经济学人103:中国城镇化,你生活在哪里?

 　　Urbanisation

　　城镇化

　　Where do you live?

　　你生活在哪里？

　　Town- and country-dwellers have radically different prospects

　　城镇居民和农村居民的前途是截然不同

　　Rus in urbe

　　IN DAYI COUNTY, a couple of hours’ drive down a motorway from the city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, Chinese tourists stroll through the meandering courtyards of a rural mansion. In the 1950s, soon after Mao seized power, the mansion was turned into a museum, intended as a showcase of evil. It once belonged to Liu Wencai, a landowner supposedly notorious for ill-treating his tenant farmers. Liu embodied a class despised by Mao, who came to power on the back of a promise to give land back to the peasants.

　　在大邑县，距离四川省府成都市数小时车程的一个县城里，中国游客漫步于一家乡间宅所那曲折的庭院里。在1950年代，在毛泽东掌权后不久，这栋宅所被辟为了一家博物馆，以作为罪恶的展品。它曾一度归属为刘文彩（Liu Wencai），作为地主，刘文彩因被断定虐待他自己的长工而臭名昭著。刘文彩代表了为毛泽东所鄙视的那样一个阶级。而毛泽东在掌权后，推动了将土地交还给农民的这样一个承诺的兑现。

　　In its Maoist heyday the museum was a place of pilgrimage. Red Guards swarmed there for ritual denunciations of Liu and his ilk. A high point of their visit was a trip to the “water dungeon”, a room with several inches of water covering the floor where Liu had allegedly kept disobedient farmers. Another was a series of life-size sculptures of peasants and their vicious oppressors. A politically disfavoured curator from Beijing’s Forbidden City who happened to look like Liu was forced to stand next to the sculptures as a “living Liu Wencai” so that visitors could shout and (though not strictly permitted) spit at him, according to Geremie Barmé of Australian National University.

　　在毛泽东思想的全盛期，这个博物馆就是个圣地。红卫兵扫荡了这里，为的就是仪式性的宣示刘文彩和他的同类。他们的串联的一个高潮是参观“水龙”，即刘文彩非法拘禁不守规矩的长工的地方：一间数尺深的水漫过地面的房间。而另外一个高潮是，一套由长工和他们恶毒的压迫者组成的真人大小的雕塑。据澳洲大学的Geremie Barmé讲，一位来自北京紫禁城的，在政治上的失宠的馆长，因碰巧长得像刘文彩而被作为“活刘文彩”强迫站在这些个雕塑边上，以让参观者能够对着他大声喊叫，大吐口水（尽管严格的说，并没有得到这样的允许）。

　　The sculptures are still there, but in recent years a wave of revisionism has been sweeping across Dayi. Local officials were already having second thoughts by the early 1980s. But it was a book reassessing Liu’s life published by an outspoken journalist in 1999 that finally convinced many that the man was really not that bad. His water dungeon was a government fabrication, the museum now points out. He spent a lot of money on local schools and paid for a road to be built from Chengdu to Dayi. Last year a grandson organised a get-together in Dayi for the extended Liu clan, whose members would once have been terrified of revealing their ties. More than 1,000 turned up.

　　那些雕塑还在，但是近年来的一波回头客在大邑县境内来了次旧地重游。当地官员在1980年代就已经有了另外一种想法。在1999年，一本由一位率性直言（大嘴巴）的记者出版的一本重估刘文彩的人生的书最终证实了刘文彩这个人也并没有（上面写的）那么坏得透顶。现在的博物馆方面指出到，他的“水龙”是政府捏造的。刘文彩为当地学校花费了大量钱财，出资相互修建从成都到大邑县的公路。去年，刘文彩的一位重孙为了延续刘氏的香火，在大邑县组织了一次大团聚。这些人员曾一度对于自己身份的泄露而倍感恐惧，而那次团聚的出场人数超过1000人。

　　The slaughter of many thousands of landlords (not including Liu, who died of natural causes) by officials and vengeful peasants shortly after the communist takeover resulted in profound changes in the system of rural land ownership. Peasants got the land Mao promised them, but only briefly. In the late 1950s the party took it back again and forced farmers into collectively owned “people’s communes”. The legacy of that disastrous decision, which contributed to a famine that left tens of millions dead, still weighs heavily on rural China. So too does a decision to confer hereditary status on peasants, who would be all but barred from cities to stop them rushing in to find work.

