Reuters
收入不公已经成为中国经济增长失衡的原因之一。图为安徽省合肥市，一名妇女在废墟中用丁字镐寻找可利用的材料。
中
国经济增长乏力的最新证据凸显出，即将上任的领导人面临一个艰难选择：是在一个已被榨干的增长模式上继续加码，还是冒着较高的政治风险赌一把、推进短时间内可能加剧增长放缓的改革？他们面临的挑战在于，收入差距迅速扩大已经成为中国经济增长失常的原因之一，要通过解决这个问题，让消费者的钱包鼓起来。对于一个共产党领导的政府来说，这不是一般的挑战。
据周四发布的数据，第三季度中国国内生产总值(GDP)同比增长7.4%。这是2009年年初以来最低的增长率，也是连续第七个季度增幅下降。不过，一些企稳迹象使那些期待中国经济“软着陆”的人们受到鼓舞，毕竟中国经济对世界经济的健康已经变得越发重要。9月份工业产值、出口和投资都略有增加，就业状况也保持强劲。
这为北京提出了一个问题：是采用惯用手段提振经济？还是通过更加重视国内家庭支出、减少对投资和出口的依赖，使中国进入一条可持续的增长轨道？
下调利率、增加投资等传统刺激手段有可能加剧经济失衡，因为这些手段在增加投资回报的同时，其代价是抑制工资水平和家庭支出。
要扩大中国经济增长带来的福利，就得挑战某些强大的利益集团：利用征地获益的地方官员，和以低福利投入为代价享受低税率的国有企业。这样一场赌博的赢家将是中低收入家庭，作为未来经济增长的源泉，他们被寄托了越来越大的期望。
克莱蒙特•麦肯纳学院(Claremont McKenna College)中国问题专家裴敏欣说，改革国有企业、加强其商业性最多有可能牺牲掉400万个就业岗位，因为企业要缩减规模、剥除政治任务并不再接受补贴。裴敏欣说，这不是私有化，而是去党化。
过去10年中国各个阶层的收入都有增加，但政治精英获得了不成比例的利益，因为体制让最接近权力核心的人暴富。
问题在于对精英有利的不再对整个中国有利：很久以来大家都在说中国要转变增长模式、提高对国内消费的依赖，然而贫富差距的扩大阻碍着这个目标的实现。
国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)首席经济学家布兰查德(Olivier Blanchard)说，要搞大刀阔斧的改革，就得着手进行收入的再分配。
对不公平现象的担忧正在变得越发普遍。皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)2012年对3,177名中国人的调查显示，48%的被调查者认为贫富差距是一个非常严重的问题，相比之下，2008年的这一比例是41%。
解决社会不公的问题需要政府采取的措施包括，保护农民的地权，以便让土地成为可供农民出售和开发的有价值的资产；让城市外来务工人员拥有城市户籍；打击某些精英阶层借以致富的腐败行为。这些都需要向强大的既得利益集团发起挑战。
当前这一届中国政府长期以来一直承诺强化农民的地权。而地方政府通过销售当地从农民手中廉价购买的土地为当地主要官员和房地产公司谋取了巨额利益。
根据美国农村发展研究所(Landesa Rural Development Institute)2011年对1,791名农民的调查，当地有关部门每征收一英亩土地，农民平均可以获得17,850美元的赔偿，而这个金额仅仅是每英亩土地市场价值（740,000美元）的2.4%。
中国1.68亿外来务工人员在城市中从事着建设、清洁和服务的工作，但是几乎没有人可以获得在城市永久定居的机会。这是因为中国的城市户籍制度十分僵化，外来务工人员和家人无法享受城市的医疗、教育和福利等服务，城市的政府把外来务工人员看作是廉价劳动力的来源，而不是城市人口的一部分。
缩小收入差距将需要政府采取措施打击腐败。在国家主导的经济体内，官员控制著有价值资产为腐败行为提供了大量机会。
根据透明国际(Transparency International)的数据，中国的腐败程度在全球排名第75，略高于哥伦比亚。中国经济改革研究基金会(China Reform Foundation)的经济学家王小鲁2008年从事的一项研究显示，中国最富的10%的城市家庭的年均可支配收入为13.9万元，比官方数据高出两倍。王小鲁写道，数据出现差异的主要原因是由于滥用权力取得的灰色收入，灰色收入与腐败问题密切相关。
一些分析人士对王小鲁的调查结果提出了批评，认为调查使用的样本不具有代表性。
百度(Baidu)贴吧的一个在线论坛讨论了收入差距的问题，最近有一条评论说，你的希望越大，失望就越大，贫富差距正在加剧，富人买豪车豪宅，穷人连租房都租不起，这就是中国的现实。
中国国家主席胡锦涛和总理温家宝将在11月召开的中国共产党第18次代表大会上卸任。他们曾承诺建立一个更加和谐的社会。但是，提高投资回报以及压低工资水平的政策也使收入差距保持在较高水平。中国的GDP中消费的占比从2002年的44%降到了2011年的34%。
麦肯锡全球研究所(McKinsey Global Institute)指出，无论是在19世纪的美国，还是亚洲四小龙在各自快速增长的年份，消费占比从来没有下降到如此低的水平。消费在美国GDP中的占比约为70%。
改革的负担将落在他们的继任者──现任副主席习近平和副总理李克强──身上。
但是，不要指望中国新的领导人会快速行动。一名前美国官员说，中国央行行长周小川私下里已经告诉西方官员，中国至少要到2013年秋天才能拿出一揽子改革计划。北京的私募股权投资公司春华资本集团(Primavera Capital Group)董事长胡祖六说，为了让交接班顺利进行，李克强和习近平可能需要保持低调。
如果出现改革，较低和中等收入家庭将会是受益者，但这些人在决策过程中几乎没有发言权。但是不改革造成的增长放缓和政治动荡的代价将会很高。
斯坦福大学(Stanford University)的中国经济专家罗思高(Scott Rozelle)说，日本经济在发展到一定水平之后，经济增速也出现了放缓，社会不公的水平非常低，这为日本失去的10年提供了一个稳定的基础；如果未来20年中国经济遵循过去10年同样的轨迹，作为世界上收入不公最严重的国家之一，中国经济可能面临着零增长的风险。
TOM ORLIK/BOB DAVIS
（更新完成）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
China's latest evidence of sputtering growth underlines a dilemma for its incoming leaders: They can shore up the economy by doubling down on an exhausted growth model, or take a risky political bet on reforms that could worsen the slowdown in the short term.
The challenge─an unusual one for a Communist government─is to put more money in the pockets of its consumers by tackling the burgeoning inequality in income, which has contributed to pushing China's growth off kilter.
The 7.4% year-on-year rise in China's gross domestic product in the third quarter, reported Thursday, was the weakest growth rate since the start of 2009 and the seventh straight quarter of decline. Nevertheless, those hoping for a 'soft landing' in China, ever-more important for the health of the global economy, took heart from some signs of stabilization. Industrial output, exports and investment all crept up in September. Employment has also stayed strong.
