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现在，中国加入世贸组织（World Trade Organization）已经将近十年了。刚加入世贸组织的时候，中国被动地引进了"全球秩序"，接纳了主要由美国制定的种种既有政策、规则和制度。从当时的表现来看，中国很像是一个中小规模的经济体，只能努力适应现存的国际贸易条件。如今，中国已经比肩于美国和欧盟，成了世界经济三巨头之一。它是世界第二大经济体，也是最大的出口国，还是危机之后全球经济增长的最大功臣。
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温家宝任总理期间，中国在推进贸易自由化方面一直比较谨慎。
全球贸易问题集中体现了中国的政策转变，同时也集中体现了它政策上的两难处境。跻身世贸组织为中国带来了巨大的好处。利用世贸组织的规范体系和争议解决程式，中国不仅化解了多方面的矛盾，也让自身快速融入全球经济的过程变得更加顺畅。与此同时，中国政府也签下了一系列的双边或地区性自由贸易协定，它与东盟之间的协定即是一例。
然而，在旨在进一步消除全球贸易壁垒的多哈回合谈判（Doha Round）当中，中国仍然扮演着一个十分扎眼的边缘化被动角色。它的默认立场仍然是消极应变，让其他的巨头采取主动。此外，它签下的各种自由贸易协定通常都没有什么力度。举例来说，韩国与美国和欧盟之间的自由贸易协定意味着几个经济巨头之间的贸易壁垒全面撤除，中国政府与东盟之间的同类协定却只起到了取消关税的作用，几乎是完全没有触动商品及服务贸易、投资、公共采购等领域的制度壁垒。更有甚者，中国签署的另一些自由贸易协定连废除大部分关税的目的都没有达到，它与巴基斯坦之间的协定即是如此。
另一方面，大约从2006年开始，中国面向世界经济的历史性开放进程便陷于停顿。除了向世贸组织承诺的义务之外，中国只采取了一些微不足道的单边贸易自由化措施。胡锦涛主席和温家宝总理领导的这届政府远比江泽民和朱�基领导的上一届政府谨慎，与此同时，反贸易自由化的势力――其中包括某些政府部门和管理机构，以及再度崛起的国有企业――也有所抬头。尽管自身实力日趋强大，也许恰恰是因为实力日趋强大，中国不但不愿意单方面开放市场，在协商互惠条件的时候也是锱铢必较。
与停滞的贸易自由化进程相一致，中国政府还加大了政策干预产业发展的力度，目的是扶植大约50家国有企业――这些企业多数都来自"具有战略意义的"制造行业或是资源型产业――以及主宰中国金融系统的几家国有银行。中国用超负荷的财政和货币刺激来应对全球金融危机，由此为公共产业和国有企业提供了支撑，但却让所得补贴远较前者为少的私营产业付出了代价。此外，中国政府经常借助物价控制之类的命令式手段来对抗通胀，改革市场的难度因之进一步加大。
保护主义的贸易政策和政府干预的产业政策在几个方面找到了契合点。出口限制――最显著的体现是稀土金属――有所加强，各种税收激励政策、补贴、价格控制措施以及针对投资决策的行政性"指导方针"则为国产商品提供了对抗进口产品的竞争优势。专为本国制定的各种标准――比如第三代手机标准――往往需要外国企业付出高昂的达标成本，服务行业――尤其是金融和电讯行业――当中的道道门槛就算不是纹丝不动，下降的速度也非常缓慢。
在国有企业把持的一系列产业――比如钢铁、石化、煤炭、生物燃料、新闻网站、视听产品以及互联网服务――当中，针对外国投资的限制有所加强。歧视性的政府采购以本国公司为照顾对象，幌子则是促进"本土创新"。在高速铁路、电动汽车和可再生能源等领域，外国公司也需要满足关于合资经营和技术转让的种种限制条件，从中受益的则是本国的明星企业。到最后，这种"投资民族主义"还渗入了中国的"走出去"政策：集中体现是那些资源型的国有企业，它们正在利用国有银行提供的廉价资本大量买进各种外国资产。
问题在于，这样的政策组合与全球经济领袖的身份水火不容，而眼下的中国已经别无选择，只能担起全球领袖的责任。中国政府不能一边指望自己的交易伙伴无止境地接收滚滚涌入的中国出口产品，一边又不让对方的产品进入自己的市场。因此，为自身利益着想，中国也应该收敛眼下的干预型产业政策和过度的保护主义倾向。除此之外，中国还应该继续推行各种"超WTO"改革，不能止步于入世之时的那些字面承诺。可行的措施包括进一步削减进口关税，尤其是工业品进口关税。与此同时，中国也应该取消对原材料和农产品的出口限制。
中国还面临着一个更大的挑战，那就是消除商品、服务、投资以及公共采购等领域的制度性壁垒，这些高不可攀的壁垒虽然存在于国内，但却与贸易息息相关。相关的措施应该与内政改革紧密挂钩，以便改善商业环境、实现经济"再平衡"，也就是说，助长经济的消费导向，削弱其投资导向，给私营产业更多的自由，同时放松对公共产业的管制。
上述种种美好愿望多数都不在中国政府的计划之内。中国的领袖们无意收敛产业政策，也不想推进入世承诺之外的各种改革，因为后者不仅要求政府放松对产品市场的管制，还要求政府改革严管之中的生产要素市场（比如土地市场和资本市场）和能源供应市场（比如石油、水力和电力市场），这些市场都处在国内经济和政治的核心区域。今日中国最需要的种种改革恰恰会伤及共产党政府-公共产业利益集团的根本，伤及它对权力的控制，因此就不太可能在短时间之内成为现实。
不过，前景不一定会像乍看起来那么悲观。之前的自由化改革已经把中国深深地楔入了全球供应链条，要是在回头路上走得太远的话，后果将使它无法承受。与此同时，中国政府致力于制造稳步增长的繁荣局面，因此也就越来越无法维持原地踏步的状态。然而，如果找不到一个打破眼前僵局的办法，中国就发挥不了什么真正意义上的全球领袖作用。这样的事实要求中国的领导人放低身段，免得在国际舞台上留下一个越来越盛气 人的印象，同时也要求外国的领导人采取一种务实的态度，这样才能指望中国在国际货币基金组织（International Monetary Fund）、世贸组织和G-20峰会之类的国际论坛上发挥更大的领袖作用。
（本文作者Razeen Sally为欧洲国际政治经济研究中心（European Centre for International Political Economy）主任及伦敦经济学院（London School of Economics）教员。）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