　　在共产党取得政权之后的极短时间里，政府官员和仇恨的农民就屠杀了数以千万计的地主（不包括刘文彩，他死于自然原因），这导致了农村土地所有权体制的深刻变化。农民正如毛主席保证的那样夺取了土地，但仅仅是短暂的取得。在1950年代晚期，党又把土地收了回来，并强制农民加入集体所有的“人民公社”。这一灾难性的决策遗留下的祸害之处就是，招来了一场对中国农村仍然造孽深重的数以千万人死亡的饥荒。一个对只会被城市所阻止的，为了寻找工作而涌入城市的农民的世代相传的权利状态进行转变的决策，只会带来同样（的结果）。

　　The curse of the hukou

　　户口的诅咒

　　The hukou system, as this one-time apartheid is commonly known, applied to urban as well as rural dwellers, but peasants got a worse deal because they received hardly any welfare benefits, and job prospects in the countryside were dismal. The system has been much eroded since the Mao era because of the need for cheap labour to fuel China’s manufacturing boom. But its lingering impact, combined with the still collective ownership of rural land, will retard China’s urbanisation in the years ahead just when the country is most in need of its consumption-boosting benefits. Two researchers from China’s finance ministry, Chen Xiaoqiang and Liu Ling, wrote in March that it was time to start returning land to the peasants, both to spur consumption and to help defuse growing rural unrest. Most officials dare not say this so bluntly, but they admit that change is needed.

　　户口体制，这个为人所共知的一度起着隔离（城乡居民）体制，被同样施加于城市和农村居民身上。但农民的被更加恶劣的对待，因为他们几无福利，且在乡下的工作前途简直是凄惨。这一体制自毛泽东时代起就因为对推动制造业繁荣的廉价劳动力的需要而一步步的受到侵蚀。但是其绵延的影响，与农村土地仍在实施的集体所有制相结合，将会在接下来的几年里，在这个国家最为急切需要的消费拉动效益上拖累中国的城镇化。3月，中国财政部的两位研究员Chen Xiaoqiang和Liu Ling撰文指出，是该开始向农民归还土地的时候了，这样既可以刺激消费，又可以帮助消解农村持续增长的动荡。大多数政府官员并不敢在此事上如此直抒胸臆，但是他们承认变革是必需的。

　　In 2007 Chengdu, and Chongqing to its south-east, were given licence to experiment. The principle of collective ownership could not be changed, but farmers’ rights could be clarified and rural land markets of sorts could be established. In Chengdu, which is responsible for a large rural area including Dayi county, officials spoke of initiating a “new land reform” (hinting at similarities to the great land reform that divvied up the estate of landlord Liu). They began a drive to ensure that farmers at last got long-promised certificates showing the exact boundaries of their fields and housing as well as confirming their rights to use them (farmland is subject to a 30-year renewable contract).

　　2007年时，成都和位于其东南方向的重庆被授予进行探索实践的资质。集体所有制的根本原则不能动摇，但是农民的权益可以进行明确，各种类别的农村土地市场也可以建立起来。对包括大邑县在内的大片的农村地区负责的成都市的官方人员都在谈论对“新土改”的（暗示在一定程度上类似于划分刘地主的田产）尝试。他们开始了一轮保证农民最终能有显示他们的田产和房产的精确边界的得到长期保证的证明，同时也确认农民的使用它们的权利（ 农田承包合同30年不变。）

　　Without such documents a market could not take off. Regulations dating back at least to 1997 have obliged officials to issue them. But Landesa, an American NGO, says a survey it conducted in mid-2010 in 17 provinces, along with Renmin University and Michigan State University, found that only 44% of respondents had a complete set of certificates. One in three had no documents at all. In April the central government urged the whole country to finish issuing the certificates by the end of 2012. Dayi county, chosen by Chengdu as a trailblazer for land reform, says it got the job done by the middle of last year. But one peasant fumes that officials never bothered to give her any documents and seizedher house and farmland a few months ago for a development project. “Liu was a great landlord,” she says. “I wish officials today were like him.”

