China's next revolution--中国的下一次革命
关键词： China， revolution中国，革命China's next revolution--中国的下一次革命
A new property law is a breakthrough, even though it raises hopes that one-party rule may dash
新的物权法是个突破，尽管它预示着一党专政也许仍会继续
IISH, Stefan R. Landsberger CollectionSOME 2,500 years ago, one of Confucius's big ideas was the “rectification of names”. If only, he argued, sons would behave filially, fathers paternally, kings royally and subjects loyally, all would be well with the world. A faint echo of this thesis has been resounding this week in the cavernous auditorium of Beijing's Great Hall of the People, where nearly 3,000 delegates to China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), have been enjoying their annual fortnight of wining, dining, snoozing and pressing the “yes” button. Living up to one's name poses something of a problem for the Chinese Communist Party, which dictates the laws the NPC will pass, and whose name in Chinese literally means “the public-property party”.
大约2500年之前，孔子的一个重要思想就是“正名”。他主张，要是做儿子的能够尽到孝道，做父亲的能够尽到父道，做国王的能够尽到皇道，做君臣的能够尽到忠道，世界上的万物都能够和谐生存。这个思想在沉寂许久之后，这星期又在北京人民大会堂那空荡的礼堂里回响起来。中国国会，即全国人民代表大会，的近3000名代表正在那里享受一年一度，为期两周的饮宴、打盹和按“赞成”钮。想要实质名归给中国共产党带了难题，因为它规定全国人民代表大会可以通过的法律，而且它的名称在中文里的字面意思是“公共物产党”。
To such a party it must be an ideological embarrassment that China has such a large and flourishing private sector, accounting for some two-thirds of GDP. So one law due to receive the NPC's rubber stamp this month, giving individuals the same legal protection for their property as the state, has proved unusually contentious. It was to be passed a year ago, but was delayed after howls of protest from leftists, who see it as among the final of many sell-outs of the ideas of Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong, to which the party pretends fealty.
对这样的党派来说，有着一个如此巨大、蓬勃的私营产业 --- 其产额几乎占中国国内生产总值的三分之二，无疑是个意识形态上的讽刺。所以，一个预期会在本月获得全国人民代表大会全票通过，给予个人财产和国家财产同等保护的法律，才会显得如此有争议。此法本可在一年前通过，但是因受到左派人士的极力反对，它被暂时搁置。这些左派人士把它看成是，在众多马克思、列宁和毛泽东思想被偷梁换柱后，所仅存的几个硕果之一，而共产党一直佯装对其效忠。
The party's decision to enact the law in spite of that resistance is a great symbolic victory for economic reform and the rule of law. Clearer, enforceable property rights are essential if China's fantastic 30-year boom is to continue and if the tensions it has generated are to be managed without widespread violence. Every month sees thousands of protests across China by poor farmers outraged at the expropriation of their land for piffling or no compensation. As in previous years, placating those left behind in China's rush for growth has been a main theme of the NPC (see article).
共产党不畏阻力，继续实施物权法的决定对推行经济改革和法律统治来说是个极大的象征性胜利。如果中国想持续它那长达30年之久的经济繁荣，如果中国想尽可能和平地解决由经济繁荣所带来的社会关系紧张，一份清晰、可执行的物权法是必不可少的。在中国，每月贫穷的农民都会发出数以千计份的抗议，他们对土地被无偿征收或征收后的空头许诺感到异常愤怒。如同前几年里一样，今年全国人民代表大会的一个重要议题就是如何安抚那些落在中国经济增长大潮之后的人。
In the cities, and of greater importance to the decision-makers pushing the law through, a growing middle class with its wealth tied up in houses wants to pass these assets on to their only children. These people are anxious about the security of their property and, like their fellows in the countryside, are becoming more assertive. In other countries the emergence of this group as an important political constituency has been followed by an unstoppable drift towards greater pluralism.
在城市里，中产阶级的规模日渐增长，而他们的财富大都以物产的形式存在。这些中产阶级人士想把资产日后传给自己的独生小孩，这点对那些决定推行此物权法的决策者来说非常重要。他们极于想知道自己的物产有多安全，并且和农村里的同仁一样，变得更加坚持己见。在其它国家，随着中产阶级作为一个重要政治成份的出现，一个不可逆转、向着更加多元化社会状态涌去的潮流会随即产生。
A journey of a thousand steps--“千步”历程
In the short term, however, do not expect too much. The latest law is only one step in the slow trudge China is making out of the blind alley of Maoism. One big change in 2002 allowed businessmen to join the Communist Party, thus turning the revolutionary vanguard into a networking opportunity for bosses. In 2004 China changed the country's constitution to enshrine private-property rights. But the constitution is less a prescriptive document than a constantly changing description of what has just happened. So nothing changed.
但是，在短期内，还是不要期望过多。中国正在缓慢地走出毛泽东思想的死胡同，而通过这份最新的法律仅仅是其中的一步。2002的一个大变化是允许商人加入共产党，但这次党内改革的尝试却变成了给老总们建立关系网的机会。在2004年，中国改变了它的宪法，来推崇私有物产权。但是，与其说这个宪法是个规定性文件，不如说它是个对刚刚新发生的问题所进行的描述，而就这描述本身还不断变化。所以，一切照旧。
This latest law, likewise, will not bring the full property-rights revolution China's development demands. Indeed, it will not meet the most crying need: to give peasants marketable ownership rights to the land they farm. If they could sell their land, tens of millions of underemployed farmers might find productive work. Those who stay on the farm could acquire bigger land holdings and use them more efficiently. Nor will the new law let peasants use their land as security on which they could borrow and invest to boost productivity. Nor, even now, will they be free from the threat of expropriation, another disincentive to investment. Much good land has already been grabbed, and the new law will merely protect the grabbers' gains.
