经济学人读译The silent majority沉的大多数.docx

The silent majority
沉默的大多数

A rare look inside a Chinese village
中国乡村一瞥

Apr 7th 2005 | BEIHE VILLAGE, SHANDONG | from the print edition
2005年4月7日|山东北河村|打印版

IN A country where 800m people, about 60% of the population, live in the countryside on an average income of less than a dollar a day, rural backwardness weighs heavily on the minds of China's leaders as they dream of joining the ranks of the world's leading economies. And in a country whose Communist Party came to power on the back of a peasant rebellion, distant memories of the vehemence of rural discontent arouse fears that unless something is done to make peasants happier, China will be plunged into turmoil. To assess China's future, it is crucial to understand the countryside. But it is not easy.

中国总人口的60%，即8亿人口，生活在农村，日收入不足一美元。中国的领导人希望跻身世界发达国家的行列，农村的落后问题是他们的一大心病。共产党之所以能统治这个国家，是以农民的暴动为基础的。农民的不满所引发的愤怒虽然已成为久远的历史，但还是引起了领导层的恐慌。如果不设法使农民得到满足，中国将再次陷入动乱。想评估中国的未来，了解其农村的状况至关重要，然而绝非易事。

Despite China's increasing openness to prying foreign eyes, the dynamics of village life remain hidden away. Although the Chinese media report extensively on rural problems, foreign journalists require government approval to conduct interviews in the countryside (as indeed, in theory, they do for any off-base reporting in China). Foreign correspondents can often get away with conducting unauthorised interviews in the more cosmopolitan urban areas, but rural officials invoke the rules with far greater regularity, fearful that critical press reports could damage their careers. The presence in a village of any outsider asking sensitive questions can quickly arouse official attention and often results in detention, the confiscation of notes and other materials, and orders to leave the area immediately.

尽管中国在外国看来越来越开放，其农村生活的状态还是不为人知。虽然中国的媒体经常报道农村问题，但国外记者需要得到政府许可才能去农村进行采访（理论上，其实这只适用于脱离实际的报道）。国外记者在大都市进行未授权的采访往往能侥幸得手，但农村的官员贯彻这一规定则更加严格，他们害怕批评性的媒体报道会阻碍他们的仕途发展。村里如果出现任何外人询问敏感问题，马上就会引起村里干部的注意，这些人通常都会被监禁，笔记和其他材料会被没收，然后被勒令马上离开。

Your correspondent originally asked the government of Shandong province for permission to stay in a village he had visited with official approval in the 1980s, but was turned down. Instead, the authorities selected the village of Beihe in Zouping, a prosperous county that was designated by China in the late 1980s as an area (then almost the only one) open to American researchers to do fieldwork. It still delights in its propaganda role. Zouping's brochure calls the county “a window for the US and the whole world to get an understanding” of the countryside. Yan Shengqin, Beihe's party chief at the time, still proudly displays a framed picture of Jimmy Carter with an arm around Mr Yan's shoulders during a visit in 1997.

上世纪80年代，一位记者一开始向山东省政府申请，允许自己在以前参观过的一个村子里呆上一段时间，但是未被批准。但是，政府推荐他去了邹平县的北河村。这是80年代中国政府规划的一个繁荣县城，作为向美国研究人员开放的实地调查地点（在那个时侯可能是唯一的）。邹平县的宣传册上称其为“向美国和全世界开放的窗口”，让外国人了解中国的农村。当时的北河村党委书记杨生勤还很骄傲地展示了一副裱好的照片。照片摄于1997年，当时吉米•卡特总统参观了该村，照片中，他一只手揽着杨书记的肩膀。

Beihe's 1,000 villagers enjoy a net income per head of around 5,000 yuan ($600) a year—about 70% more than the national average and 40% more than the average for Zouping. It has more than 30 privately owned factories in activities from iron forging to furniture making. Peasants here say they would prefer to keep their rural-residence certificates, a relic of a once-rigid urban-rural apartheid system in China that barred peasants from moving to the cities. Now they are allowed to migrate more freely. But while the urban social-security system is in tatters, most country-dwellers are still entitled to farm (not to own) a small patch of land that can at least keep them from starving. Beihe's villagers prefer to stay put—unlike tens of millions of other peasants for whom even the insecurity and hardship of urban life is better than rural poverty.