　　缺少这些文书档案，市场就无法起飞。最少也能追溯至1997年的管理文件让心存感激的政府官员们得以进行登记。但一家美国NGO（非政府组织）Landesa说到，其在2010年中期与人民大学和密歇根大学一道对17个省市进行一项调查，发现仅有44%的调查对象有一套完整的凭证。三分之一的对象根本就没有这些文书档案。4月，中央政府要求全国在2012年前完成对户口的登记。被成都市选出来作为土改先行先试点的大邑县说，在去年年中它就已经完成了这一任务。但是一位农民口口声声的说政府官员从来就没有为她登记户口这事来打搅过她，反倒是在几个月之前为了一个开发项目查扣他的房屋和耕地。“刘文彩真是个大地主”她说，“我希望现在的政府官员能够像他那样子”。

　　Both Chengdu and Chongqing have gone a step further. They have set up markets for rural land derivatives, allowing farmers who create new land for agricultural use (by giving up some of their housing plots, for example) to sell the right to use an equivalent amount of rural land for urban development. Thus a developer who wants to build on a greenfield site that has already been approved for urban construction bids first for a “land ticket”, or dipiao, which certifies that such an area of farmland has been created elsewhere. The regulations say farmers get 85% of the proceeds: good news, in theory, for those in remote, dirt-poor areas who would otherwise have no chance of cashing in on the value created by urban expansion.

　　成都和重庆都已经更进一步。他们为农村土地流转建立了市场，允许开垦新地作为农田（比如，放弃他们的一些宅基地）的农民出售作为城镇开发用地的等量的农村土地的权利。因此，一家已经得到许可对城建进行竞标的开发商，想要在绿地上搞建设首先就要取得“土地票据（即：土票）”，也就是证明这一区域的农地被在别的地方得到了开垦的凭证。监管人员说，农民得到85%的收益：理论上，这对于边穷地区是个好消息，因为那儿本来就没有多少机会能够通过城镇的扩张所创造的价值而得到资金。

　　This is hardly revolutionary. Especially for Chongqing’s Mao-loving party chief, Bo Xilai, doing good by the peasantry would seem a canny move. But because the notion of the collective persists, the system is wide open to abuses. Local officials have considerable incentives to force farmers to give up housing land and move to more compact dwellings in order to create land for dipiao trading (some of the proceeds of which also go to village authorities). The dipiao markets in Chongqing and Chengdu have done little more than add a layer of complexity to a widespread trend in many parts of China that has often added to peasants’ grievances.

　　这几乎就是革命。尤其对于重庆的那位热爱毛主席的党领袖薄熙来，施惠于农是会被看作是精明的行动的。但是因为国民的集体主义倾向，这个体制因大开口子而被滥用。当地政府官员因可观的激励机制而推动农民放弃宅基地，迁移到更为集中的定居点，以创造用于“地票”交易的土体（这中间的一部分利益被赋予给了村镇干部）。成都和重庆的地票市场除了比在中国的许多地区广泛风行的，通常是增加农民的满腹牢骚的错综复杂的局面更添一层复杂之外，也没有干出些别的什么。

　　Reform might quickly be exploited by the very forces it is meant to constrain: rapacious local governments and developers

　　改革很快会受到那些本来应该被平抑的力量的剥削：贪婪的当地政府和开发商。

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　　In the name of building a “new socialist countryside” (a slogan launched in 2005), local governments have been corralling farmers into new apartment blocks in order to free up land which they can use for profitable purposes. Officials have justified the practice as a way of reducing incentives for local governments forcibly to appropriate farmland and sell it to developers. Two million peasants a year have lost their land this way in the past five years, a senior government adviser in north-east China said in March. The new strategy often means the farmers are crammed into apartments with no backyards to raise chickens or store tools, and they face a longer journey to their fields.

　　以建设“社会主义新农村”的名义（2005年提出的一个口号），当地政府把一群群的农民赶到新的住宅小区，就为了释放出他们为了利益企图而物有所用的土地。作为一种减少当地政府挪用适耕农田并将之出售给开发商的激励机制方式，政府官员们已经合理化了这一实践。3月，东北地区的一位政府高层参赞说到，过去5年里，每年有200万农民因这一方式而失去他们的土地。新政策通常意味着农民被塞进没有后院养鸡或者存粪的公寓，而且他们还面临着下地要走更长的路。

　　Though officially sanctioned, the dipiao markets are viewed warily by the central leadership. Late last year Chengdu’s market was suddenly closed down. No clear explanation was given, but a Chinese scholar says higher-level officials worried that dipiao were being traded without land having first been converted to agricultural use. The risk, central officials feared, was that it would never happen at all. The market reopened in April, but the central government remains cautious. In Chongqing only 10% of the government’s annual sales of undeveloped rural land are subject to the dipiao system.

