11月召开的中共十八届三中全会意义非同寻常。新任主席习近平第一次为这个国家打上他个人风格标签。他眼前的最大难题是给中国确定一个新方向，满足这个迅速发展变化的国家在变革的21世纪的多重需要，提高国家治理效率，及时呈现社会效益,得到广大民众的认同。中国人现在面临的问题并不少，很多需求亟待满足，比如更加清洁的空气和水、更少的环境污染、更安全的食物、更健全的医疗保障、更高质量的教育和就业、更少的腐败以及更加完善的法制体系。政府是否能有效回应民众诉求将直接影响这个国家能否保持过去几十年间的高速发展和社会稳定。

 

　　由习本人领导的起草团队在一份文件中大胆地提出了新的改革方向，阐述了一个核心原则：市场将在未来的经济发展中起决定性作用。该文件重申了此前的承诺，即居民用水、用电、用气、交通价格将由市场调控，并明确政府的角色是保持经济平稳发展，提供公共产品，保障公平竞争，以弥补市场失灵。

 

　　在经济领域，三中全会公告承诺将加快利率市场化，逐步放开对利率的管控，建立存款保险制度，加快实现人民币资本项目可兑换。为了进一步提高竞争力，国有企业在2020年前，利润上缴比例将从现在的10%提高到30%，并允许民间投资进入银行业等国有资本垄断行业。

 

　　在社会领域，也有一些关键的决策将产生重要的经济作用。政府将加快户籍制度改革，推进农业人口市民化，为进城农民提供更加平等的公共服务和社会保障，让农民可以拥有属于自己的房子和车，赋予农民对承包地占有、使用、收益、流转及承包经营权抵押、担保权能。

 

　　独生子女政策也被放开，确保未来有足够的劳动力供应。在中国面临快速进入老龄化社会、周边国家以低廉的劳动力加剧竞争的情况下，保障未来人力资源的增长将能够确保一定时期的经济繁荣。这次会议也提出鼓励社会组织参与和提供公共服务，终止劳教制度，倡议司法改革。

 

　　改革所面临的阻碍是巨大的，需要技巧、决心和时间。但是习主席的讲话彰显了他的决心，并且他将直接带领一个“核心领导小组”来落实这些改革举措。这些改革蓝图将很有可能变为现实。

 

　　尽管中国经济结构调整不可避免，国际局势不稳定因素增多，但这一整套强有力的改革措施足以保障中国经济每年7%的增长率。而且这种增长能抵抗风险、质量更高。经济向市场化转变将给予投资者更多信心，给消费者提供更低价格、更高质量、更有竞争力的产品和服务，刺激内需增长，并促使中国向现代服务型经济方向发展。

 

　　中国经济将摆脱长久以来依赖低廉劳动力的发展模式，转向依靠资本、技术和管理，提升整个产业链的价值，这将使中国在全球化日益显著的21世纪由世界工厂变为地球村的中心。

 

　　中国有几个显著优势。一是它拥有大量的专科和本科教育机构和学生数量。随着国际化加深，这些学校和学生质量也在逐步提升；二是随着互联网在十几年间从无到有，再到无处不在，中国社会已完全互通；三是中央政府财政赤字水平较低，解决地方政府表外债务问题的意愿明显；四是一些周边国家愿意在国际价值链中提供廉价劳动力，有利于中国提升自己的生产规模。

 

　　这些改革不仅是利好中国的，也是利好世界的。对于全球而言，这个世界第二大经济体未来还有着可预见的持续有力的增长。金融危机以来，中国一直是世界经济稳定的主要来源。中国每年保持7%以上的增长率，给美国和G7国家从2008年以来的经济衰退中复苏发挥了重要作用。（来源：人民日报海外版。作者：约翰·科顿，系人大重阳金融研究院外籍高级研究员）

 

 

A changing China’s contribution to the world growth

 

　　Introduction

 

　　The third plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in November was an unusually significant event. It was the much anticipated and much desired first chance for China’s new president, Xi Jinping, to set bold new directions for his country and put his personal stamp on them. His formidable challenge was to define a new direction to meet the needs of a rapidly changing China in a transforming twenty-first century world, to do so in a way that he could deliver through more efficient control of his multifaceted state, and that could show results with a speed and sensitivity that his newly empowered, demanding citizens would approve. Chinese citizens confronted a cumulating list of problems, led by their need for a better natural environment with clean air and water and less pollution, safer food, better health care and protection from infectious disease, more high-quality education, employment, economic equality, less corruption, greater personal freedom and a reliable rule of law. Their government’s effective response to these needs was critical for a continuation of the strong, sustained, growth that China had so impressively produced in past decades, and even for the social stability of China itself.

