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There has been plenty of discussion lately about signs that China’s economy is slowing down, focused on details of a possible housing bubble and vast sums of bad loans that the country will have to reckon with. But put aside the challenges China faces this quarter, or next year, and there is one view that is overwhelming: China is a long-term economic juggernaut that will stand astride the global economy in another generation’s time.
最近，人们关于中国经济正在放缓的迹象有诸多谈论，讨论的焦点主要是潜在的房地产泡沫以及中国不得不面对的大量坏账等细节。但是，抛开中国本季度或明年面临的挑战不论，这里有个非常惊人的观点：长远来看，中国是个经济大国，再过一代人的时间，它就会成为世界经济的领军者。
I know this because, for years now, major magazines and editorials and books have told me about the Chinese Century, in which we are apparently now living. Leading foreign policy journals have devoted copious ink to exploring what China’s rise will mean for global economics and politics, often taking as a given that China will be the dominant power of the coming century. (“Can the Liberal System Survive?” Foreign Affairs asked in 2008.)
我知道这一点是因为，数年来，重要杂志、社论文章和书籍都在向我讲述“中国世纪”(Chinese Century)，我们现在明显就生存在这样一个世纪。主要的外国政策杂志用大量笔墨探索了中国的崛起对于国际经济和政治意味着什么——人们往往认为，中国将成为即将到来的这个世纪的主宰力量。（“自由体制能继续下去吗？”《外交》(Foreign Affairs)杂志2008年问道。）
Official forecasts — from international agencies like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank, and from United States intelligence circles — envision China continuing to grow rapidly over the next couple of decades, its economy eventually becoming much larger than that of the United States. Robert W. Fogel, a Nobel laureate in economics, forecast in 2010 that in 2040, Chinese economic output would be $123 trillion, about seven times the current size of the American economy (and three times his forecast for the United States in 2040).
官方的预测——来自经济合作与发展组织（Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development，简称OECD）、世界银行(World Bank)等国际机构，以及美国情报圈——认为未来数十年，中国经济将持续快速增长，其经济总量最终将远远超过美国。诺贝尔经济学奖得主罗伯特·W·福格尔(Robert W. Fogel)2010年预测，到2040年，中国经济产量将达到123万亿，约为美国当前经济总量的7倍（约为他对美国2040年经济总量预测值的3倍）。
But what if it’s all hogwash?
不过，如果这些都是胡扯呢？
Many of the most bullish forecasts of China’s economic future are based, more or less, on extrapolation. For more than three decades, its economic output per person has been rising at an extraordinary annual rate of 6 to 10 percent, climbing rapidly toward levels in the richest nations. If that continues for a couple of decades, the bullish forecasts will prove accurate.
许多对中国经济最乐观的看法都或多或少地建立在推论之上。30余年来，中国的人均经济产出一直在以6%至10%的速度增加，中国正在迅速追赶世界最富裕国家的水平。如果这种趋势再持续数十年，事实就会证明，这种看涨的预测是准确的。
But if you look at the long arc of economic history, such performance would be a remarkable aberration. That’s the argument that the Harvard economists Lant Pritchett and Lawrence H. Summers make in a new working paper. In short, past performance does not predict future results. What tends to happen, rather, is “reversion to the mean”: Countries having long periods of abnormal growth tend to revert to something around 2 percent growth, closer to the long-term global average.
但是，如果看看经济历史的长期走势，就会知道这种表现是一种罕见的反常现象。哈佛大学(Harvard)经济学家兰特·普里切特(Lant Pritchett)和劳伦斯·H·萨默斯(Lawrence H. Summers)在一篇新工作文件中表达的就是这个观点。简而言之，不能用过去的表现来预测将来的结果。相反，可能发生的情况是“回归均值”：那些经济长期以反常速度增长的国家很可能会回到2%左右的增长速度，接近长期的国际平均值。
“China’s experience from 1977 to 2010 already holds the distinction of being the only instance, quite possibly in the history of mankind,” with sustained super-rapid growth for more than 32 years, they write. “Why will growth slow? Mainly, because that is what rapid growth does.”