Razeen Sally
It is almost a decade since China joined the World Trade Organization. Back then, China imported 'global order': it absorbed pre-existing, mainly U.S.-designed policies, rules and institutions. It acted rather like a small or medium-sized economy that could only adapt to the international terms of trade. Now China is one of the Big Three, alongside the U.S. and European Union. It is the world's second-largest economy and its leading exporter of goods. It is also the biggest post-crisis contributor to global growth.
In line with its growing economic size, Beijing wants to influence international prices and shape global rules. But that will require significant changes in the ways Beijing thinks about economic policy, and Beijing has resisted those changes to date. This creates uncertainty and instability for China and the rest of the world, and has implications for other leaders looking to China to play a constructive role in global economic matters.
Global trade issues best reveal China's policy shift, and also its policy dilemma. China's membership of the WTO has been a resounding success. Access to the WTO's rules-based system and dispute-resolution process has defused manifold tensions and smoothed China's rapid integration into the global economy. Beijing also has negotiated bilateral or regional free-trade agreements such as the one with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
But China also has been a conspicuously passive and marginal player in the Doha Round of talks to further liberalize global trade. Its default position is still to react, leaving other big players to take initiatives. And its FTAs tend to be fairly weak. Whereas, for instance, South Korea's FTAs with the U.S. and EU represent comprehensive liberalization in trade between major partners, Beijing's pact with Asean only eliminates tariffs; it hardly, if at all, tackles regulatory barriers to trade in goods and services, investment and public procurement. Other Chinese FTAs, such as its agreement with Pakistan, don't even eliminate most tariffs.
Meanwhile, China's historic opening to the world economy has stalled since about 2006. There has been paltry unilateral liberalization beyond China's WTO commitments. The leadership of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao is much more cautious than that of their predecessors Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji. Anti-liberalization interests―some ministries, regulatory agencies and resurgent state-owned enterprises (SOEs)―have grown more powerful. Despite, or perhaps because of, China's growing clout, it is unwilling to open markets unilaterally and haggles hard over reciprocal concessions.
