中国的骚动——危险的一年

【译文】
Unrest in China
中国的骚动
A dangerous year
危险的一年
Economic conditions and social media are making protests more common in China—at a delicate time for the country’s rulers
在这微妙的时刻,经济状况和社会媒体让抗议示威在中国显得更加稀松平常

Jan 28th 2012 |CHENGDU, DONGGUAN AND WUKAN VILLAGE | from the print edition

IN AN industrial zone nearChengdu, the capital ofSichuanprovince in south-westChina, a sign colourfully proclaims the sprawl of factories to be a “delightful, harmonious and happy district”. Angry steelworkers must have winced as they marched past the slogan in their thousands in early January, demanding higher wages. Their three-day strike was unusually large for an enterprise owned by the central government. But, asChina’s economy begins to grow more sedately, more such unrest is looming.
在中国西南部四川省，其首府成都附近的一个工业区，一幅鲜艳的标语宣称那四处绵延的厂房是 “愉快，和谐，幸福的厂区”。一月初，当数以千计要求加薪的钢铁工人，满怀怒火地走过标语时，他们定会皱眉不已。对于已经由中央政府所有的企业而言，这次持续3日的示威规模异常庞大。但随着中国经济增长开始变缓，像这样的动荡不安正悄然逼近。


China’s state-controlled media kept quiet about the protest that began on January 4th in Qingbaijiang District, a 40-minute drive north-east ofChengduon an expressway that crosses a patchwork of vegetable fields and bamboo thickets. But news of the strike quickly broke on the internet. Photographs circulated on microblogs of a large crowd of workers from Pangang Group Chengdu Steel and Vanadium being kept away from a slip road to the expressway by a phalanx of police. Word spread that police had tried to disperse the workers with tear gas. In the end, as they tend to—and undoubtedly acting on government orders—factory officials backed down, partially at least. The workers got a raise, albeit a smaller one than they wanted. Managers’ wages were frozen.
游行于1月4日开始，地点是青白江区，这里位于成都东北，开车走高速，穿过菜地和竹林，需时40分钟。中国的国有媒体对游行皆保持缄默。但示威的消息很快在互联网上不胫而走。照片在微博间流传：大批攀钢集团工人给警察方阵拦在小路和高速公路的路口。据传，警察曾试图用催泪瓦斯驱散工人。最终，他们倾向让厂方管理人员让步，尽管只是部分让步，这无疑也是来自政府的指示。工人获得了加薪，虽然比要求的要少。经理的工资则被冻结。


Strikes have become increasingly frequent at privately owned factories in recent years, often involving workers demanding higher wages or better conditions. Private firms, like state ones, are usually strong-armed by officials into buying off strikers. The thinking is that capitulating keeps a lid on news coverage and helps to prevent unrest from spreading. Yet the explosive growth in the use of home-grown versions of Twitter has made it easy for protesters to convey instant reports and images to huge audiences. The Communist Party’s capacity to stop ripples of unease from widening is waning—just as economic conditions are making trouble more likely.
近年来，罢工在私营工厂中渐趋频繁，工人要求更高的工资及更好的待遇。跟国企一样，私营企业的管理人员常常态度强硬，试图收买示威工人。他们认为,有条件的让步可以避免媒体曝光，同时能防止事态恶化蔓延。然而，随着中国本土版 Twitter---微博用户数量的迅猛增长，示威者能够更便捷地将实时报道和图像传达给广大观众。随着经济形势的恶化，麻烦越来越多，中国共产党平波止澜的能力也在走下坡路。


Anger at the bottom
底层愤怒
At a cheap restaurant in Qingbaijiang, opposite a dormitory compound for Pangang employees, grimy steelworkers complain that the government’s promise of an extra 260 yuan ($41) a month is hardly enough. Many of the lowest-paid earn as little as $190 monthly. But the workers know that the steel industry is struggling—and that vengeance on persistent troublemakers can be fierce. A police notice warns of legal action, including imprisonment, against any strikers who continue “disrupting public order”. Security agents follow your correspondent in an unmarked car.
正对着攀钢员工宿舍，在青白江一家廉价餐馆里，脏兮兮的钢铁工人抱怨政府承诺的每个月加 260元(合41美元)根本不够。许多人收入微薄，每个月仅有190美元。工人也知道钢铁行业处境艰难，对 “捣乱分子”的报复会十分严厉。警方的通知声称会对继续“扰乱公共秩序”的示威者采取包括监禁在内的法律行动。保安人员则驾驶没有标记的车子，跟着记者。


