he can start to loosen the party’s control. China’s future will be determined by the answer to this question: does Mr Xi have the courage and vision to see that assuring his country’s prosperity and stability in the future requires him to break with the past?
对待这些问题，习近平可以继续压制异见分子，也可以开始放松党的管制。中国的未来将取决于对如下问题的回答：习是否真的有勇气和远见认识到要保证国家的繁荣稳定，他必须颠覆过去，改弦更张？
Who’s Xi?
习氏其人
习氏其人
To the rich world, labouring under debt and political dysfunction, Chinese self-doubt might seem incongruous. Deng Xiaoping’s relaunch of economic reforms in 1992 has resulted in two decades of extraordinary growth. In the past ten years under the current leader, Hu Jintao, the economy has quadrupled in size in dollar terms. A new (though rudimentary) social safety net provides 95% of all Chinese with some kind of health coverage, up from just 15% in 2000. Across the world, China is seen as second in status and influence only to America.
与深陷债务危机，政治瘫痪的发达国家相比，中国人缺乏自信，似乎说不过去。1992年，邓小平重启经济改革，从此中国步入20年飞速发展的时期。过去10年，在现任领导胡锦涛的带领下，以美元计算的中国经济总量翻了两番。新的社会保障体系能为95%的中国人提供医疗保险，与之相比，2000年的覆盖率仅为15%。放眼全世界，中国的国际地位和影响力仅次于美国。
Until recently, the Chinese were getting richer so fast that most of them had better things to worry about than how they were governed. But today China faces a set of threats that an official journal describes as “interlocked like dog’s teeth” (see article). The poor chafe at inequality, corruption, environmental ruin and land-grabs by officials. The middle class fret about contaminated food and many protect their savings by sending money abroad and signing up for foreign passports (see article). The rich and powerful fight over the economy’s vast wealth. Scholars at a recent government conference summed it up well: China is “unstable at the grass roots, dejected at the middle strata and out of control at the top”.
中国人致富速度实在太快，直到现在，他们都没有理由为现在的政治环境操心，他们更关心的是其他让他们愉悦的事情。而实际上，中国现在面临这一系列的隐患，一份官方公报将其描述为“犬牙交错”的隐患。穷人对社会不平等、腐败横行、环境恶化，官员对土地巧取豪夺等社会问题倍感愤怒。中产阶级为食品污染担惊受怕，许多中产家庭为了保值，将财富转移到国外，并争相申请外国国籍。富人和权势阶层疯狂夺取巨大的财富。在最近的一次政府会议上，有些学者将其总结为：现在的中国，底层不稳定，中产阶级失望透顶，上层完全失控。
Once, the party could bottle up dissent. But ordinary people today protest in public. They write books on previously taboo subjects (see article) and comment on everything in real time through China’s vibrant new social media. Complaints that would once have remained local are now debated nationwide. If China’s leaders mishandle the discontent, one senior economist warned in a secret report, it could cause “a chain reaction that results in social turmoil or violent revolution”.
曾几何时，中共一贯压制异见者。而现在，普通老百姓都能公开抗议，有些人写书涉及先前的禁忌话题，或者通过中国异常活跃的新媒体，实时发表评论。不满情绪以前仅仅局部地区蔓延，现在则能掀起全国性的讨论。一名资深经济学家在一份内部报告中警告道，如果中国的领导人不能妥善处理好这些不满情绪，可能会引发链式反应，最终导致社会混乱，甚至暴力革命。
But, you don’t need to think that China is on the brink of revolution to believe that it must use the next decade to change. The departing prime minister, Wen Jiabao, has more than once called China’s development “unbalanced, unco-ordinated and unsustainable”. Last week Qiushi ,the party’s main theoretical journal, called on the government to “press ahead with restructuring of the political system”.
但是，我们没有必要现在就认为，中国已经到了发生革命的边缘，中国已经到了必须在接下来的十年中彻底改变的地步。即将离任的温家宝总理曾不止一次地称中国的发展“不平衡，不协调，不可持续”。上周，中共的主要理论杂志《求是》号召政府上下“全力推动政治体制改革”。
Mr Xi portrays himself as a man of the people and the party still says it represents the masses, but it is not the meritocracy that some Western observers claim (see article). Those without connections, are often stuck at the bottom of the pile. Having long since lost ideological legitimacy, and with slower growth sapping its economic legitimacy, the party needs a new claim on the loyalty of China’s citizens.
习近平将自己称作“人民的人”，而中国共产党仍自称是代表人民的党，但这个政党不是西方观察家们所定义的那种政治精英。那些毫无关系，毫无背景的人，往往被压在金字塔的最底层。中共早已失去了意识形态的合法性，现在的低速增长也在不断破坏其经济上的合法性，因此现在的中国共产党迫切需要中国人民的忠诚。
Take a deep breath
深吸一口气
深吸一口气
Mr Xi could start by giving a little more power to China’s people. Rural land, now collectively owned, should be privatised and given to the peasants; the judicial system should offer people an answer to their grievances; the household-registration, or hukou, system should be phased out to allow families of rural migrants access to properly funded health care and education in cities. At the same time, he should start to loosen the party’s grip. China’s cosseted state-owned banks should be exposed to the rigours of competition; financial markets should respond to economic signals, not official controls; a free press would be a vital ally in the battle against corruption.
