チャイナ・アズ・ナンバーワン? |
さて、久々に中国ネタを。
といってもFT誌のコラムニストによる中国論です。彼はエズラ・ヴォーゲルの著書「ジャパン・アズ・ナンバーワン」にひっかけて「今度はチャイナ・アズ・ナンバーワンか?」と書いております。
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China makes gains in its bid to be top dog
By Gideon Rachman
Published: September 14 2009 19:49 | Last updated: September 14 2009 19:49
(中略)
So is China really a potential number one? Previous challengers to postwar American supremacy – Japan and the Soviet Union – eventually fell by the wayside.
In some ways, China is clearly a more plausible challenger than Japan. Japan’s population is about 128m, China has 1.3bn people. There are roughly four times as many Chinese as Americans.
But China still faces two very difficult transitions – economic and political. Now that the American consumer is taking a well-deserved rest, China needs to show that it can still grow rapidly, without relying on exports. Optimists point to this year’s economic performance to argue that “decoupling” has already happened – and that China now has enough internal demand to power its economy. Pessimists say the government has kept the economy surging forward only through a destabilising and wasteful surge of credit that is storing up problems for the future. A great deal will depend on who is right.
The government’s neurotic obsession with achieving its totemic figure of 8 per cent growth a year hints at the country’s continuing political fragility. Without a democratic mandate, the Communist party relies on rapid growth to keep the system stable. Somehow the country needs to make the transition to a system in which the government can draw upon alternative sources of legitimacy. Twenty years after the Tiananmen massacre, the Communist party shows no outward sign of contemplating a transition to a more democratic system. Meanwhile, the Chinese media speculate openly that social unrest could rise to dangerous levels, if economic growth slackens.
Unemployment is just the most obvious potential source of popular discontent in China. Environmental protests are becoming more frequent. Ethnic tensions in Tibet and Xinjiang have provoked riots.
Complaints about corruption and social inequality are also rising. That may be why the official media are so nervous about events such as the triumphal procession for a multi-millionaire’s pet dog.
The Chinese government keeps a very careful eye on the obvious potential sources of discontent – university campuses, internet chat-rooms and the like. But if political instability does return to China, it will probably be provoked by something quite unexpected. There are still plenty of things that can go wrong, before China becomes the world’s top dog.
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この著者は潜在的には中国はソ連や日本よりもはるかにナンバーワンになる力があるとしながらも、結局のところは経済面と政治面で不安定要素があるから心配だ、としております。
まあ無難な結論ですな(苦笑
ひとつだけ面白いのは、次の中国国内の政治不安は思いもよらなかったところから発生してくる可能性が高いとしているところですね。
これは『戦略の格言』の中の「格言39」に示されていることが参考になります。「サプライズ」は必ず起こるわけですが、その「影響」はコントロールできるわけですから。