Beijing's stalled liberalization is also of a piece with greater industrial-policy intervention, aimed to promote a core of about 50 SOEs, mainly in 'strategic' manufacturing and resource-based sectors, and a handful of state-owned banks that dominate the financial system. China's response to the global financial crisis―a supercharged fiscal and monetary stimulus―bolstered the public sector and state power at the expense of the far-less-subsidized private sector. Beijing's frequent recourse to command-and-control mechanisms such as price controls to fight inflation makes market reform harder.
Protectionist trade policy and dirigiste industrial policy meet at several junctions. Export restrictions―most conspicuously on rare-earth metals―have increased. Tax incentives, subsidies and price controls, as well as administrative 'guidance' on investment decisions, are used to favor domestic goods over imports. China-specific standards, such as on third-generation mobile phones, can create high compliance costs for foreign enterprises. Services barriers, notably in financial and telecommunication services, have come down very slowly, if at all.
Foreign-investment restrictions have been tightened in a range of sectors where SOEs operate, such as iron and steel, petrochemicals, coal, biofuels, news websites, audiovisual and Internet services. Discriminatory government procurement, in the guise of promoting 'indigenous innovation,' favors domestic companies. Joint-venture and technology-transfer requirements on foreign companies promote national champions in high-speed rail, electric cars and renewable-energy sectors. Finally, 'investment nationalism' extends to China's Go Out policy: Resource-based SOEs in particular are buying up foreign assets with cheap capital provided by state-owned banks.
The problem is that this policy mix is incompatible with global economic leadership at a time when China has little choice but to become a global leader. Beijing can't expect its trading partners to accept indefinitely a flood of Chinese exports without opening its own market to their goods. Hence it is in China's own interests to restrain industrial-policy activism and its protectionist spillover. And it should proceed with 'WTO-plus' reforms that move beyond the letter of its accession commitments. It could further reduce applied import tariffs, especially on industrial goods. It should reverse export controls on raw materials and agricultural commodities.
China's more substantial challenge is to tackle high trade-related domestic regulatory barriers in goods, services, investment and public procurement. These measures should be hitched firmly to domestic reforms to improve the business climate and to 'rebalance' the economy―to make it more consumption- and less investment-oriented, with more freedom for the private sector and less public-sector control.
Most of this wish list is not on Beijing's agenda. Leaders are not minded to curtail industrial policy and proceed with reforms beyond their WTO commitments. The latter would mean not merely liberalizing product markets but also reforming highly controlled markets for factors of production like land and capital and for energy inputs like oil, water and electricity. Those lie at the heart of domestic economics and politics. The reforms China most needs now cut to the core of the Communist Party-government-public sector nexus and its grip on power. It is unlikely to happen soon.
The story is not necessarily as grim as might at first appear. Earlier liberalization has left China so deeply integrated into global supply chains that it can't afford to move too far backward on reforms, and Beijing increasingly can't afford to stand still either as it endeavors to deliver steadily rising prosperity. But until it finds a way to break this impasse, China will be limited in its ability to exercise meaningful global leadership. This fact calls for some humility from Chinese leaders who otherwise appear increasingly assertive on the world stage, and for realism from foreign leaders who wish China would exercise a greater leadership role at international forums like the International Monetary Fund, the WTO and the G-20.
(Mr. Sally is director of the European Centre for International Political Economy and on the faculty of the London School of Economics. )
It is almost a decade since China joined the World Trade Organization. Back then, China imported 'global order': it absorbed pre-existing, mainly U.S.-designed policies, rules and institutions. It acted rather like a small or medium-sized economy that could only adapt to the international terms of trade. Now China is one of the Big Three, alongside the U.S. and European Union. It is the world's second-largest economy and its leading exporter of goods. It is also the biggest post-crisis contributor to global growth.
In line with its growing economic size, Beijing wants to influence international prices and shape global rules. But that will require significant changes in the ways Beijing thinks about economic policy, and Beijing has resisted those changes to date. This creates uncertainty and instability for China and the rest of the world, and has implications for other leaders looking to China to play a constructive role in global economic matters.