“中国从1977年到2010年的独特经历已经使之成为特例，很可能在人类历史中都是如此，”他们在提及中国在逾32年的时间里都维持着极高的增长速度时写道。“为什么增长速度会放慢？主要是因为，快速增长就是会这样的。”
There are plenty of other China pessimists out there, who note everything from aging demographics to years of politically driven investment that may offer poor returns, to an economy trying to make the perilous transition away from investment spending and toward consumers. Just last week, a Conference Board report argued that China’s economy would slow as a credit and investment bubble deflated.
对中国持消极态度的仍然大有人在，这些人提出了许多理由，从人口老龄化，到基于政治的投资——这种投资的回报可能不高，再到这个经济体正试图做出从投资支出到依赖消费者的危险转变。上周，世界大型企业联合会(Conference Board)的一篇报告指出，中国的经济必然会放缓，投资泡沫也会破裂。
But part of what makes the argument from Mr. Pritchett and Mr. Summers interesting is that they don’t trouble themselves with those gory details of why growth may slow; they say just that the historical evidence suggests it is likely. Maybe concerns about debt levels and bad investments in China will prove justified. Or maybe not. Regardless, we should think that a change is more likely than not.
但是，让普里切特和萨默斯的论点显得颇为有趣的部分内容是，他们并没有大费周章地去考虑导致增速放缓的残酷细节，只是说历史证据表明这种情况很可能会发生。或许事实最后会证明，人们对于中国债务水平和不良投资的担心是合理的。不过事情或许并不会这样。不论如何，我们都应该认为，改变是很可能发生的。
“China is a huge economy and a profoundly different economy than it was a generation ago,” Mr. Summers, the former Treasury secretary, said in an interview. “But it would be ahistoric to extrapolate and assume with any high degree of confidence that China will enjoy such extraordinary growth rates over the long term. Economists, strategic analysts, business planners and nervous neighbors should all recognize that a very wide spectrum of economic outcomes is possible over the next generation and that the most likely outcomes involve a very substantial slowing of growth.”
“中国是一个巨大的经济体，与它二三十年之前的情况已经完全不同，”前财政部长萨默斯在一次采访中说。“但是，带着高度信心来推断和假设中国将长期享受这种超常增长速度，就是脱离历史语境了。经济学家、策略分析师、业务策划师，以及情绪紧张的邻国都应该认识到，未来二三十年，它的经济产出可能会落入一个非常宽的区间，而最有可能的的情况，是它的增速会大幅放缓。”
The paper’s authors put it in baseball terms. “If a hitter has a hot streak with a batting average up 50 points over the past 20 at-bats, then we would forecast a return to the average batting average over the next 20 at-bats,” they write. “If pressed to say why the batting average would be lower, one could speculate about why it currently is so high and predict those factors will diminish or predict future events will causally explain the lowering, but mainly, this is just what happens.”
该文作者用棒球术语做比喻。“如果一个击球手，在之前的20个打数中连续得分，安打率高达5成，那么我们预计，在未来的20个打数中，他会回归到平均的安打率水平，”他们写道。“如果必须说说为什么安打率会降低，你可以思考一下，为什么它现在如此之高，并预测一下，这些因素减少会出现什么情况，或者预测一下，未来会发生哪些事件，导致安打率降低，但关键是，事情就是这个样子。”
The strongest arguments that they may be wrong, by contrast, focus on details of why China (as well as India, which they also analyze) has the potential to keep growing rapidly for many years to come.
相较之下，最有力的的反方论点侧重在为什么中国（以及另一个分析对象印度）有可能在未来的年头里继续保持快速增长。
I asked Jim O’Neill, the former Goldman Sachs strategist who coined the term “BRIC” for the large emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, to critique the Pritchett-Summers paper.
吉姆·奥尼尔(Jim O’Neill)是前高盛(Goldman Sachs)分析师，把巴西、俄罗斯、印度和中国这四个大型新兴经济体称为“金砖四国”的人就是他。我请奥尼尔谈谈对普里切特和萨默斯的文章的看法。
“In the case of China and India, the core driver of why a more positive path is likely to continue is the simple process of urbanization,” Mr. O’Neill wrote in an email. “If and when each get close to 70 percent urbanized, I’d have more sympathy with their findings, but this is a long way off.” (Just more than half of Chinese and a third of Indians live in cities. When people move from rural areas to cities, their economic output tends to rise sharply).