That raises the question for Beijing of whether to use its usual levers to pump up the economy, or to try to put China on a sustainable growth path by focusing more on spending by domestic households and less on investment and exports.
The traditional methods of kick-starting growth─cutting interest rates and boosting investment─would risk exacerbating economic imbalances, increasing investment returns at the expense of salaries and spending money for households.
Spreading the gains from China's growth means challenging some of the most powerful groups in the country's body politic: local officials who benefit when their governments flip land bought on the cheap from farmers, and state-owned enterprises whose low taxes translate into less money for welfare programs. The winners in such a gamble would be China's lower and middle-income households, which are increasingly looked to as the source of future growth.
Revamping the state-owned sector so the firms operate in a more commercial fashion could cost as many as four million jobs as the companies slim down and shed political tasks and subsidies, said Minxin Pei, a China expert at Claremont McKenna College. 'It wouldn't be privatization; it would be departyization,' Mr. Pei said.
Incomes have risen across China in the past decade, but political elites have benefited disproportionately from a system that massively enriches those closest to the center of power.
The problem is that what is good for the elites is no longer good for China: Deepening inequality now stands in the way of a long-stated goal of shifting China's growth model so that it depends more heavily on domestic consumption.
'To get really big [reform], you have to go for a redistribution of income,' said International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard.
According to a new national survey of China's household income, China's richest 10% control 56.9% of household income and 84.6% of household wealth─'a level of inequality seen only in some struggling African nations,' said Gan Li, a professor at Texas A&M University who led the survey.
The deepening inequality also makes it tougher to safeguard against the fate of other one-time economic stars that failed to advance to the ranks of wealthy nations.
Brazil's boom economy stagnated in 1980s and 1990s, for instance, as the country cleaved further into haves and have-nots, a pattern that some fear could be repeated in China. 'There's a race in China between economic disparity and the rise of the middle class,' says Cheng Li, a Brookings Institution senior fellow.
Bolstering low- and middle-income households is important economically because these people spend a higher share of their income than rich households. The savings rate for China's top 10% of urban households is 38%, compared with 27% for middle-income households and 8% for the bottom 10%.
Gao Jing, a 39-year-old migrant to Beijing, says she feels stuck. Ms. Gao runs a tiny store and earns about 2,500 to 3,000 yuan a month ($400 to $475), just enough to support her two children, she says. 'Poor people like us find it hard to earn money, no matter how hard we work.' Returning to her home province of Henan isn't an option, she says, because economic prospects are poor and the schools are bad.