All this is partly a result of the curb onChina’s stimulus spending and carefree (reckless, many would say) bank lending in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. There are fewer new construction projects; demand for steel has flattened. Pangang’s plant in Qingbaijiang is running at a loss. The number of steel firms in the red rose from nine in September to 25 a month later. Even though the government is less worried about inflation now than it was a few months ago, and is releasing the economic brakes a little, the steel industry is expecting a lean period. Some firms might have to close.
所有这些都部分源自中国对经济刺激支出的遏制，以及2008年全球金融危机过后银行大手大脚的(许多人认为是鲁莽的)银行信贷政策。新建设项目越来越少，对钢铁的需求趋于平缓。攀钢在青白江的厂房处于亏损运营状态。与一个月前相比，身陷赤字的钢铁企业的数量从9家上升至25家。尽管如今政府对通货膨胀紧张的情绪比之前几个月有所放松，稍稍松开了经济的刹车，但钢铁行业还要面临一段不景气的时期。有些企业可能要倒闭。


Overall economic growth is still looking robust. In the final three months of 2011 China’s economy grew by 8.9% compared with the same period a year earlier—enviable by almost anyone else’s standards, though still the slowest since the second quarter of 2009. The slowdown has so far been gentle, and in line with government efforts to prevent overheating. But this does not stop officials worrying that the coming year could be unusually difficult.
整体经济增长仍显强劲。2011年最后三个月,中国经济与前一年同期相比增长8.9%，尽管这是自2009年第二季度以来最缓慢的增长，依然让其他所有人艳羡不已。目前为止，经济的减速比较温和，与政府防止经济过热的措施相一致。但这并不能让官员们对来年感到放心，情况可能会异常艰难。



Europeis the biggest buyer of Chinese products—and the euro zone’s travails have plunged many manufacturers into despair. Depressed demand in both Europe andAmericahas taken its toll on factories. The steelworkers’ strike was one of many in recent months, most of them inChina’s export-manufacturing heartlands near the coast (see map).
欧洲是中国产品最大的买家，欧元区处境艰难，使得许多制造商也身陷绝望。欧洲和美国需求低迷，许多工厂都深受其害。钢铁工人的罢工示威仅仅是近几个月中众多同类事件的一起，这类事件大多发生在中国沿海地区，那里是中国出口制造业的中心地带（见图）。


Chinese exporters do not face as big a shock now as they did in late 2008, when the financial crisis caused a sudden collapse in demand and the loss of as many as 20m migrant-labour jobs. But that time China’s recovery was rapid, helped by stimulus spending of 4 trillion yuan (more than $630 billion at today’s exchange rate), as well as developed economies’ own stimulus projects. The impact on migrant workers was further mitigated by the coincidence of the worst of the downturn with the lunar new-year holiday, when most migrants go home for lengthy periods.
中国出口商面临的冲击并没有像2008年底时那么严重，当时金融危机导致需求突然锐减，2000万左右的农民工因此失业。但是，当时中国恢复得相当迅速，这得益于4万亿元的经济刺激支出，同时也有赖于发达国家自身的经济刺激计划。形势最严峻的时候恰逢中国农历新年假期，这使得对农民工的冲击进一步减轻，那时多数农民工正放长假回乡过年。