同样，这份最新的法律也不会带来一场中国发展所需要的完全物产权革命。确实，它不会满足这个最迫切的要求，即：把农民自耕地的所有权还给农民。如果他们可以出售自己的土地，千百万失业的农民也许就能找到份好工作。而那些留在农村的农民就可以收购更多的土地，并且可以更加有效率地进行使用。除此之外，此法也不允许农民用土地作为借款抵押或投资抵押来提高生产力。甚至现在，农民的土地还有可能被国家征收，这对投资来说是另一个阻碍因素。许多好土地已经被掠夺走，而这份新的物权法仅仅会保护那些掠夺者的利益。
This law cannot in itself resolve the murkiest question: who owns what? This is especially true in the countryside, where the mass collectivisation during Mao's Great Leap Forward of half a century ago left farmland “collectively” owned. Peasants have since been granted short (30-year) leases. But even outside agriculture it is often unclear whether a “private” enterprise is really owned by individuals or by a local government or party unit. Conversely, some “collective” or “state” enterprises operate in ways indistinguishable from the private interests of their bosses. Moreover, should an underdog try to use the new law to enforce his rights, the corrupt and pliant judiciary would usually ensure he was wasting his time. Since the Cultural Revolution, when the NPC passed just one law between 1967 and 1976, the legislature has been legislating quite prolifically. But the passage of laws is not the rule of law.
此物权法本身并没有解决这个最模糊的问题：谁拥有什么？这个问题在农村尤为突出，半个世纪前毛泽东大跃进时期的公有化使得耕地被“集体”所有。从那以后，农民被准许短期租赁耕地（30年为限）。但是，就在非农业领域，有时候还是很难弄明白一个“私企”是真地由个人所有还是由当地政府或者共产党所有。相反，一些“共有”或者“国有”企业却在它们领导的私人利益指引下运行。而且，如果弱者试图用新法律来捍卫他自己的权利，腐败、无原则可言的司法部门通常也会保证他不会“得逞”。自从文化大革命以来，当时全国人民代表大会在1967和1976的十年期间仅通过了一项法律，立法部门一直在大力制定法律。但是，“立法”和“执法”是个不同的概念。
Which leads to a final obstacle: without an accountable executive branch, the necessary reform of the legal system is not going to happen. As the passage of the property law itself demonstrates, the party is showing itself somewhat more responsive to public opinion than it was in the past. But it still runs a government that does its best to silence most dissenting voices, strictly controls the press, and lavishes resources on the best cyber-censorship money can buy. Property rights are a start; but only contested politics and relatively open media can ensure that they are enforceable.
这个区别把我们引到了一个最终障碍：如没有负责的执法部门，必要的司法系统改革是不会发生的。如同物权法的通过所表现的那样，共产党正向外界显示它比以前更加注意对大众观点做出回应。但是，共产党的政府仍然竭尽所能来压制大部分的反对声音，严格控制新闻界，并且把资源浪费在金钱就可以解决的网络审查问题上面。物权法只是个起点；但是，只有多元化的政治环境和相对开放的新闻媒介才能够保证它是切实可行的。
Petty-bourgeois fanaticism can be good for you
小资产阶级“狂热”对你有利
No revolution today then. Yet in the long term the leftist opponents of China's property law are surely right to be worried about what has been begun this month. They understand the law will entrench the rights of the carpet-baggers who have looted the state as it has privatised assets. They also understand that the law, for all its technicalities, does not chime with an avowedly communist government.
所以说，今天没有革命。但是，从长远来看，中国物权法的左派反对者是完全有理由对这月所发生的一切表示担心。他们明白此法将会保护那些外来议员的利益，这些人在中国私有化资产的过程中，大捞国家的“油水”。他们同样清楚地知道不论此法在“技术”上如何雕琢，实际上，它是和公开宣扬自己是共产党政府的中国政府不合拍的。
The leftists derive their theory not from Confucius, but from Marx. Were the latter writing today, he would surely see in China a revolution waiting to happen—or perhaps two. One is the bourgeois revolution led by the emerging property-owning middle class that the new law will help. The other is the potential for the simmering resentment in the countryside to boil over, perhaps in frustration at the law's shortcomings. Property rights are at the root of both—which is why the dozing NPC delegates may have started a process this month that will one day change their country completely.
左派人士是从马克思而不是孔子那里获得他们的理论的。如果马克思在今天著书的话，他肯定会发现一场革命即将在中国产生 --- 或者也许是两个。一个是由新兴的中产阶级所领导的革命，他们拥有物产并且会受到新物权法的帮助。另一个是由广大的农民群众所领导的革命，他们原本沸腾的怨恨也许会在新物权法缺陷所带来的挫折感之下炸开了锅。而物产所有权是这两场革命的根源 --- 这就是为什么说，本月全国人民代表大会的代表们在半睡半醒之间也许启动了一个某天会完全改变中国面貌的程序。
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