Debating China’s economic future ， consensus of china's eco trajectory fall between 5% ~7% , fewer expect more than 7%

Debating China's economic future

Panelists:

• Michael Pettis, professor of finance, Peking University
• Victor Gao, director of the China National Association of International Studies; former translator for Deng Xiaoping

Pettis said he believes China faces an inevitable and painful transition, with economic growth falling to a 3-4% rate in the next decade. Its growth model involves a systematic transfer of wealth from the household sector to support growth, and three mechanisms facilitate this process:

1. Undervalued currency: a direct subsidy on the net export sector, but a consumption tax on households.
2. Widening gap between Chinese wage growth and productivity growth: reduces labor's share of GDP.
3. Financial repression: low interest rates transfer wealth from savers to borrowers.

Pettis said he believes that as marginal returns on capital slow, it will become more difficult to find economically viable projects. China's savings rate will need to decline and its consumption-to-GDP ratio must increase, which will only occur if household income captures a larger share of GDP. Pettis outlined four policy options:

1. Reverse transfer mechanism from households to other sectors, leading to a sharp increase in the value of the yuan and potential major recession (unrealistic).
2. Gradually reduce distortions, which could take a decade (they've run out of time).
3. Massive privatization program to transfer wealth from state sector to households (politically difficult).
4. Expand government debt to absorb private-sector debt (possible, but economically inefficient).

Gao countered with a far-more-upbeat assessment, though he liberally relied on history and China's great transformation over the past three decades. He said he expects China's economy to continue to grow at close to 8% thanks to four megatrends he doesn't believe will change: industrialization, modernization, urbanization and globalization.

Our view

At Schwab, we believe that as China's economy matures and shifts from over-reliance on government investment to increased private consumption as a percent of GDP, slower growth is likely the new normal. However, this transition won't be accomplished overnight; the government will likely need to enact market-based reforms and reduce its grip on the economy, and the transition could be accompanied by bumps in the road.

Our view on China's economic trajectory is in keeping with the results of a poll during the conference:

Source: BCA Research Inc., as of September 18, 2012.

Japan in Chinese history

Analects 论语
China 中国

Japan in Chinese history
中国历史舞台上的日本

Cross-currents
友好与不幸并存

Sep 27th 2012, 11:00 by J.J. | BEIJING



AT A restaurant just up the street from Japan's embassy on Sunday, September 23rd, local diners were lining up to take advantage of a regular weekend buffet that features tempura, sashimi, sushi and other Japanese delicacies. Just inside the door stood two prominently displayed Chinese national flags. Restaurant staff said business was getting back to normal, but added that it might recover more quickly if both ends of their street were not still blocked off by military-style barricades and police standing watch in full riot gear.

9月23号是星期日，日本大使馆街头的一家餐馆门前排起了长队，这家餐馆每周末提供自助餐，主要包括天妇罗、生鱼片、寿司等日本美食。餐馆内显眼处悬挂着两面中国国旗。餐馆员工表示生意已经回归正常，并补充道如果街道两头类似军事障碍移除，全副武装的警察撤离的话，生意就会恢复的更快。

The anti-Japanese protests which roiled several Chinese cities last week have subsided, but the situation remains tense. The emotion and vitriol unleashed against Japan during last week's demonstrations was a reminder that anti-Japanese nationalism remains a potent―and potentially destabilising―force in China.

上周席卷了中国许多城市的反日抗议活动已经降温，但是局势依然紧张。此次怒气高涨，不受控制的反日游行示威提醒我们，反日民族主义在中国仍然是一股潜在的不稳定势力。

Zhou Enlai once characterised the relationship between the two countries as "2,000 years of friendship and five decades of misfortune". The latter referring to the period that began with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and lasted to the end of Japan's occupation of China at the end of the Second World War. The history of Japan's invasion of China, in particular, remains a painful and traumatic memory for many Chinese, including very many who were not yet born at the time. Old wounds from that era are kept fresh through the media, in television dramas and movie plots, as well as in the "patriotic history" curriculum taught in the mainland's schools.