　　尽管得到官方批准，地票市场仍然受到中央首长的谨慎关注。去年末，成都的市场被突然关闭，却一直未有明确的解释。一位华人学者说，政府高层担心地票在土地还没有转化为农业用途之前就被交易掉了。中央政府官员所害怕的这一风险根本就从未出现过。市场在4月份重开，但是中央政府仍然心存警惕。在重庆，政府的按年度出售的尚待开发的农村土体中仅有10%的进入到地票系统。

　　Thoroughgoing land reform, of the sort that would enable farmers to cash in on the value of their farmland and establish permanent and prosperous lives in cities (and at the same time encourage larger-scale farming), thus remains stuck. One obstacle is ideological: for all their economic pragmatism, many in the party still regard collectivism as a sacred principle. Privatisation remains a dirty word. A more practical worry is that reform might quickly be exploited by the very forces it is meant to constrain: rapacious local governments and developers. These, it is feared, would take advantage of any changes to persuade farmers unaware of land values to sell their holdings at less than market rates. The numbers of poor, landless peasants would soar, creating huge instability.

　　通过进行土改，在某种程度上将会能让农民现金化他们的农田的价值，并构建出在城市里永久而繁荣的生活（同时也鼓励了农场的大型化），因此也就带有阻滞。一个障碍就是意识形态上的：相对于他们所有人在的经济上的实用主义，党的许多人仍然将集体主义看做是神圣不可动摇的原则。私有化仍然是个肮脏的词语。更为实际的担心是改革很快会受到那些本来应该被平抑的力量的剥削：贪婪的当地政府和开发商。被担心的种种这些，将会利用每一丝的机会来说服还不知道土地价值的农民以少于的市场利率出售他们手中所有的东西。那些贫穷而失去土地的农民将会大声申诉，制造出巨大的不稳定。

　　Reformers in Beijing argue that most farmers are far cannier than officials suspect. But the global financial crisis has strengthened the case for caution in the minds of party leaders. As many as 20m workers returned to the countryside when the crisis broke in 2008 and China’s exports slumped. Having farmland to go back to, many officials believe, kept the unemployed migrants from taking to the streets. As officials often say in China, “stability trumps everything.”

　　北京的改革者争辩到，大多数农民都比政府官员所质疑的还要狡猾。但是全球财政危机强化了党的领袖们脑子里对这些案例的警惕。2008年危机爆发的时候，多达200万的工人返乡，中国的出口骤然减少。许多官员相信，只有回家还有田地，就能让失业的民工不得走上街头。就像中国的政府官员员经常说的：“稳定压倒一切”。

　　Prospects for reform of the hukou system are only slightly better. Both Chengdu and Chongqing have been experimenting with this. They have declared that holders of rural hukou in the countryside surrounding these cities can move into urban areas and enjoy the same welfare benefits as their urban counterparts without giving up their land entitlements. This was an important step. Though the hukou divide is widely resented, peasants have often been reluctant to give up their rural status for fear of losing their land, as well as the added benefit in the countryside of being able to have two children rather than one. In effect, Chongqing and Chengdu have created a new class of urban residents who enjoy the best of both worlds. But grand plans for hukou reform have fallen by the wayside before as officials tot up the price. The cities of Guangzhou and Zhengzhou abandoned reform efforts several years ago because of worries about the cost.

　　对户口体制的改革的前景看上去也只是稍微好一点。成都和重庆都已经对此进行了实践。他们宣称，这些城市周边乡下的农村户口持有人能够移居到城镇地区，并享受和他们的城镇居民同等的福利，而不用放弃他们的土地所有权。这是重要的一步。尽管户口上的待遇差别受到普遍的唾弃，农民通常都因为对失去他们土地的担心，同样还有在乡里能够生育2个而不是1个小孩的额外的好处而不情愿放弃他们的农业户口。在实施中，重庆和成都创造了一种享受两个世界的好处的新型城镇居民阶层。但是对户口体制的改革的大计划在政府官员合计了代价之前是被搁置一旁的。广州市和深圳市在数年前就因为担心成本而放弃了改革的努力。

　　Chongqing’s plans are ambitious. Local officials estimate the cost of converting 3m people at around 200 billion yuan ($30 billion). But the municipality says it wants to double the number of urban hukou holders by turning 10m of its rural citizens (some of whom already live in urban areas) into card-carrying urbanites over the next ten years. It has made a rapid start. Since it relaxed its policy in August last year it has given urban hukou to more than 1.7m people. There are conditions: they must have been working in urban areas for at least three years, or for five years if they want to transfer their hukou to the centre of Chongqing.