This time exporters face protracted slow growth in developed economies, and the risk that the euro zone’s difficulties might worsen.China’s policymakers do not want another lending spree that might burden the financial system with more bad debt, on top of the borrowing accumulated during the previous binge. The country’s relatively low budget deficit (about 2.5% of GDP in 2010) gives it room to spend more on social housing, social security, tax cuts for small firms and consumer subsidies. These could help promote private consumption—eventually.
这一次，出口商面临的是发达经济体长期增长缓慢，同时欧元区的困境有进一步恶化的风险。中国的决策者不想再来一次借贷井喷，这会让金融系统担负更多坏账，给之前的放纵积累下的贷款雪上加霜。中国的预算赤字相对较低（2010年大约为GDP的 2.5%），使其有更多空间花费在社会住房，社会保障，小企业税收减免以及消费者补贴等方面。这最终也会提振私人消费。


Nerves at the top
高层紧张
The long-term plan is forChinato wean itself off its reliance on exports and investment projects such as roads, railways and overpriced property developments, and for domestic consumption of goods and services to play a much bigger role in fuelling growth. But this rebalancing will be a long, hard slog. Officials do not want shock therapy because it could threaten the jobs of many of the 160m migrants who come from the countryside to provide the cheap labour behindChina’s exports.
长期的计划是，中国要断绝对出口和诸如公路，铁路以及价格虚高的房地产开发等投资项目的依赖，让国内商品和服务消费在经济增长中发挥更大的作用。但这种调整将会漫长而艰难。官员们并不想要休克疗法，因为这会威胁多达1亿6千万农民工的就业，这些人来自农村地区，为中国的出口提供了廉价劳动力。


This economic quandary has become more acute at what is a delicate political moment for the Communist Party. Later this year (probably in October or November), the party will hold its five-yearly Congress, the 18th since its founding in 1921, at which sweeping changes in the country’s top leadership will begin to unfold.
在这一对中国共产党而言十分敏感的政治时刻，经济的窘境显得越发尖锐。今年晚些时候（可能在10月或11月），中国共产党要召开五年一届的代表大会，自1921年中共成立算起，这已是第十八届代表大会。中国的最高领导层大换血的序幕将要展开。


The Congress will “elect” a new 300-member central committee (in fact it will be hand-picked by senior leaders). This will immediately meet to rubber-stamp the appointment of a new Politburo, a body that currently has 25 members. All but two of the Politburo’s nine-member inner circle, the Politburo Standing Committee, will be replaced. Two appointments are all but certain: Vice-president Xi Jinping to take over from President Hu Jintao (as party chief after the Congress and as president next March); and Li Keqiang to replace his boss, the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, also next March. There will be much jockeying for the other slots.
大会将会“选举”产生一个由300人组成的中央委员会（实际上将由高层领导指定）。这个类似橡皮图章的中央委员会要立即开会，通过新一届政治局的任命，目前政治局有25名成员。政治局的常任委员会有9名常任委员，其中仅有两名常委会变动。两名常委的任命已然确定：副主席习近平将接替主席胡锦涛（十八大后将任中共总书记，明年3月将任国家主席）；李克强将于明年3月接替温家宝任国家总理。其他空缺将有更大的调整。


It is a decade sinceChinaexperienced a leadership changeover on this scale—and the first time since the late 1980s that the advent of a new generation of leaders has coincided with such a troubled patch for the economy. The previous time, in 1988, an outbreak of inflation threw Deng Xiaoping’s succession plans into disarray, giving conservatives ammunition with which to attack his liberal protégés. The party’s strife erupted into the open the following year as students demanding greater freedom gathered inTiananmen Square.
自中国上一次如此规模的领导层换届已有十年，同时，这也是中国自1980年代起，首次在一个如此动荡的经济环境中迎来新一届领导班子。上一次是在1988年，通货膨胀的爆发扰乱了邓小平的交接计划，保守派有了对邓小平的自由派追随者开火的机会。次年，学生在天安门广场集会，要求更多的自由权利，引发了中共内部冲突的公开化。