周恩来曾这样描述中日关系"两千年友好，五十年不幸"。这五十年指的是从1894-1895年中日甲午战争到二战后期日本占领中国的这一阶段。特别是日本侵华的历史给许多中国人民留下了充满痛苦和创伤的记忆，甚至对于当时并未出生的人也是如此。媒体，电视剧，电影，以及中国大陆学校的爱国主义历史课程都使过往年代的伤痛记忆犹新。

Zhou's 2,000 years of friendship refers to a long history of cultural cross-pollination. Chinese historians never tire of listing the many contributions China made to the development of Japanese politics, literature, religion and culture. Buddhism represented a key conduit for the exchange of intellectual, philosophical and aesthetic ideas between China and Japan.

周恩来所说的两千年友好指的则是文化上相互传播的悠久历史。中国历史学家总乐此不疲地罗列中国对日本政治，文学，宗教，文化等方面的诸多贡献。佛教则是中日两国思想，哲学，美学等交流的重要渠道。

Even in the bleak years that followed Japan's humiliating defeat of the Qing empire in 1895―a defeat which resulted in China's cession of both Taiwan and the chain of islets currently in dispute―thousands of Chinese students went abroad to study in Japan. Their numbers included Chiang Kai-shek, the author Lu Xun, and the female revolutionary martyr Qiu Jin. Sun Yat-sen travelled there many times, organising the Chinese overseas students and recruiting among them for his Revolutionary Alliance.

1895年清王朝的战败之耻，导致中国割让了台湾岛和如今的争议岛链。但即便在战后阴郁的几年里，依然有数千名中国学生赴日留学，其中就有蒋介石，作家鲁迅，和革命女烈士秋瑾等人。孙中山也曾多次到日本组织海外留学生，并为同盟会收纳成员。
In Japan students learned about medicine, science and the social sciences, and along the way they adopted a new vocabulary to describe the modern world. Literally. Japanese translators used their version of a Chinese Buddhist term sekai (Chinese:shijie), a combination of characters which indicated a distinction in time and space and was used to mean "generation", and adapted it to mean "the world," replacing the older Chinese term tianxia, or "all under Heaven". Last month a programme director for CCTV 1, Xu Wenguang, reminded his microblog followers of the staggering number of Chinese words, especially in the social sciences, which were likewise reimported from Japan. Japanese translators in the 19th and 20th centuries, faced with the daunting challenge posed by concepts like "society", "philosophy" and "economics", often simply borrowed classical Chinese phrases, imbuing them with new meaning along the way―creating what Victor Mair, a Sinologist, refers to as "round-trip words". Centuries after Japanese culture had incorporated Chinese characters as a major component of its own writing system, Chinese students would return from Japan with a new lexicon for scholarship of their own. 

留学生在日本攻读医学，科学技术和社会科学，期间他们学习了新的词汇，对现代世界有了新的看法。文字方面，日本译员使用中国佛教用语"sekai"（世界）替换中文的"天下"来表示世界，用原意为"一代（人）"的"sekai"这一文字组合暗示语言时间和空间的差异。上个月中央电视台一套的节目导演吴文光在其微博中告诫粉丝汉字的数量岌岌可危，尤其是在社会科学领域，中国似乎用同样的方式从日本"再进口"。面对"社会""哲学""经济"等概念的巨大挑战，19,、20世纪的日本译员通常都借用经典的汉语词语并赋予他们新的含义，制造了许多汉学家维克多•玛尔所说的"往返词"。经过数个世纪，日本文化将汉字吸收融合成为日语书写体系的主要组成部分，于是中国赴日留学生又带着专业新词汇回到中国。

Nor were the preceding 2,000 years always ones of friendship.

然而，在这悠久的2000年历史中也不光是友谊。

In the seventh century, the forces of Tang China clashed with Japanese armies in the Battle of Baekgang. The two-day battle, fought along the Geum River on the Korean peninsula, bore many of the hallmarks that would characterise future conflicts. It began as a proxy war, with China and Japan lining up behind rival powers that were vying for control of the Korean peninsula. This was to be the first of many contests China and Japan would fight in which Korea played the role of a prize.