北河村有1000村民，人均年收入月5000元（合约600美元），比全国平均水平高出了70%，比邹平县平均水平高40%。村里有30多家私营企业，经营范围从炼铁到家具制造，应有尽有。这儿的农民说，他们宁愿保留农村户口。农村户口是曾经非常死板的中国城乡分离体系的产物，禁止农民向城市迁移。现在，农民有了更多的迁移自由，但是由于城市的社保体系非常不完善，许多农村居民还是只能靠耕种（不是占有）一小块土地来勉强保持温饱。北河村的村民选择了留在农村，而不像其他数百万农民那样，宁愿面对城市生活的危险和困难，也不愿意继续留在农村忍受贫困。

Beihe's mobile-phone-owning peasants in their newly built courtyard homes with cable television and (in the case of at least 20 households) private cars may not be the best-placed people to give insights into the rural deprivation and injustice that have prompted a growing number of peasants to head to big cities in recent years to petition the authorities. (Even model Zouping had 603 such peasants in 2002 and 338 in 2003, compared with none at the beginning of the decade, according to county records.) Even so, the village does illustrate how sweeping economic and political changes in the past quarter-century have made China's villages far more independent from higher authority. They have also become far more dependent for their success or failure on the abilities of their own local leaders. In Beihe, as in many of China's 700,000 villages, ancient clans have played an important part in both of these changes.

北河村的村民都有手机，新盖的楼房外有场院，内有有线电视，至少20户人开上了私家车。近几年，因为土地被剥夺，遭受越来越多不公正待遇的农民进城上访。而仅看到北河村的人民生活，是无法洞察到这些的。（即使在模范县邹平县县志上也能看到，本年代初还没有农民上访，而2002年就有603名，2003年338名。）即使如此，北河村还是能反映出，过去25年的经济政治全面大改革如何使中国农村同高层政府愈加疏离。农村的繁荣或衰败越来越取决于本村村官的个人能力。北河村和中国其他70万个农村一样，古老的家族制在所有的变革中都起着十分重要的作用。

The Zhang-Yan clans
张家和杨家

The revival of village clannism is among the party's many worries about its grip on rural stability. In Beihe, more than half of the villagers share the surname Zhang. Among the rest, Yan is the biggest clan. The Yans and Zhangs live in distinct areas of the village. Yan Shengqin, the former party chief, happens to be one of the most senior within his clan's patrilineal hierarchy. It is to him, he says, that Yans turn to help sort out family disputes or officiate at weddings or funerals. Kim Falk, of America's Carnegie Mellon University, who spent 18 months in Beihe in the early 1990s, says relations between Zhangs and Yans appeared harmonious, as they do today. But it is easy to see how in other villages clan loyalties—as sometimes reported in the Chinese press—lead to bitter feuding between clans and struggles for control of village leadership jobs.

共产党还担心，农村家族势力的卷土重来会对农村稳定造成影响。北河村一半以上的村民姓张，其余的人中，姓杨的最多。张家和杨家泾渭分明地居住在村子的两个区域。前党委书记杨生勤可以说是杨家族谱中最年长的一位。他说，杨家人在解决家庭纠纷或者主持婚丧大典时通常会找他帮忙。美国卡内基梅隆大学的金•福尔克于20世纪90年代在北河村住了18个月。她说，张家和杨家的关系一团和气，至今仍是如此。但是，正如中国媒体有时报道的那样，在其他农村很容易看到，对氏族的忠诚会造成氏族间的宿怨，还会导致村民为了村干部的位子争执不休。

The dismantling of Chairman Mao's “people's communes” in the early 1980s allowed villages to re-emerge as independent economic units. Clans acquired a renewed interest in taking control. China's promotion of elections for the post of village head in the 1990s made it easier for them to do so. And more recent moves to have one person act as both village head and party chief have made it easier still.