The threats to the party today are very different, but fear of large-scale unrest still haunts the leadership. The past decade has seen the emergence of a big middle class—nearly 40% of the urban population, as some Chinese scholars define it—and a huge migration from the countryside into the cities. The party takes no chances. Large numbers of plainclothes police are on permanent watch in and aroundTiananmen Square. (Since 2008, visitors to the vast plaza have had to undergo airport-type scanning and searches.) Early last year, when anonymous calls began circulating on the internet for citizens to gather in centralBeijingin sympathy with the uprisings that were breaking out in the Arab world, the location specified was not Tiananmen but Wangfujing, a shopping street nearby. The police responded by flooding that area with officers too.
中共今日面临的威胁已截然不同，但领导层依然担忧大规模的动荡。过去十年，中国出现了一个数量庞大的中产阶层——将近城市人口的40%（按照一些中国学者的定义），同时，农村人口向城市大量转移。中共不想冒险。大量便衣警察长期部署在天安门广场周边。（自2008年起，前往广场的游客必须经过安检，宛如在机场登机。）去年早些时候，网上流传着号召，呼吁网民在北京中心地区集会，以声援阿拉伯世界的起义，地点不在天安门，而是附近的商业街王府井。警方反应迅速，涌向那一地区。


In the Pearl River Delta, which produces about a third ofChina’s exports, there are plenty of signs of malaise. Outside a Taiwanese-owned factory in Dongguan, a dozen or so police officers wearing helmets and carrying clubs watch a small group of angry workers complain that the owner has run away. The factory (which makes massage seats) is unable to pay its debts. They are afraid that, this time, after the lunar new year break they will have no jobs to come back to. A plainclothes policeman tries to silence them. Then a uniformed officer moves in with a video camera, and most of the workers retreat, keeping a prudent silence.
中国三分之一的出口来自珠三角地区，那里已有许多不安的迹象。在一家位于东莞的台湾工厂外，一队警察头戴头盔，手持警棍，警戒着一群愤怒的工人，工人们抱怨老板早已跑路。工厂（生产按摩椅）无法偿还债务。工人担心这一次春节回来，他们将没有工作。一名便衣警察试图让他们静下来。之后，一名穿制服的警官带着摄像机走过来，大多数工人便退走了，谨慎地保持沉默。


Others in the delta have been less reticent. In November thousands of employees at a Taiwanese shoe factory in Dongguan took to the streets in protest against salary cuts and sackings, purportedly caused by declining orders. Protesters overturned cars and clashed with police. Photographs of bloodied workers circulated on the internet. There have been further protests in recent weeks.
珠三角的其他人就没有这么默不出声。11月，东莞一家台湾鞋厂数以千计的员工上街游行，抗议据称由订单减少引起的减薪和裁员。抗议者掀翻汽车，并与警方发生冲突。工人身上流血，其照片在网上流传。最近几周还有其他几起示威。


Guangdongprovince also saw a wave of strikes in 2010. At that time workers—mainly in factories supplying the car industry—were demanding only higher pay and improved conditions. Most of those disputes were quickly and peacefully settled, and rarely involved action on the streets. The latest spate of confrontations looks different. The steelworkers at the state-owned factory nearChengduwanted a raise; but, these days, rather than bidding to improve their lots, workers are mostly complaining about wages and jobs being cut. The strikers seem more militant.
广东省在2010年也经历了一波示威潮。当时，主要来自汽车行业工厂的工人，仅仅是要求加薪和改善工作条件。多数争端的处理都既迅速又平和，极少有上街采取行动的。最近接连发生的对抗则显得完全不同，成都附近的国有钢厂工人要求加薪，但日前，比起要求改善待遇，多数工人不满的是减薪和裁员。示威者显得更为激进了。


A report published this month by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) says that, compared with those in 2010, the strikes of 2011 were better organised, more confrontational and more likely to trigger copycat action. “Workers are not willing this time to accept that they have to make sacrifices for the national good because firstly they have already made enough sacrifices, and secondly, fewer are willing to just pack up and go home,” says Geoff Crothall of China Labour Bulletin, an NGO in nearby Hong Kong.
本月中国社会科学院发布的一份报告说，与2010年的示威相比，2011年的示威更有组织，更具对抗性，更易引发跟风行动。来自香港的一家非政府机构——中国劳工通讯的克罗赛尔（Geoff Crothall）说：“这一次，工人不愿为再国家利益牺牲了。首先，他们已经牺牲得够多了，其次，愿意就这么卷起铺盖回家的人更少了。”
Where the heart is
核心何在
The government hopes that jobless migrants will return to their home villages, where they or their families still enjoy a tiny land entitlement on which they can subsist, or find work closer to their hometowns. Many will: job opportunities in the interior have grown in the past few years, thanks to a surge of government investment in central and western areas, aimed at evening out economic growth.
政府希望失业农民工能回乡，在那里他们有一小块土地可供生存；或能找到离家乡更近的工作。许多人能找到这样的工作。过去几年，政府在中西部地区投资激增，希望经济增长惠及更多地区，创造了更多的工作机会。