早在公元7世纪，唐朝的军队就曾与日本军队在白江口之战中交手。在朝鲜半岛的锦江河畔，两天的交战给中日两国未来冲突打上了印记。战争起初是因中日背后操控傀儡为朝鲜半岛的控制权爆发。此次战役是中日首次交手，朝鲜半岛则是战利品。

In the 13th century, the armies of Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan empire, carried out a pair of major raids against the Japanese "home islands" (pictured above, courtesy Fukuda Taika). Hopelessly outmatched by the Mongols, the Japanese defenders dug in and prayed. Successfully, as it were, for both times the Mongol fleets suffered enormous damage from sudden storms, divine winds that became known in Japanese as the kamikaze.

13世纪，元朝开国皇帝忽必烈汗的军队向"岛国"日本展开了两次进攻（如上图，福田大化）。节节败退的日本人只能挖好战壕默默祈祷。彷如祈祷成功，蒙古军队每次都遭到突如其来的风暴的重创。从此，有如神助的风在日本被称为kamikaze（神风）。

During the latter years of the Ming empire, the armies of Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched repeated attacks against Korea as part of a grander plan to conquer the mainland. The Koreans called on the Ming court to protect them. The result was a brutal war, featuring the use of early firearms and cannon. The casualties were enormous and the damage proved crippling to both sides―but especially to the Ming empire, which had already begun its final decline. Hideyoshi died in 1598, ending, at least for the moment, visions of a Japanese empire on the mainland.

明朝末期，作为征服大陆宏伟计划的一部分，丰臣秀吉带领军队向朝鲜人发起进攻。朝鲜人请求明朝政府提供保护。战况非常惨烈，动用了早期的火器和大炮。结果，双方伤亡惨重，尤其是已经开始没落的明朝。1598年丰臣秀吉的死亡，至少在当时结束了日本在大陆建立日本帝国的美梦。

In 1894, China and Japan once again found themselves backing opposed Korean factions and, once again, China―this time in the form of the Qing empire―saw itself acting in defence of a tributary state. Twenty-six years after the Meiji Restoration, Japan was undertaking an aggressive programme to modernise its industry and its army. It was also eager to join the ranks of Europe's imperialist nations. The Japanese victory dealt a terrible blow to both China's national pride and to those officials who had worked for decades to modernise China's own military and industrial bases. It also sparked a crisis of confidence among China's reformist elite. Never before had the Chinese nation seemed in greater danger of being carved up and divided among the world's imperial powers.

1894年，中日再次因为各自支持的朝鲜派系开战，中国的清政府又是为了保卫进贡国。明治维新后的26年里，日本在工业和军队现代化上有了长足的进步，也渴望加入欧洲帝国主义的行列。日本的胜利极大削弱了中国的民族自豪感，沉重打击了为中国军事和工业现代化奋斗了数十年的中国人，同时也使中国的改革精英们自信心受挫。此时的中华民族陷入了从未如此严峻的危险境地，似乎要被世界帝国主义强国瓜分殆尽。

In a web chat posted last week, two of our editors remarked on the similarities between 21st-century Asia and 19th-century Europe. There are parallels there, to be sure, but what is happening today between China and Japan can also be seen as the latest chapter in a centuries-old rivalry between the two pre-eminent powers in North-East Asia.

上周的一次网上交谈中，本刊两位编辑谈到21世纪亚洲同19世纪欧洲的相似之处。二者必定有相似之处，但是今日发生在中国和日本之间的事也可以被看作是东北亚最为杰出的两个国家数世纪来的斗争中的最新篇章。

If that history of conflict and violent competition seems to suggest a stormy course ahead in Sino-Japanese relations, an equally deep history of co-operation and cultural exchange must be borne in mind too. It might offer hope that China and Japan can find some way to reconcile their grievances and work together to keep a prosperous peace in the region―even when the newspaper headlines do not.

这样冲突和激烈竞争的历史似乎暗示了中日关系的暗淡前景，但是我们也不要忘了双方同样深刻，共同合作和文化交流的历史。这或许能给中日两国相互慰藉，共同致力于地区和平与繁荣带来一线生机――尽管这并不被媒体看好。