“中国和印度未来的道路可能仍然会比较顺畅，其核心驱动力其实就是城市化进程，”奥尼尔在电子邮件中写道。“如果城市化程度接近了70%，我会更加认同他俩的研究结果，但那是很久以后的事了。”（中国城市居民的数量略微高出总人口的一半，印度城市居民占三分之一。当人们从农村搬到城市时，国家的经济总量往往会大幅增加）。
In other words, a China bull can look at the details of the country’s situation — the great potential of its people to keep increasing their productivity, a political system that has proved resilient through the challenges of the last few decades — and see plenty of reasons for optimism. The reversion-to-the-mean view says simply, “We don’t know what will go wrong, but history suggests that something will.”
换句话说，中国的牛市有细节支持——中国人具有提高生产力的巨大潜力，而且事实证明，中国的政治体制富有弹性，过去几十年的挑战并没有把它压倒——有很多理由说明，我们应该保持乐观。“回归均值”的观点无非是在说，“我们不知道会出什么问题，但历史表明，总会有些事出问题。”
If the pessimistic view is right, there are enormous implications for the global economy’s future. If China’s per capita G.D.P. kept growing from now until 2033 at the same rate as it has in recent decades, the country’s annual economic output would rise by $51.1 trillion over current levels in present-day dollars. By contrast, if growth reverts to the mean, the size of the Chinese economy will have increased only $11.2 trillion by 2033, or a difference of about $40 trillion. To put that in context, the current gross domestic product of the United States is about $17 trillion.
如果这种悲观的看法是正确的，全球经济的前景就会大不相同。如果从现在起至2033年，中国的人均GDP能保持和过去几十年一样的增速，那么以美元现值计算，届时中国的年经济产出就会比现在高出51.1万亿美元。而如果增速恢复到均值，到2033年，中国经济的规模将增加11.2万亿美元。两者相差40万亿美元。作为参考，美国目前的GDP约为17万亿美元。
For decades, economists have been building models to try to understand the mysteries of what drives growth. Is economic destiny shaped by culture? By government institutions? By patterns of industrialization?
几十年来，经济学家建立了各种模型，希望得出驱动经济增长的秘诀。经济前景是由文化决定的吗？还是由政府机构？还是工业化的模式？
But those debates have been inconclusive. Consider some of the economic success stories of the last generation — China, India, Mexico, Poland, South Korea and Turkey, to name a few. All have different cultures, government institutions and economic development strategies.
但是，这些争论一直没有定论。想一想这二三十年来的经济成功例子——中国、印度、墨西哥、波兰、韩国和土耳其等等。它们的文化、政府机构和经济发展战略各不相同。
Years of work on growth theory suggest that there is no secret recipe for a developing nation to achieve prosperity. As it turns out, a simplistic reversion-to-the-mean approach explains economic growth about as well as some more complex approaches to predicting which countries’ economies are poised to boom or shrink.
在增长理论方面进行的多年研究表明，发展中国家实现繁荣没有固定的秘诀。事实证明，用过分简单化的“回归平均值”方法来解释经济增长，就像用一些更复杂的方法来预测哪个国家的经济有望繁荣或衰退一样，都不太准确。
This work also offers a reminder: If you just extrapolate from the recent past to predict the economic future, you are likely to be wrong. Analysts predicted that the Soviet economy would soon surpass the American economy in the 1960s, that Japan’s would do the same in the 1980s and that the United States had achieved a new era of perpetual speedy growth in the late 1990s. None of these have come to pass.
这项研究还提醒我们：如果你仅仅根据近期状况来预测未来经济走向，你的预测很可能是错的。20世纪60年代，分析师预测苏联经济将很快超过美国经济，20世纪80年代，他们又预测日本的经济将很快超过美国，上世纪90年代末，他们预测美国已经进入了永久快速增长的新时代。这些都预测错了。
In other words, when it comes to predicting nations’ fates over the long haul, we know a lot less than we like to admit.
换句话说，在预测国家的远景时，我们所知道的东西，远比我们愿意承认的少。