习近平可以通过向其人民放权，迈出第一步。现在归集体所有的农业用地，可以实现私有化，交到农民手中；司法系统必须合理解答民间的冤情；要逐步取消户口制度，赋予农民工家庭享有国家适当补助的医疗卫生和教育的权利。同时，他应当开始放松党的管制。中国被“宠坏”的国有银行，现在应该参与到激烈的竞争中去。金融市场应该响应经济信号，而不是行政管制；一个更加自由的媒体环境是打击腐败的重要帮手。
Such a path would be too much for those on the Chinese “left”, who look scornfully at the West and insist on the Communist Party’s claim—its duty, even—to keep the monopoly of power. Even many on the liberal “right”, who call for change, would contemplate nothing more radical than Singapore-style one-party dominance. But Mr Xi should go much further. To restore his citizens’ faith in government, he also needs to venture deep into political reform.
这样一条道路，对中国的“左派”来说，似乎太激进了。这些左派对西方世界不屑一顾，始终坚持他们的原则，同时也是职责——确保中共一党专政。即使对渴望改革的“右派”来说，他们也会认为新加坡模式的一党专政也太过激进了。不过，习有可能走的更远。为了让人民信任政府，他需要冒险进行深入的改革。
That might sound implausible, but in the 1980s no less a man than Deng spoke of China having a directly elected central leadership after 2050—and he cannot have imagined the transformation that his country would go on to enjoy. Zhu Rongji, Mr Wen’s predecessor, said that competitive elections should be extended to higher levels, “the sooner the better”. Although the party has since made political change harder by restricting the growth of civil society, those who think it is impossible could look to Taiwan, which went through something similar, albeit under the anti-Communist Kuomintang.
看上去似乎难以置信，不过，上世纪80年代，邓小平曾提到中国在2050年后将会通过直接选举产生领导人，做出相同表述的不仅仅他一人，他不可能在当时想象得到，中国继续享有这种转变的情形。温家宝的前任朱镕基曾表示竞争激烈的选举可以推广到高层，而且“越早越好”。尽管，中共限制民间团体的发展，使得政治改革举步维艰，但那些对改革存疑的人可以参照一下台湾——台湾的经历与大陆极为相似，不过它最终在反共的国民党治下实现了改革。
Ultimately, this newspaper hopes, political reform would make the party answerable to the courts and, as the purest expression of this, free political prisoners. It would scrap party-membership requirements for official positions and abolish party committees in ministries. It would curb the power of the propaganda department to impose censorship and scrap the central military commission, which commits the People’s Liberation Army to defend the party, not just the country.
最后，本刊希望：政治改革要促使党对政治案件负责，明确地讲，就是释放政治犯。本报同时希望，废除只有党员才能担任政府官员的条件限制，废除各部党委。限制宣传部强加的新闻审查制度，解散中央军委，因为这一部门授予人民解放军保卫中共——而不仅仅是中国——的职责。
No doubt Mr Xi would balk at that. Even so, a great man would be bold. Independent candidates should be encouraged to stand for people’s congresses, the local parliaments that operate at all levels of government, and they should have the freedom to let voters know what they think. A timetable should also be set for directly electing government leaders, starting with townships in the countryside and districts in the cities, perhaps allowing five years for those experiments to settle in, before taking direct elections up to the county level in rural areas, then prefectures and later provinces, leading all the way to competitive elections for national leaders.
习近平无疑会对此颇感犹豫。即便如此，作为一名为人就应该一往无前。他应该鼓励独立的候选人代表人代表大会，代表在各级政府层次上运作的各级人大，他们应该能够自由地告诉选民自己的想法。应该为直接选举政府领导设定一个时间表。首先从农村的乡镇和城市的区级机构开展，或许可以利用五年时间试运行这一方案，然后将直接选举推广到农村的县级机构，然后到地级市，然后到省级，直到最后，可以通过这种方案选举产生国家领导。
The Chinese Communist Party has a powerful story to tell. Despite its many faults, it has created wealth and hope that an older generation would have found unimaginable. Bold reform would create a surge of popular goodwill towards the party from ordinary Chinese people.
中共的未来，任重而道远。尽管本身存在一些缺点，但它创造了前人所无法想象的财富和希望。大胆的改革将会使老百姓更加拥护这个政党。
Mr Xi comes at a crucial moment for China, when hardliners still deny the need for political change and insist that the state can put down dissent with force. For everyone else, too, Mr Xi’s choice will weigh heavily. The world has much more to fear from a weak, unstable China than from a strong one.
习近平上台的时刻对中国来说是个关键的时刻，此时的强硬路线者仍拒绝变革，并坚信国家依旧可以通过武力压制异见分子。对所有人而言，习的选择至关重要。与其说全世界惧怕一个强盛的中国，不如说，一个羸弱、动荡的中国更让人担忧。
