The China's Century Without fanfare—indeed, with somemisgivings about its new status—China has just overtaken the United States asthe world’s largest economy. This is, and should be, a wake-up call—but not thekind most Americans might imagine.
By Joseph E. Stiglitz
When the history of 2014 is written, itwill take note of a large fact that has received little attention: 2014 was thelast year in which the United States could claim to be the world’s largesteconomic power. China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likelyremain for a very long time, if not forever. In doing so, it returns to theposition it held through most of human history.
Comparing the gross domestic product ofdifferent economies is very difficult. Technical committees come up withestimates, based on the best judgments possible, of what are called“purchasing-power parities,” which enable the comparison of incomes in variouscountries. These shouldn’t be taken as precise numbers, but they do provide agood basis for assessing the relative size of different economies. Early in2014, the body that conducts these international assessments—the World Bank’sInternational Comparison Program—came out with new numbers. (The complexity ofthe task is such that there have been only three reports in 20 years.) Thelatest assessment, released last spring, was more contentious and, in someways, more momentous than those in previous years. It was more contentiousprecisely because it was more momentous: the new numbers showed that Chinawould become the world’s largest economy far sooner than anyone had expected—itwas on track to do so before the end of 2014.
The source of contention would surprisemany Americans, and it says a lot about the differences between China and theU.S.—and about the dangers of projecting onto the Chinese some of our ownattitudes. Americans want very much to be No. 1—we enjoy having that status. Incontrast, China is not so eager. According to some reports, the Chineseparticipants even threatened to walk out of the technical discussions. For onething, China did not want to stick its head above the parapet—being No. 1 comeswith a cost. It means paying more to support international bodies such as theUnited Nations. It could bring pressure to take an enlightened leadership roleon issues such as climate change. It might very well prompt ordinary Chinese towonder if more of the country’s wealth should be spent on them. (The news aboutChina’s change in status was in fact blacked out at home.) There was one moreconcern, and it was a big one: China understands full well America’spsychological preoccupation with being No. 1—and was deeply worried about whatour reaction would be when we no longer were.
Of course, in many ways—for instance, interms of exports and household savings—China long ago surpassed the UnitedStates. With savings and investment making up close to 50 percent of G.D.P.,the Chinese worry about having too much savings, just as Americans worry abouthaving too little. In other areas, such as manufacturing, the Chinese overtookthe U.S. only within the past several years. They still trail America when itcomes to the number of patents awarded, but they are closing the gap.
The areas where the United States remainscompetitive with China are not always ones we’d most want to call attention to.The two countries have comparable levels of inequality. (Ours is the highest inthe developed world.) China outpaces America in the number of people executedevery year, but the U.S. is far ahead when it comes to the proportion of thepopulation in prison (more than 700 per 100,000 people). China overtook theU.S. in 2007 as the world’s largest polluter, by total volume, though on a percapita basis we continue to hold the lead. The United States remains thelargest military power, spending more on our armed forces than the next top 10nations combined (not that we have always used our military power wisely). Butthe bedrock strength of the U.S. has always rested less on hard military powerthan on “soft power,” most notably its economic influence. That is an essentialpoint to remember.
Tectonic shifts in global economic powerhave obviously occurred before, and as a result we know something about whathappens when they do. Two hundred years ago, in the aftermath of the NapoleonicWars, Great Britain emerged as the world’s dominant power. Its empire spanned aquarter of the globe. Its currency, the pound sterling, became the globalreserve currency—as sound as gold itself. Britain, sometimes working in concertwith its allies, imposed its own trade rules. It could discriminate againstimportation of Indian textiles and force India to buy British cloth. Britainand its allies could also insist that China keep its markets open to opium, andwhen China, knowing the drug’s devastating effect, tried to close its borders,the allies twice went to war to maintain the free flow of this product.
Britain’s dominance was to last a hundredyears and continued even after the U.S. surpassed Britain economically, in the1870s. There’s always a lag (as there will be with the U.S. and China). Thetransitional event was World War I, when Britain achieved victory over Germanyonly with the assistance of the United States. After the war, America was asreluctant to accept its potential new responsibilities as Britain was tovoluntarily give up its role. Woodrow Wilson did what he could to construct apostwar world that would make another global conflict less likely, butisolationism at home meant that the U.S. never joined the League of Nations. Inthe economic sphere, America insisted on going its own way—passing theSmoot-Hawley tariffs and bringing to an end an era that had seen a worldwideboom in trade. Britain maintained its empire, but gradually the pound sterlinggave way to the dollar: in the end, economic realities dominate. Many Americanfirms became global enterprises, and American culture was clearly ascendant.