Concern about inequality is becoming increasingly commonplace in China. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center poll of 3,177 Chinese, 48% say the gap between rich and poor is a very big problem, up from 41% in 2008.
Addressing inequality would require measures including protecting farmers' land rights to give them a valuable asset to sell or develop; granting migrant workers urban residency; and cracking down on corruption that enriches China's elites. All would require taking on powerful vested interests.
The current administration has long promised stronger land rights for China's farmers. Local political chiefs and real-estate firms, however, are both enriched by sales of land that local governments buy cheaply from farmers.
Farmers receive compensation of $17,850 per acre, on average, for land seized by local authorities, just 2.4% of the $740,000 per acre market value, according to a 2011 survey of 1,791 farmers conducted by Landesa Rural Development Institute.
China's 168 million migrant workers help build, clean and serve the cities, but few have the opportunity to make permanent homes there. That is because of the rigid urban-residency system that denies migrant workers and their families access to health care, education and welfare benefits in towns, whose governments see migrants as a source of cheap labor rather than members of the urban population.
Reducing income inequality would also require action to tamp down on corruption. A state-dominated economy, where officials control access to valuable assets, provides ample opportunities for graft.
Transparency International ranks China as the 75th most-corrupt country in the world, slightly above Colombia. A 2008 study by Wang Xiaolu of the China Reform Foundation found that China's richest 10% of urban households had average annual per capita disposable income of 139,000 yuan, three times higher than the official data suggest. The 'gray income' that accounts for much of the difference often has its origins in the misuse of power and is closely connected with corruption, Mr. Wang wrote.
Some analysts criticized Mr. Wang's survey, saying it used an unrepresentative sample.
The Chinese Internet site Baidu has created an online forum devoted to the issue of income inequality. 'The higher hope you have, the more disappointed you will get,' read one recent posting. 'The wealth gap is getting bigger, with the rich people buying fancy cars and houses while the poor people can't even afford the rent. That is the reality of China now.'
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, set to step down at the 18th Party Congress in November, promised a more 'harmonious' society. But policies that juiced returns to investment and kept wages low also kept the income gap wide. The share of consumption in China's GDP fell to 34% in 2011, from 44% in 2002.
Consumption never fell to that low a level in the U.S, going back as far as the 19th century, or in the fast-growing Asian tigers during their growth years, according to McKinsey Global Institute. The share of household spending in GDP in the U.S. is about 70%.
The burden of reform will fall on the men expected to succeed them, Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Li Keqiang.
But don't expect China's new leaders to move quickly. Central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan has privately told Western officials that it would take until the fall of 2013 to put together a reform package, said a former U.S. official. 'To complete a smooth succession, Li and Xi probably have to keep their heads low,' said Fred Hu, chairman of Primavera Capital, a Beijing private-equity firm.
The beneficiaries of change, lower- and middle-income households, have little voice in the policy process. But the costs of failure in slower growth and political instability could be high.
'Japan's growth slowed when the economy was already wealthy, and levels of inequality were very low. That provided a baseline of stability for their lost decade,' said Scott Rozelle, an expert on China's economy at Stanford University. 'If China's economy in the next 20 years follows the same trajectory as the last 10, they could face zero growth as one of the most unequal societies in the world.'
TOM ORLIK/BOB DAVIS
The challenge─an unusual one for a Communist government─is to put more money in the pockets of its consumers by tackling the burgeoning inequality in income, which has contributed to pushing China's growth off kilter.
The 7.4% year-on-year rise in China's gross domestic product in the third quarter, reported Thursday, was the weakest growth rate since the start of 2009 and the seventh straight quarter of decline. Nevertheless, those hoping for a 'soft landing' in China, ever-more important for the health of the global economy, took heart from some signs of stabilization. Industrial output, exports and investment all crept up in September. Employment has also stayed strong.
That raises the question for Beijing of whether to use its usual levers to pump up the economy, or to try to put China on a sustainable growth path by focusing more on spending by domestic households and less on investment and exports.
The traditional methods of kick-starting growth─cutting interest rates and boosting investment─would risk exacerbating economic imbalances, increasing investment returns at the expense of salaries and spending money for households.
Spreading the gains from China's growth means challenging some of the most powerful groups in the country's body politic: local officials who benefit when their governments flip land bought on the cheap from farmers, and state-owned enterprises whose low taxes translate into less money for welfare programs. The winners in such a gamble would be China's lower and middle-income households, which are increasingly looked to as the source of future growth.
Revamping the state-owned sector so the firms operate in a more commercial fashion could cost as many as four million jobs as the companies slim down and shed political tasks and subsidies, said Minxin Pei, a China expert at Claremont McKenna College. 'It wouldn't be privatization; it would be departyization,' Mr. Pei said.