20世纪80年代，毛主席倡导的“人民公社”解体，农村作为独立的经济单位得以重组，各氏族在管理权方面要求新的利益分配，而中国在90年代推广村长选举制度，使新的利益分配更加容易。最近盛行的村长书记一人制也使其越发容易。

Although Beihe began directly electing its village head a decade ago (and sure enough it was always Zhangs who won), the party chief, Mr Yan, was still the man in charge. This system of having separate elected and party-appointed leaders has caused widespread power struggles in villages, and nearly caused friction in Beihe. In 1999, a wealthy private businessman and member of a senior Zhang clan family, Zhang Fanggeng, was elected village head. Villagers knew that he had had a prickly relationship with Mr Yan. Some peasants who disliked Mr Yan had voted for Mr Zhang hoping that this would stir up a feud. “Some people said that within a month, there'd definitely be quite a show” between the two men, Mr Zhang later said in a report to higher officials.

尽管10年前北河村就开始直接选举村长了（毫无疑问一直是张家人当选），但是党委书记杨生勤一直握有实权。村长民选和书记任命的制度在农村已经引起了广泛的权力斗争，在北河村甚至差点引发冲突。1999年，一个资深老张家的富商张方庚（音）被选为村长，村民知道他同杨书记关系不好，因此不喜欢杨书记的人就投票给他，希望他能挑起事端。后来，张村长在向上级的报道中说：“有人说，一个月内，这两个人一定有好戏唱了。”

Intervention from officials in Xidong township, to which Beihe belongs, as well as Mr Zhang's own common sense (struggling with the party is rarely a winning move), helped keep these tensions in check. Last year, the Shandong party leadership ordered that next time the province held village elections, ways should be found to ensure that the posts of party chief and village head be held by the same person in more than 80% of villages. Achieving this has involved allowing villagers for the first time to vote for the top party posts as well. The village party committee would still have the final say, but would generally pick the party member “recommended” by the most villagers as party chief. This person would also be appointed village leader. Last December in Beihe, Mr Zhang, who had conveniently joined the party, was a shoo-in for both jobs. His votes, tallied up in chalk on a garage door, are still on display.

通过北河村所在的西董镇官员们的介入，张村长自己也心知肚明（跟党斗没什么好下场），这种紧张状态才得到控制。去年，山东省党委命令，下一次本省举行村长选举时，80%以上的农村必须设法保证书记和村长由一人担任。要达到这个目的，必须要首次批准村支书也由村民选举。村委还是能够最终拍板，但是必须任命大部分村民“推荐”的党员为村支书，此人也可以担任村长。去年12月，张方庚轻松地入党，成为了北河村两个职位的不二人选。他的得票数用粉笔记录在一个车库的门上，现在还在。

The last collective
最后的集体企业
Now in full command of the village, Mr Zhang has the task of untangling one of the knottiest problems left by Mr Yan—the fate of Beihe's malt factory, whose dour concrete façade dominates the village skyline of closely clustered houses surrounded by an expanse of fields. Once the mainstay of the village's economy（这句话有没有点问题）, the factory is idle. Of its more than 200 workers, only its guard remains on duty. The village is hoping a private investor will take it off its hands, but it would take a courageous soul to do so with its 5m yuan of debt and a market for malt now dominated by bigger, better-quality producers.