World War II was the next defining event.Devastated by the conflict, Britain would soon lose virtually all of itscolonies. This time the U.S. did assume the mantle of leadership. It wascentral in creating the United Nations and in fashioning the Bretton Woodsagreements, which would underlie the new political and economic order. Even so,the record was uneven. Rather than creating a global reserve currency, whichwould have contributed so much to worldwide economic stability—as John MaynardKeynes had rightly argued—the U.S. put its own short-term self-interest first,foolishly thinking it would gain by having the dollar become the world’sreserve currency. The dollar’s status is a mixed blessing: it enables the U.S.to borrow at a low interest rate, as others demand dollars to put into theirreserves, but at the same time the value of the dollar rises (above what itotherwise would have been), creating or exacerbating a trade deficit andweakening the economy.
For 45 years after World War II, globalpolitics was dominated by two superpowers, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.,representing two very different visions both of how to organ ize and govern aneconomy and a society and of the relative importance of political and economicrights. Ultimately, the Soviet system was to fail, as much because of internalcorruption, unchecked by democratic processes, as anything else. Its militarypower had been formidable; its soft power was increasingly a joke. The worldwas now dominated by a single superpower, one that continued to invest heavilyin its military. That said, the U.S. was a superpower not just militarily butalso economically.
The United States then made two criticalmistakes. First, it inferred that its triumph meant a triumph for everything itstood for. But in much of the Third World, concerns about poverty—and theeconomic rights that had long been advocated by the left—remained paramount.The second mistake was to use the short period of its unilateral dominance,between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of Lehman Brothers, to pursueits own narrow economic interests—or, more accurately, the economic interestsof its multi-nationals, including its big banks—rather than to create a new,stable world order. The trade regime the U.S. pushed through in 1994, creatingthe World Trade Organization, was so unbalanced that, five years later, whenanother trade agreement was in the offing, the prospect led to riots inSeattle. Talking about free and fair trade, while insisting (for instance) onsuBSIdies for its rich farmers, has cast the U.S. as hypocritical andself-serving.
When the history of 2014 is written, itwill take note of a large fact that has received little attention: 2014 was thelast year in which the United States could claim to be the world’s largesteconomic power. China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likelyremain for a very long time, if not forever. In doing so, it returns to theposition it held through most of human history.
Comparing the gross domestic product ofdifferent economies is very difficult. Technical committees come up withestimates, based on the best judgments possible, of what are called“purchasing-power parities,” which enable the comparison of incomes in variouscountries. These shouldn’t be taken as precise numbers, but they do provide agood basis for assessing the relative size of different economies. Early in2014, the body that conducts these international assessments—the World Bank’sInternational Comparison Program—came out with new numbers. (The complexity ofthe task is such that there have been only three reports in 20 years.) Thelatest assessment, released last spring, was more contentious and, in someways, more momentous than those in previous years. It was more contentiousprecisely because it was more momentous: the new numbers showed that Chinawould become the world’s largest economy far sooner than anyone had expected—itwas on track to do so before the end of 2014.
The source of contention would surprisemany Americans, and it says a lot about the differences between China and theU.S.—and about the dangers of projecting onto the Chinese some of our ownattitudes. Americans want very much to be No. 1—we enjoy having that status. Incontrast, China is not so eager. According to some reports, the Chineseparticipants even threatened to walk out of the technical discussions. For onething, China did not want to stick its head above the parapet—being No. 1 comeswith a cost. It means paying more to support international bodies such as theUnited Nations. It could bring pressure to take an enlightened leadership roleon issues such as climate change. It might very well prompt ordinary Chinese towonder if more of the country’s wealth should be spent on them. (The news aboutChina’s change in status was in fact blacked out at home.) There was one moreconcern, and it was a big one: China understands full well America’spsychological preoccupation with being No. 1—and was deeply worried about whatour reaction would be when we no longer were.
Of course, in many ways—for instance, interms of exports and household savings—China long ago surpassed the UnitedStates. With savings and investment making up close to 50 percent of G.D.P.,the Chinese worry about having too much savings, just as Americans worry abouthaving too little. In other areas, such as manufacturing, the Chinese overtookthe U.S. only within the past several years. They still trail America when itcomes to the number of patents awarded, but they are closing the gap.
The areas where the United States remainscompetitive with China are not always ones we’d most want to call attention to.The two countries have comparable levels of inequality. (Ours is the highest inthe developed world.) China outpaces America in the number of people executedevery year, but the U.S. is far ahead when it comes to the proportion of thepopulation in prison (more than 700 per 100,000 people). China overtook theU.S. in 2007 as the world’s largest polluter, by total volume, though on a percapita basis we continue to hold the lead. The United States remains thelargest military power, spending more on our armed forces than the next top 10nations combined (not that we have always used our military power wisely). Butthe bedrock strength of the U.S. has always rested less on hard military powerthan on “soft power,” most notably its economic influence. That is an essentialpoint to remember.