Last year Chongqing, a region in south-west China which had long exported large numbers of workers to the coast, for the first time employed more of its surplus rural workforce locally than it sent to other areas.Chongqing’s party chief, Bo Xilai, is believed to be a contender for the Politburo Standing Committee. He has been trying to turnChongqinginto a model for the absorption of rural labour into cities, a project that has involved vast spending on low-cost housing to accommodate the region’s migrants.
中国西南的重庆，一直以来往沿海地区输送大量工人。去年，重庆农村过剩劳动力在本地就业的数量首次超过了流往其它地区的数量。中共重庆市委书记薄熙来，有望成为政治局常委。他一直在推动重庆成为吸收农村劳动力进城的典范，这需要斥巨资投入廉租房建设，以容纳本地区的入城农民工。


But rising numbers of migrant workers in big cities—more than 60% according to the National Bureau of Statistics in 2010—are themselves the offspring of migrants and have no experience of agricultural life. They regard themselves as urbanites, even if they are excluded from many of the welfare benefits to which city-dwellers are entitled. They are better educated than their parents’ generation, and more assertive. A riot by migrants last June in Dadun, another factory town inGuangdongwhere many of the country’s jeans are produced, hinted at the problemsChinacould face if second-generation migrants lose hope. The manhandling of a pregnant woman by security guards prompted two days of violence, with thousands of migrants setting fire to vehicles and government buildings. Strikes in coastal factories now mainly involve second-generation migrants, according to the report by CASS
但是，大城市中越来越多的农民工本身就是农民工的后代，根据国家统计局2010年的调查，其比例占农民工的60%，这些人根本没有农村生活经历。他们视自己为城里人，尽管他们被排除在许多城市居民享受的福利之外。比起父辈，他们接受了更好的教育，也更有主见。去年在大墩发生了一起暴动事件，那是广东的另一座工厂镇，中国许多牛仔裤都产自那里。这表明，如果第二代农民工失掉了希望，中国会面临更多的问题。保安粗暴对待一名孕妇，引发了为期两日的暴力事件，数千名农民工防火烧毁机动车辆和政府大楼。根据中国社会科学院（CASS）的报告，沿海地区工厂的示威者主要是第二代农民工。


Such unrest is not about to topple the party. As Chinese officials nervously digest the implications of unrest in the Arab world, demonstrations inRussiaand an easing of repression inMyanmar, they draw comfort from the consistency of Chinese opinion polls. These appear to show high levels of trust in the central leadership and of optimism about the future under party rule. Many ordinary Chinese are contemptuous of local authorities, but still believe that leaders inBeijingare benign.
这样的骚动并非要推翻中共的领导。中国官员忧心忡忡，从阿拉伯世界的动乱，俄罗斯的游行，以及缅甸对压迫的放松当中吸取教训。他们也在中国呈现一致性的民意调查中得到了安慰。这显示了对中央领导的高度信任，以及对党领导下的未来充满乐观。许多中国民众对地方领导充满鄙夷，但依然相信中央领导正直纯良。


The power of weibo
微博的力量
But according to Victor Yuan of Horizon, a polling company inBeijing, citizens’ satisfaction with their own lives and confidence in the government, though high, experienced a “big drop” in 2010 and didn’t recover last year. Confidence in the government has fallen by about 10 percentage points, to around 60%.
来自北京零点咨询集团的袁岳认为，尽管市民对生活的满足感及对政府的信心较高，但在2010年却出现了“大滑坡”，而且去年也并未恢复。对政府的信心目前为60%，下降了大约10%。