目前，全权管理北河村的张方庚面临着一个任务，即解决杨生勤留下的最棘手的一个问题——北河村麦芽厂的命运。村里的房子分布密集，外边是一大片田地，这个麦芽厂棱角分明的暗淡外墙占据了村子的大部分外围地区。一旦村里经济支柱改变，这个工厂就会荒废。厂里的200名员工，只有保安还有工作。村民希望能有私人投资者接手这个工厂，但是基于工厂负债500万元，而且麦芽市场由更大型、质量更好的厂商主导，因此要接手这个工厂的人必须十分有勇气。

The malt factory is the last relic of the collectively owned industrial complex that was once Beihe. As party chief, Mr Yan had used his networking skills and business acumen to follow the example of many villages around China in setting up enterprises that were owned and operated by the village. Mr Yan himself acted as manager of the malt factory. These were, in effect, state-owned enterprises and suffered the same problems—bloated workforces, inefficient management and a poor understanding of risk. As long as state-owned banks were willing to lend and local officials helped them secure markets, they could prosper. In Beihe they helped transform what had been a village of mud brick and thatch in the 1970s into a community of spacious concrete dwellings that many an urban resident would envy (apart from the primitive lavatories).

这家麦芽厂是当初北河村集体拥有的工业综合体的最后一个幸存者。当时的村支书杨生勤利用其人脉和商业敏感度，以中国其他农村为榜样，建立了这家村集体所有并运作的企业，杨生勤本人出任总经理。实际上，这些都是国有企业，面临着同样的问题：人员大量冗余，管理效率低下。缺乏风险意识。只要国有银行愿意贷款，当地政府愿意保证市场，这些企业就会取得繁荣。20世纪70年代，这些企业使原本杂草丛生、泥泞满地的北河村改头换面，成为了一个世外桃源，许多城镇居民都十分羡慕（除了村里的原始厕所）。

But tougher lending rules and fiercer competition in recent years have forced villages to close or privatise most of their collective businesses. This may mean Mr Zhang has a quieter time than Mr Yan (who though retired from village duties is now the general manager of a township fertiliser factory). Ms Falk says that in the early 1990s a constant stream of business delegations from around the country visited the malt factory. The road into the village thundered with malt-laden trucks. Now the village, like many others in China, has changed from conglomerate to real-estate dealer, trading on its one remaining commodity, its land.

然而近年来，贷款条例越来越严格，竞争越来越激烈，这使得许多农村不得不将集体企业关闭或者私有化。这就可能意味着，张村长的比杨书记的日子要清闲多了（尽管杨生勤辞去了村里的植物，但现在是村里化肥厂的总经理）。福尔克女士认为，20世纪90年代初，全国各地的上也代表团源源不断地来参观这个麦芽厂。通向村里的路上，装着麦芽的大卡车轰鸣不断。而现在这个农村，像中国其他的农村一样，从联合企业转变成了地产商，靠交易村里唯一的资源生存，也就是土地。

With no more revenue from collective industries, the village's income is made up almost entirely of land rent paid by the privately owned factories. Beihe has recently decided to rent out a large tract of farmland to private investors to turn into a driving school and an auto-parts factory. The peasants who had used the land to grow wheat and corn are being compensated according to how much they would have earned from these crops. This is a meagre sum, it is true; but since they do not own the land and most of them have jobs in the private factories, they are not complaining. Millions of other peasants in China who have been turfed off the land in recent years by villages eager to profit from developers are far less happy.

自从农村无法从集体企业获得收入，其收入的大部分便来自租用土地的私营企业所付的租金。最近，北河村决定将一大片农田出租给私有投资者，建驾校和汽车部件厂。原本在这片土地上种植小麦和玉米的农户根据农作物的预期收益获得补偿。的确，补偿金额很小，但由于农民并不拥有土地所有权，而且大部分在私企中都有工作，他们也就不抱怨了。近年来中国其他地方几百万的农民就没有那么好的命了，农村为了急于从开发者手中挣钱，把他们从土地上强行赶走。

Beihe's bet is that the success of private industry in the area will boost incomes and with it demand for cars. More car owners will mean more demand for driving schools such as the one being built in the village (in China, learner drivers are not allowed on roads). A rosy future, perhaps. If only Beihe were more typical.

北河村的筹码就是，当地私有企业的成功将使村民收入增加，这就会造成私家车的增加。买车的人越多，对驾校的要求也就越多，比如目前正在兴建的这个就是一个例子（在中国，驾校学员不得上路）。也许北河村的前途会一番风顺，但却不是中国的典型案例。