Global trade issues best reveal China's policy shift, and also its policy dilemma. China's membership of the WTO has been a resounding success. Access to the WTO's rules-based system and dispute-resolution process has defused manifold tensions and smoothed China's rapid integration into the global economy. Beijing also has negotiated bilateral or regional free-trade agreements such as the one with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
But China also has been a conspicuously passive and marginal player in the Doha Round of talks to further liberalize global trade. Its default position is still to react, leaving other big players to take initiatives. And its FTAs tend to be fairly weak. Whereas, for instance, South Korea's FTAs with the U.S. and EU represent comprehensive liberalization in trade between major partners, Beijing's pact with Asean only eliminates tariffs; it hardly, if at all, tackles regulatory barriers to trade in goods and services, investment and public procurement. Other Chinese FTAs, such as its agreement with Pakistan, don't even eliminate most tariffs.
Meanwhile, China's historic opening to the world economy has stalled since about 2006. There has been paltry unilateral liberalization beyond China's WTO commitments. The leadership of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao is much more cautious than that of their predecessors Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji. Anti-liberalization interests―some ministries, regulatory agencies and resurgent state-owned enterprises (SOEs)―have grown more powerful. Despite, or perhaps because of, China's growing clout, it is unwilling to open markets unilaterally and haggles hard over reciprocal concessions.
Beijing's stalled liberalization is also of a piece with greater industrial-policy intervention, aimed to promote a core of about 50 SOEs, mainly in 'strategic' manufacturing and resource-based sectors, and a handful of state-owned banks that dominate the financial system. China's response to the global financial crisis―a supercharged fiscal and monetary stimulus―bolstered the public sector and state power at the expense of the far-less-subsidized private sector. Beijing's frequent recourse to command-and-control mechanisms such as price controls to fight inflation makes market reform harder.
Protectionist trade policy and dirigiste industrial policy meet at several junctions. Export restrictions―most conspicuously on rare-earth metals―have increased. Tax incentives, subsidies and price controls, as well as administrative 'guidance' on investment decisions, are used to favor domestic goods over imports. China-specific standards, such as on third-generation mobile phones, can create high compliance costs for foreign enterprises. Services barriers, notably in financial and telecommunication services, have come down very slowly, if at all.
Foreign-investment restrictions have been tightened in a range of sectors where SOEs operate, such as iron and steel, petrochemicals, coal, biofuels, news websites, audiovisual and Internet services. Discriminatory government procurement, in the guise of promoting 'indigenous innovation,' favors domestic companies. Joint-venture and technology-transfer requirements on foreign companies promote national champions in high-speed rail, electric cars and renewable-energy sectors. Finally, 'investment nationalism' extends to China's Go Out policy: Resource-based SOEs in particular are buying up foreign assets with cheap capital provided by state-owned banks.
The problem is that this policy mix is incompatible with global economic leadership at a time when China has little choice but to become a global leader. Beijing can't expect its trading partners to accept indefinitely a flood of Chinese exports without opening its own market to their goods. Hence it is in China's own interests to restrain industrial-policy activism and its protectionist spillover. And it should proceed with 'WTO-plus' reforms that move beyond the letter of its accession commitments. It could further reduce applied import tariffs, especially on industrial goods. It should reverse export controls on raw materials and agricultural commodities.
China's more substantial challenge is to tackle high trade-related domestic regulatory barriers in goods, services, investment and public procurement. These measures should be hitched firmly to domestic reforms to improve the business climate and to 'rebalance' the economy―to make it more consumption- and less investment-oriented, with more freedom for the private sector and less public-sector control.
Most of this wish list is not on Beijing's agenda. Leaders are not minded to curtail industrial policy and proceed with reforms beyond their WTO commitments. The latter would mean not merely liberalizing product markets but also reforming highly controlled markets for factors of production like land and capital and for energy inputs like oil, water and electricity. Those lie at the heart of domestic economics and politics. The reforms China most needs now cut to the core of the Communist Party-government-public sector nexus and its grip on power. It is unlikely to happen soon.
The story is not necessarily as grim as might at first appear. Earlier liberalization has left China so deeply integrated into global supply chains that it can't afford to move too far backward on reforms, and Beijing increasingly can't afford to stand still either as it endeavors to deliver steadily rising prosperity. But until it finds a way to break this impasse, China will be limited in its ability to exercise meaningful global leadership. This fact calls for some humility from Chinese leaders who otherwise appear increasingly assertive on the world stage, and for realism from foreign leaders who wish China would exercise a greater leadership role at international forums like the International Monetary Fund, the WTO and the G-20.
(Mr. Sally is director of the European Centre for International Political Economy and on the faculty of the London School of Economics. )
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