Mr Yuan says the rapid spread of microblogs has contributed to this decline. By the end of last year, weibo, as Chinese versions of Twitter (itself blocked in China) are known, were used by nearly half of the 513m Chinese who had accessed the internet in the previous six months (see chart). This was slightly more than the number who used e-mail and a rise of nearly fourfold over the year before, according to the government-affiliated China Internet Network Information Centre. Li Chunling of CASS estimates that 90% of urban internet users under 30 are microbloggers.
袁先生说，微博的迅速发展对下滑推波助澜。截至去年年底，在刚过去的六个月中，中国版的 Twitter——微博（Twitter本身在中国受到屏蔽）用户数量达5.12亿（见图）。根据政府下属的中国互联网信息中心的数据，这一数字比使用电子邮件的人数略高，而且比前一年翻了两番。中国社会科学院的李春林估计，30岁以下的城市网民中有90%都是微博一族。


Weibo have transformed public discourse inChina. News that three or four years ago would have been relatively easy for local officials to suppress, downplay or ignore is now instantly transmitted across the nation. Local protests or scandals to which few would once have paid attention are now avidly discussed by weibo users. The government tries hard, but largely ineffectively, to control this debate by blocking key words and cancelling the accounts of muckraking users. Circumventions are easily found. Since December the government has been rolling out a new rule that people must use their real names to open accounts. So far, users seem undeterred.
微博改变了中国的舆论。三四年前，对地方官员而言，镇压，淡化或忽视一些新闻是相对简单的，而现在，这些新闻瞬间便传遍全国。从前没什么人注意的示威或丑闻，现在却成为微博用户热烈讨论的话题。政府竭尽努力，想通过屏蔽关键词和注销爆料用户账户的方式控制讨论，但是却收效甚微。自十二月以来，政府出台了一项新规定，要求用户用实名注册账号。到目前为止，用户并未受到什么影响。


In the build-up to the 18thCongress,China’s leaders will become especially anxious to prevent embarrassment to the party. Weibo are likely to make their lives a lot more difficult—at least that was the lesson from a ten-day stand-off in December between police and residents of the coastalvillageofWukaninGuangdong.
为了迎接十八大，中国的领导在竭力避免使党陷入难堪。微博加大了他们工作的难度——至少，12月广东沿海乌坎村村民与警察为期十天的对峙就是一例。


The villagers’ protest was typical of thousands that roil the Chinese countryside every year: a complaint about the seizure of agricultural land by local officials for private redevelopment. Unusually, however, in Wukan citizens took control of their village and drove out party hacks and police. Officials were alarmed by images that circulated on weibo of triumphant residents rallying in the centre of their village, like students inTiananmen Square22 years ago (see the picture at the start of this piece). They tried, unsuccessfully, to stop news spreading by ordering a block on the village’s name and location.
村民的抗议颇为典型，每年中国乡村都有类似的事件：不满当地官员征用农地来用于私人开发。然而与众不同的是，乌坎村民掌控了自己的村庄，把党的官员和警察赶了出去。居民在村里集会，欢庆胜利，好像22年前天安门广场上的学生一样，图片在微博上流传，这让官员们开始警觉。他们试图屏蔽村名和地理位置，控制消息传播，但却并不成功。


The villagers gave up their protest on December 21st after a rare, high-profile intervention by theGuangdongparty leadership, which promised to look into their complaints. Remarkably, on January 15th the protest leader, Lin Zuluan, was appointed as the village’s new party chief (the previous one having disappeared, it is thought into custody). Even the party’s main mouthpiece inBeijingbroke its silence on the issue, saying it showed that local officials should stop treating citizens as adversaries.Wang Yang,Guangdong’s party chief, who is believed to be a contender for a senior Politburo position this year, said the incident demonstrated how people’s “democratic consciousness” was getting stronger. He called on officials not to ignore citizens’ concerns.
12月21日，广东省党政领导少有的高调介入事件，承诺调查村民的诉求，于是村民停止了抗议。值得注意的是，1月15号，带头抗议的林祖銮被任命为新的村支书（前任书记销声匿迹，据猜测已被收押）。即便是作为中共喉舌的那家北京媒体也打破沉默，称这体现了地方官员不当视民众为敌人。广东省委书记汪洋今年有望在政治局中担任资深职位，他认为本次事件说明人民的“民主意识”在不断增强，号召领导干部要重视民众关心的问题。