　　On the whole these challenges were met in convincing fashion. Never before had a new Chinese leader acted so quickly and decisively after taking office to set such an ambitious new course with his personal approach and reputation as an integral part. The long, detailed document released on November 15, 2013, and the accompanying speech of President Xi promised bold, broad, far-reaching reforms likely to transform the Chinese economy and society as a whole. These consist of several key changes in the economic, social and personal spheres, and in the process by which those changes would reliably be put into effect to deliver the intended results. Their strength and sophistication suggests that they will have the sustained momentum to overcome the many obstacles such extensive reform will inevitably confront. They should thus produce the strong, sustained and now more balanced, higher quality economic growth that China needs to shape its changing economy and society at home. And they will strengthen China’s already central contribution to global growth and global economic governance, led by the G20, at a critical time when the world needs the Chinese economic engine more than ever and as Chinese seeks to host the G20 summit in 2016.

 

　　The new directions and decisions

 

　　The bold new directions, set forth in a document from a drafting group led by President Xi himself, proclaimed the core principle that market forces would henceforth play a “decisive” role in the economy. The document reaffirmed earlier promises to let the market set the price of the water, energy and transport that citizens use daily. And it stated that the proper role of government is to ensure economic stability, provide public goods and a fair market and to act when the market fails. It was clear that, surely if perhaps slowly, a modern market economy would replace the old state-controlled one.

 

　　These principles were backed by several key policy decisions. In the economic realm it authorized an “acceleration” of the shift to market-determined interest rates, looking forward to the end of controls. It called for the creation of an insurance scheme for deposit insurance, to help protect citizens in this new market age. In the external sector it accordingly repeated the government’s longstanding call for full convertibility of the yuan.

 

　　To further enhance competition, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will send 30% of their profits to the government by 2020, up from 10% at best now, to help finance social security spending. Also allowed is private investment in SOEs and private sector competition in SOE-dominated sectors, such as banking.

 

　　In the social sphere there were several key decisions that will have important economic effects. The government will speed up changes to the household registration system to give rural migrants to cities equal access to public services and even to own a house and a car. Back in the rural areas and villages, farmers will have greater ownership of their land and houses, and the ability to mortgage their homes. And the one-child policy will be relaxed. The result will be a more efficient national labour market, with the promise of a growing supply of human capital, providing critical boost at a time when China’s rapidly aging society faced growing competitive pressure from neighbours such as Vietnam where labour costs less.

 

　　In the social and personal spheres, the document called in general for social organizations to play a larger part in Chinese life, promising the expansion of service-oriented non-governmental organizations to help the government meet citizens’ welfare needs. It also ended the dreaded “education through labour” prisons and called for judicial reform.

 

　　To be sure, the obstacles facing these reforms are formidable, and it will take skill, determination and time to achieve their intended results. Resistance can be expected from those who personally benefit from corruption, from local government officials relying on land sales, from an urban middle class not wanting to share its benefits with its poorer new neighbours from the countryside and from disruptions from international affairs.

 

　　But President Xi’s speech showed that he knew this full well. Particularly promising are the new governance processes he put in place, for those processes strongly increase the likelihood that these reforms from the top would be faithfully put into effect and felt on the ground. A reform-oriented and determined President Xi will take personal control of a “leading small group” to oversee his reforms. And he will also take charge of a new national security council that covers domestic as well as international security. There is thus a good chance that this new Chinese vision will come to life.

 

　　The impact on a changing China at home

　　Together this well-integrated, self-reinforcing set of reforms promises to provide economic growth in China of at least 7% a year, even despite the domestic restructuring sure to take place and changes from abroad likely to come. More importantly, this will be more assured, higher quality growth. The move to a market economy will generate better data that more can trust and that will give investors the information and confidence they need to invest intelligently. It will give consumers lower cost, higher quality, more competitive products and services that will accelerate the desired domestic demand and consumption and move China toward developing the modern service economy that most of its G20 colleagues have.