Tectonic shifts in global economic powerhave obviously occurred before, and as a result we know something about whathappens when they do. Two hundred years ago, in the aftermath of the NapoleonicWars, Great Britain emerged as the world’s dominant power. Its empire spanned aquarter of the globe. Its currency, the pound sterling, became the globalreserve currency—as sound as gold itself. Britain, sometimes working in concertwith its allies, imposed its own trade rules. It could discriminate againstimportation of Indian textiles and force India to buy British cloth. Britainand its allies could also insist that China keep its markets open to opium, andwhen China, knowing the drug’s devastating effect, tried to close its borders,the allies twice went to war to maintain the free flow of this product.
Britain’s dominance was to last a hundredyears and continued even after the U.S. surpassed Britain economically, in the1870s. There’s always a lag (as there will be with the U.S. and China). Thetransitional event was World War I, when Britain achieved victory over Germanyonly with the assistance of the United States. After the war, America was asreluctant to accept its potential new responsibilities as Britain was tovoluntarily give up its role. Woodrow Wilson did what he could to construct apostwar world that would make another global conflict less likely, butisolationism at home meant that the U.S. never joined the League of Nations. Inthe economic sphere, America insisted on going its own way—passing theSmoot-Hawley tariffs and bringing to an end an era that had seen a worldwideboom in trade. Britain maintained its empire, but gradually the pound sterlinggave way to the dollar: in the end, economic realities dominate. Many Americanfirms became global enterprises, and American culture was clearly ascendant.
World War II was the next defining event.Devastated by the conflict, Britain would soon lose virtually all of itscolonies. This time the U.S. did assume the mantle of leadership. It wascentral in creating the United Nations and in fashioning the Bretton Woodsagreements, which would underlie the new political and economic order. Even so,the record was uneven. Rather than creating a global reserve currency, whichwould have contributed so much to worldwide economic stability—as John MaynardKeynes had rightly argued—the U.S. put its own short-term self-interest first,foolishly thinking it would gain by having the dollar become the world’sreserve currency. The dollar’s status is a mixed blessing: it enables the U.S.to borrow at a low interest rate, as others demand dollars to put into theirreserves, but at the same time the value of the dollar rises (above what itotherwise would have been), creating or exacerbating a trade deficit andweakening the economy.
For 45 years after World War II, globalpolitics was dominated by two superpowers, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.,representing two very different visions both of how to organ ize and govern aneconomy and a society and of the relative importance of political and economicrights. Ultimately, the Soviet system was to fail, as much because of internalcorruption, unchecked by democratic processes, as anything else. Its militarypower had been formidable; its soft power was increasingly a joke. The worldwas now dominated by a single superpower, one that continued to invest heavilyin its military. That said, the U.S. was a superpower not just militarily butalso economically.
The United States then made two criticalmistakes. First, it inferred that its triumph meant a triumph for everything itstood for. But in much of the Third World, concerns about poverty—and theeconomic rights that had long been advocated by the left—remained paramount.The second mistake was to use the short period of its unilateral dominance,between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of Lehman Brothers, to pursueits own narrow economic interests—or, more accurately, the economic interestsof its multi-nationals, including its big banks—rather than to create a new,stable world order. The trade regime the U.S. pushed through in 1994, creatingthe World Trade Organization, was so unbalanced that, five years later, whenanother trade agreement was in the offing, the prospect led to riots inSeattle. Talking about free and fair trade, while insisting (for instance) onsubsidies for its rich farmers, has cast the U.S. as hypocritical andself-serving.
And Washington never fully grasped theconsequences of so many of its shortsighted actions—intended to extend andstrengthen its dominance but in fact diminishing its long-term position. Duringthe East Asia crisis, in the 1990s, the U.S. Treasury worked hard to underminethe so-called Miyazawa Initiative, Japan’s generous offer of $100 billion tohelp jump-start economies that were sinking into recession and depression. Thepolicies the U.S. pushed on these countries—austerity and high interest rates,with no bailouts for banks in trouble—were just the opposite of those thatthese same Treasury officials advocated for the U.S. after the meltdown of2008. Even today, a decade and a half after the East Asia crisis, the meremention of the U.S. role can prompt angry accusations and charges of hypocrisyin Asian capitals.
Now China is the world’s No. 1 economicpower. Why should we care? On one level, we actually shouldn’t. The worldeconomy is not a zero-sum game, where China’s growth must necessarily come at theexpense of ours. In fact, its growth is complementary to ours. If it growsfaster, it will buy more of our goods, and we will prosper. There has always,to be sure, been a little hype in such claims—just ask workers who have losttheir manufacturing jobs to China. But that reality has as much to do with ourown economic policies at home as it does with the rise of some other country.