　　重庆的计划可谓踌躇满志。当地政府估计将300万人进行转化的成本约为2千亿元（合$300亿美元）。但是直辖市政府说将会在接下来的10年通过将其100万农村居民（他们中的有些人已经居住在城镇地区了）转变为持卡的城镇居民倍增城镇户口的持有人数。这一计划起步迅捷。自去年8月发布政策起，已经签发城镇户口的人数就超过170万人。这里是有些限制条件的：他们必须过去至少3年在城镇地区工作，将户口迁到重庆中心区则需要至少5年。

　　The reform remains only partial. The benefits of being a Chongqing urbanite still cannot be transferred to any other part of the country. And if implementing such measures nationwide means raising more taxes, urbanites will dig in their heels. Local governments “don’t really have the incentives and they don’t have the resources” to encourage greater integration of migrants into urban life, says the World Bank’s Mr Kuijs.

　　这一改革仍然只在单一层面展开。成为重庆城镇人的好处仍然不能随迁到全国的其他区域。而在全国范围内实现这些措施意味着加征赋税，城镇居民将会大跺其脚。当地政府“并不真正有这些激励机制，也没有资源”来鼓励对更多的民工进入城镇生活的整合。世界银行的Kuijs先生说。

　　Although Chinese officials define the population as being already nearly 50% urban, the number of urban hukou holders is only around 35%. Zhang Zheng of Peking University says many of those who have moved to urban areas in recent years are wrongly seen as permanent migrants. Having reached their 30s or 40s, when they can no longer do mind-numbing, fast-paced and finicky work on production lines, they will often go back to the countryside. Late last year the National Bureau of Statistics asked rural hukou holders in the north-eastern province of Jilin whether they wanted to switch to urban status. “The results were surprising,” one of the bureau’s researchers wrote. The majority said no, and most young people who had moved to urban areas said they wanted to go back to the countryside when they got older.

　　尽管中国政府界定人口已经达到接近50%城镇化，农村户口的持有者数量仅有约35%。北京大学的Zhang Zheng说，最近这些年移居到城镇地区的许多人都被错误的视为永久民工。他们年纪到了30或者40多岁时，就不会再在生产线上做头脑简单、节奏快而细琐的工作。他们通常都会回到乡下。去年下半年国家统计局询问东北省份吉林的农村户口持有人是否愿意转换成城镇户口。“结果令人吃惊”，统计局的一位研究人员写到。大多数都说“不”，大多数迁移到城镇地区的年轻人说他们想年纪大一点回到乡下的。

　　For the past two decades or more, urbanisation in China has come relatively easily. As the country proudly claims, slums and shantytowns are rare compared with other developing countries. But ensuring a continuing net inflow of migrants into the cities as the youngest cohort shrinks will mean giving workers from the countryside more incentives to stay permanently (such as affordable housing and schooling). More money is being spent on these, but not yet enough. Too much responsibility is devolved to local governments that usually try hard to shirk it.

　　在过去的20年或者更长的时间里，中国的城镇化来得相对轻松一些。国家自豪的宣称，其他发达国家的贫民窟和棚户区可谓是相形而下。但是，随着最年青的群体的萎缩，保证向城市的持续净流入的民工将意味着要让来自乡下的工人永久定居，就需要给予更多激励机制（比如负担得起的房价和教育费）。更多的钱被花费在这上面，但是再多也不够。太多的责任被赋予到极力推脱耍滑的当地政府头上。

　　Cities say they welcome migrants, but some find roundabout ways of keeping them from settling. Beijing recently launched a set of extraordinary measures to tame property prices and ease traffic congestion that included all but banning migrants (one-third of the city’s population) from buying homes or cars. In the name of improving safety, it has started closing down basement dwellings where migrants (known as the rat tribe) often live. China says it wants urbanisation, and it certainly needs it. But even as some obstacles are removed, new ones spring up.

　　城里人说他们欢迎民工，但是有些人挖空心思的绕着弯的将他们挡在定居的外头。北京最近发布了包括禁止民工（城市三分之一的人口）购买房产或者小汽车的一系列超出常规的措施来缓和房地产价格，缓解交通堵塞。以改善安全的名义，北京开始关闭的通常作为民工生活处所的地下室（以“鼠族”而出名）。中国说，他想要城镇化化，他是真的需要城镇化。但是，即使一些障碍得以清除，新的障碍又还会出现。