Few regard the Wukan episode as a turning point for the party. At least one protester onTiananmen Squarehas since been seen being dragged away by police in the usual fashion. But it has stirred debate, online at least, about how the party should respond to protests and other forms of public pressure. And villagers in Wukan warn that they will not be satisfied until they have reclaimed their land. One protest leader says there could be another, “even bigger” uprising.
没多少人认为乌坎事件会是中共的一个转折点。至少有一名在天安门广场示威的示威者给警察按常规带走。但对于中共应如何应对抗议和其它形式的公共压力，这引发了讨论，至少是网上的讨论。乌坎村民声称，除非他们重获土地，否则他们不会满意。一名抗议带头人说可能会有“更大的”示威。

The new leadership that will take over after the upcoming Congress will quickly face tests of its ability to handle social unrest. Even if the country does not appear on the brink of an Arab-style upheaval, many Chinese academics say the next few years could see burgeoning instability, exacerbated by slower economic growth and a widening gap between rich and poor.China’s outgoing leaders have tried to suppress debate about ways of reforming the political system to allow the public to voice their grievances more freely. But many analysts believe there is a pressing need for such reform. Today’s “Chinamodel”, as some inChinaand abroad were tempted to call it after Western economies fell into disarray three years ago, appears increasingly unsustainable.
即将到来的十八大过后，新的领导班子要接受其应对社会不安能力的考验。尽管中国不会面临阿拉伯式的动乱，但许多中国学者认为，由于经济增长减缓，贫富差距加大，未来几年中国会萌发社会不稳定。中国即将卸任的一些领导人曾试图压下关于政治改革以及让公众更自由地发表不满的讨论。但许多分析人士认为改革迫在眉睫。自三年前西方经济开始陷入混乱，中国国内外都称之为“中国模式” 的那一套已经显得不再稳定持久。


Chinese roulette
中国轮盘赌
An intriguing glimpse of how at least some in the party elite might see things was offered last April when Zhang Musheng, a prominent intellectual, published a book calling for a revival of the one-time Maoist goal of building a “new democracy”. General Liu Yuan, the son of Liu Shaoqi who wasChina’s president during the Mao era, openly backed the idea. Mr Zhang (himself the son of a late senior official, as are several of the new leaders-to-be) said a new democracy would involve continued party rule but with much greater freedom.
中共党内精英的看法如何呢？去年4月，著名知识分子张木生出版的一本新书给了大家有意思的答案。该书号召要恢复毛派曾经的目标，建立“新民主”。刘源将军，毛泽东时代曾任中国领导人的刘少奇之子，公开支持这一观点。张木生（跟一些即将上位的领导人一样，他也是已故高层领导之子）认为新民主应包括党的持续领导，但应给予更多自由。


Few ofChina’s liberals believe there is much chance of any leader pursuing this idea in the near future. But Mr Zhang’s description ofChinatoday has struck a chord (and has been circulated widely by weibo users). A well-known economist, Wu Jinglian, picked up a phrase of Mr Zhang’s in an essay in Caijing, aBeijingmagazine, in which he attacked the notion of a “Chinamodel” and called for political reform. The phrase of Mr Zhang’s that made an impression was one describingChinaas “playing pass the parcel with a time bomb.”
中国的自由派当中，没几人相信在不久的将来中国领导人会推进这一想法。但张木生对中国当下的描绘引发了共鸣（同时在微博用户间广泛流传）。著名经济学家吴敬琏，摘录了张木生在北京《财经》杂志一篇文章里的一段话，文章抨击“中国模式”并呼吁政治改革。张木生的这段话令人印象深刻，将中国描述为““抱着定时炸弹击鼓传花”。
from the print edition | Briefing  译者：王力鹏&杜鹃
原文出自《经济学人》杂志