On another level, the emergence of Chinainto the top spot matters a great deal, and we need to be aware of the implications.
First, as noted, America’s real strengthlies in its soft power—the example it provides to others and the influence ofits ideas, including ideas about economic and political life. The rise of Chinato No. 1 brings new prominence to that country’s political and economicmodel—and to its own forms of soft power. The rise of China also shines a harshspotlight on the American model. That model has not been delivering for largeportions of its own population. The typical American family is worse off thanit was a quarter-century ago, adjusted for inflation; the proportion of peoplein poverty has increased. China, too, is marked by high levels of inequality,but its economy has been doing some good for most of its citizens. China movedsome 500 million people out of poverty during the same period that sawAmerica’s middle class enter a period of stagnation. An economic model thatdoesn’t serve a majority of its citizens is not going to provide a role modelfor others to emulate. America should see the rise of China as a wake-up callto put our own house in order.
Second, if we ponder the rise of China andthen take actions based on the idea that the world economy is indeed a zero-sumgame—and that we therefore need to boost our share and reduce China’s—we willerode our soft power even further. This would be exactly the wrong kind ofwake-up call. If we see China’s gains as coming at our expense, we will strivefor “containment,” taking steps designed to limit China’s influence. Theseactions will ultimately prove futile, but will nonetheless undermine confidencein the U.S. and its position of leadership. U.S. foreign policy has repeatedlyfallen into this trap. Consider the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership, aproposed free-trade agreement among the U.S., Japan, and several other Asiancountries—which excludes China altogether. It is seen by many as a way totighten the links between the U.S. and certain Asian countries, at the expenseof links with China. There is a vast and dynamic Asia supply chain, with goodsmoving around the region during different stages of production; theTrans-Pacific Partnership looks like an attempt to cut China out of this supplychain.
Another example: the U.S. looks askance atChina’s incipient efforts to assume global responsibility in some areas. Chinawants to take on a larger role in existing international institutions, butCongress says, in effect, that the old club doesn’t like active new members:they can continue taking a backseat, but they can’t have voting rights commensuratewith their role in the global economy. When the other G-20 nations agree thatit is time that the leadership of international economic organizations bedetermined on the basis of merit, not nationality, the U.S. insists that theold order is good enough—that the World Bank, for instance, should continue tobe headed by an American.
Yet another example: when China, togetherwith France and other countries—supported by an International Commission ofExperts appointed by the president of the U.N., which I chaired—suggested thatwe finish the work that Keynes had started at Bretton Woods, by creating aninternational reserve currency, the U.S. blocked the effort.
And a final example: the U.S. has sought todeter China’s efforts to channel more assistance to developing countriesthrough newly created multilateral institutions in which China would have alarge, perhaps dominant role. The need for trillions of dollars of investmentin infrastructure has been widely recognized—and providing that investment iswell beyond the capacity of the World Bank and existing multilateralinstitutions. What is needed is not only a more inclusive governance regime atthe World Bank but also more capital. On both scores, the U.S. Congress hassaid no. Meanwhile, China is trying to create an Asian Infrastructure Fund,working with a large number of other countries in the region. The U.S. istwisting arms so that those countries won’t join.
The United States is confronted with realforeign-policy challenges that will prove hard to resolve: militant Islam; thePalestine conflict, which is now in its seventh decade; an aggressive Russia,insisting on asserting its power, at least in its own neighborhood; continuingthreats of nuclear proliferation. We will need the cooperation of China toaddress many, if not all, of these problems.
We should take this moment, as Chinabecomes the world’s largest economy, to “pivot” our foreign policy away fromcontainment. The economic interests of China and the U.S. are intricately intertwined.We both have an interest in seeing a stable and well-functioning globalpolitical and economic order. Given historical memories and its own sense ofdignity, China won’t be able to accept the global system simply as it is, withrules that have been set by the West, to benefit the West and its corporateinterests, and that reflect the West’s perspectives. We will have to cooperate,like it or not—and we should want to. In the meantime, the most important thingAmerica can do to maintain the value of its soft power is to address its ownsystemic deficiencies—economic and political practices that are corrupt, to putthe matter baldly, and skewed toward the rich and powerful.
A new global political and economic orderis emerging, the result of new economic realities. We cannot change theseeconomic realities. But if we respond to them in the wrong way, we risk abacklash that will result in either a dysfunctional global system or a globalorder that is distinctly not what we would have wanted.
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发表于 2014-12-27 21:18
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