中国下调GDP增长目标是好是坏？

    中国政府上周四宣布，今年的经济增长目标为7%，比过去三年下调了0.5个百分点。这远低于本世纪头十年的水平，当时中国经济高歌猛进，年均增幅曾达到10%。

    对这条消息有两种解读方式。对悲观主义者来说，造成中国经济增长放缓的问题看来不会很快消失。房地产市场越发低迷，地方政府债务仍处于难以为继的高水平，本世纪头十年的那种发展模式也已经走到了尽头。当时，中国的钢铁和水泥企业把自己的产品卖给国内建筑公司，后者再用这些原材料修建摩天大楼、公路和隧道。面对经济减速，中国央行上周下调了利率，这已经是央行在三个月内第二次降息。

    对乐观主义者来说，中国经济增速可能正在下降，但增长水平仍令人侧目。中国仍是全球20大经济体中发展最快的一个（也可能位居第二，仅次于印度，这要看大家相信谁的数据）。7%的增长目标意味着今年中国的经济规模将提高1万亿美元。虽然增速不高，但增长规模仍是印度GDP的一半以上。乐观者还认为，下调GDP增长目标将让改革变得更容易。三十年来，中国经济的飞速发展也引发了严重的污染问题。对此已有大量论述，解决方案之一就是压缩排污工业的规模。降低经济增长目标后，中国应该可以专注于保持高质量发展，而不是简单地提升GDP。经济和市场研究机构龙洲经讯分析师安德鲁•巴特森绝不是盲目乐观者，但他对于中国政府降低经济增长目标持积极态度，安德鲁写道：“这是件好事。这表明政治压力减轻了，不用再通过提高负债和放任工厂污染来追求不切实际的增长目标。”

    China lowered its economic growth target for this year to 7% on Thursday. That’s half a percentage point lower than the past three years, and a far cry from the heady 2000s when gross domestic product grew by an average 10% a year.

    There are two ways to interpret the news. For pessimists, the problems causing China’s economic slowdown don’t look like they’re going away anytime soon: the real estate market is falling deeper into distress; local government debt remains unsustainably high; and China’s model in the 2000s that supported double-digit GDP growth figures— in which Chinese firms produced steel and concrete and sold it to Chinese firms building skyscrapers, roads and tunnels—has run its course. In response to the slowdown, China’s central bank cut interest rates last weekend for the second time in three months.

    For optimists, China may be slowing, but man is it still impressive! China is still the fastest-growing of the world’s 20 largest economies (or maybe the second-fastest after India, depending on whose statistics you trust more). And today’s 7% target growth rate translates into $1 trillion in additional activity during the year—a marginal increase that is more than half of India’s total GDP. The optimists also argue a lowered GDP target makes reforms easier to stomach: China’s pollution problems, caused by runaway development over thirty years, have been well documented, and solutions include scaling back the harmful industries. Lower targets should allow China to focus on sustained “quality” growth instead of cheap measures to boost GDP. Gavekal Dragonomics analyst Andrew Batson, who is no Pollyanna, offered the positive view on Thursday: “This is a good thing,” he wrote of the reduced growth target. “[I]t means less political pressure to build up debt and run polluting factories in pursuit of an unrealistic growth target.”