 

　　On the supply side it will boost high-quality, domestic-driven growth as well. It will enable the almost half of China’s citizens who still live in rural areas to become property owners and entrepreneurs, thus adding a surge in rural economic growth to that in the cities and coastal areas that China has long counted on. People who move to the cities will become better educated and housed, improving the human capital of a workforce that will still age, even as more children arrive. The enhanced social services and personal freedoms for the urban middle class will enhance their human capital. The Chinese economy will be able to move from its longstanding reliance on cheap labour moving in from the farms to smart labour, capital and management producing higher up the value chain. These reforms will assist China’s great transformation from being the world’s factory to become the head office of the global village in an intensely interconnected twenty-first century world.

 

　　Here China has several advantages. One is its vast array of post-secondary educational institutions, students and graduates, whose quality is steadily improving as they internationalize. A second is China’s condition as a completely connected society, as internet connectivity has gone from nearly non-existent to nearly complete over the past ten years. A third is its relatively low level of central government fiscal deficit and debt and its willingness to address the large local government and off-balance sheet liabilities that lie beyond. A fourth is its location among several countries that can and wish to offer the low-cost labour in internationally integrated value chains to sustain China’s ascent up the production scale.

 

　　In all, China is now poised to become the world’s first major modern economy to escape the so-called “middle income trap.” With an annual per capita average income of about $6,000.00 per capita at present, China is currently entering the critical zone when rapid growth rate tends to stall. The reform package’s prospects of propelling China through this period is promising not just for China but also for the world as a whole.

 　　The contribution to global growth and governance abroad

 

　　In a global context, China’s prospective strong, sustained, high-quality growth will come in an economy that is already the second biggest in the world. This alone will help China become a reliably, increasingly robust locomotive of global economic growth. Its growing domestic demand will attract imports from abroad, giving G7 and its fellow BRICS economies a badly needed export and growth boost. Its abundant capital, increasingly freed from the need to feed SOEs with low productivity, can finance badly needed infrastructure in developing, emerging and even advanced countries abroad. And its growing firms and multinationals in advanced manufacturing, information and communications technology and financial services will provide a competitive impulse that should make their foreign competitors in the end, if China extends its new market principles and practices at home to its activities abroad.

 

　　The world badly needs this new China, starting now. China served as a major source of fiscal stimulus and financial stability through the great financial crises that erupted in Asia in 1997, America in 2008 and Europe in 2010. The latter two have not fully ended, even as new candidates emerge. China’s current 7%-plus growth is especially welcome as the United States and its G7 colleagues struggle in a historically long recovery from the depths of the recession half a decade ago. It is even more welcome and needed as all the big emerging economies except China in the long booming BRICS experience plummeting growth rates in 2013. So do key emerging economies, such as Indonesia and Turkey, in the tier beyond.

 

　　To reap the full benefits of a changing China’s higher quality, more internationally open growth, the rest of the world must respond in an appropriately open and welcoming way.

 

　　The G20 summit and system at the centre of global economic governance is the best place to ensure that both China and its leading international colleagues co-evolve in this desired way.

 

　　As I detail in my recent book, G20 Governance for a Globalized World, China has made a critical and central contribution to G20 governance since its start at the ministerial level in 1999 and particularly since the start of G20 summitry in November 2008 to cope with the great global financial crisis that erupted in the United States two months before. In responding to that great global crisis and its successor in the European region since 2010, China and its G20 colleagues have worked well together within the G20 to restore and strengthen financial stability, to provide immediate fiscal and monetary policy stimulus and then the needed fiscal consolidation in the medium term, and to prevent a protectionist spiral similar to that in the 1930s breaking out. They have also reformed the International Monetary Fund and the international tax regime, advanced food and energy security and climate change control, and reduced terrorist finance and weapons of mass destruction. In all they have done much to produce the more stable and safe world necessary to China’s prosperous and peaceful rise. The new reforms for a changing China and the proven performance of the G20 in governing a transforming world will do much to bolster Xi Jinping’s case for hosting and chairing the G20 summit when it returns to Asia in 2016.（The author is John Kirton, co-director and founder at G20 Research Group, BRICS Research Group, non-resident senior fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China and author of G20 Governance for a Globalized World (Ashgate)）