Incomes have risen across China in the past decade, but political elites have benefited disproportionately from a system that massively enriches those closest to the center of power.
The problem is that what is good for the elites is no longer good for China: Deepening inequality now stands in the way of a long-stated goal of shifting China's growth model so that it depends more heavily on domestic consumption.
'To get really big [reform], you have to go for a redistribution of income,' said International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard.
According to a new national survey of China's household income, China's richest 10% control 56.9% of household income and 84.6% of household wealth─'a level of inequality seen only in some struggling African nations,' said Gan Li, a professor at Texas A&M University who led the survey.
The deepening inequality also makes it tougher to safeguard against the fate of other one-time economic stars that failed to advance to the ranks of wealthy nations.
Brazil's boom economy stagnated in 1980s and 1990s, for instance, as the country cleaved further into haves and have-nots, a pattern that some fear could be repeated in China. 'There's a race in China between economic disparity and the rise of the middle class,' says Cheng Li, a Brookings Institution senior fellow.
Bolstering low- and middle-income households is important economically because these people spend a higher share of their income than rich households. The savings rate for China's top 10% of urban households is 38%, compared with 27% for middle-income households and 8% for the bottom 10%.
Gao Jing, a 39-year-old migrant to Beijing, says she feels stuck. Ms. Gao runs a tiny store and earns about 2,500 to 3,000 yuan a month ($400 to $475), just enough to support her two children, she says. 'Poor people like us find it hard to earn money, no matter how hard we work.' Returning to her home province of Henan isn't an option, she says, because economic prospects are poor and the schools are bad.
Concern about inequality is becoming increasingly commonplace in China. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center poll of 3,177 Chinese, 48% say the gap between rich and poor is a very big problem, up from 41% in 2008.
Addressing inequality would require measures including protecting farmers' land rights to give them a valuable asset to sell or develop; granting migrant workers urban residency; and cracking down on corruption that enriches China's elites. All would require taking on powerful vested interests.
The current administration has long promised stronger land rights for China's farmers. Local political chiefs and real-estate firms, however, are both enriched by sales of land that local governments buy cheaply from farmers.
Farmers receive compensation of $17,850 per acre, on average, for land seized by local authorities, just 2.4% of the $740,000 per acre market value, according to a 2011 survey of 1,791 farmers conducted by Landesa Rural Development Institute.
China's 168 million migrant workers help build, clean and serve the cities, but few have the opportunity to make permanent homes there. That is because of the rigid urban-residency system that denies migrant workers and their families access to health care, education and welfare benefits in towns, whose governments see migrants as a source of cheap labor rather than members of the urban population.
Reducing income inequality would also require action to tamp down on corruption. A state-dominated economy, where officials control access to valuable assets, provides ample opportunities for graft.
Transparency International ranks China as the 75th most-corrupt country in the world, slightly above Colombia. A 2008 study by Wang Xiaolu of the China Reform Foundation found that China's richest 10% of urban households had average annual per capita disposable income of 139,000 yuan, three times higher than the official data suggest. The 'gray income' that accounts for much of the difference often has its origins in the misuse of power and is closely connected with corruption, Mr. Wang wrote.
Some analysts criticized Mr. Wang's survey, saying it used an unrepresentative sample.
The Chinese Internet site Baidu has created an online forum devoted to the issue of income inequality. 'The higher hope you have, the more disappointed you will get,' read one recent posting. 'The wealth gap is getting bigger, with the rich people buying fancy cars and houses while the poor people can't even afford the rent. That is the reality of China now.'
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, set to step down at the 18th Party Congress in November, promised a more 'harmonious' society. But policies that juiced returns to investment and kept wages low also kept the income gap wide. The share of consumption in China's GDP fell to 34% in 2011, from 44% in 2002.
Consumption never fell to that low a level in the U.S, going back as far as the 19th century, or in the fast-growing Asian tigers during their growth years, according to McKinsey Global Institute. The share of household spending in GDP in the U.S. is about 70%.
The burden of reform will fall on the men expected to succeed them, Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Li Keqiang.
But don't expect China's new leaders to move quickly. Central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan has privately told Western officials that it would take until the fall of 2013 to put together a reform package, said a former U.S. official. 'To complete a smooth succession, Li and Xi probably have to keep their heads low,' said Fred Hu, chairman of Primavera Capital, a Beijing private-equity firm.
The beneficiaries of change, lower- and middle-income households, have little voice in the policy process. But the costs of failure in slower growth and political instability could be high.
'Japan's growth slowed when the economy was already wealthy, and levels of inequality were very low. That provided a baseline of stability for their lost decade,' said Scott Rozelle, an expert on China's economy at Stanford University. 'If China's economy in the next 20 years follows the same trajectory as the last 10, they could face zero growth as one of the most unequal societies in the world.'
TOM ORLIK/BOB DAVIS
