【新唐人2013年10月24日讯】目前，中国经济增长放缓，成为海内外关注的焦点话题。美国《稀缺中国》一书的作者——马旸和叶文斌说，制约中国未来发展的最大问题是“稀缺”，这种“稀缺”不局限在资源和商品方面，还延伸到社会和政治问题层面。中国问题专家推荐这本书给国际人士，他说，读这本书可以让他们了解，中共国家主席习近平是为了什么寝食难安﹖
“如果你想知道是什么让中共国家主席习近平晚上睡不着觉？那就读读这本书吧。”
《美国之音》报导，美国“加州大学”中国问题专家大力推荐的，就是《稀缺中国》(In Line Behind A Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China’s Ascent in the Next Decade)这本书。
《稀缺中国》的作者，一位是美国“保尔森学院(Paulson Institute)”的研究员马旸，一位是“PNC金融服务集团”的资深国际经济学家叶文斌，他们在书中探讨了制约中国未来十年发展的最大因素。
马旸在回答美国《华尔街日报》记者提问时表示，从一开始，中国的自然资源条件就有限，在过去10年到15年那种极度的资源和能源密集型增长模式，已经对本就稀缺的自然条件造成了巨大的压力，而在未来的10年当中，这种增长对未来发展的涟漪效应将变得越来越明显。
这本书的前三分之一篇幅，针对中国的资源稀缺进行了分析，包括能源和其他的大宗商品、食品和劳动力。不过，马旸和叶文斌并没有把分析局限在这里，他们还把“稀缺”的概念延伸到了社会和政治问题方面。
《稀缺中国》作者马旸：“中国基本上还在用20世纪的政治体系来解决21世纪的社会问题，譬如说信息环境。整个新一代中国人出生和成长在一个完全不同的政治社会环境中。换句话说，过去30年里，一个可以统治社会的政治系统可能不需要那么先进，但如果要管理好现在的社会，需要一个先进得多的政治系统。”
时事评论员李善鉴：“其实我觉得，它的体制从来都是问题，它以前造成以前的问题，比如说以前的三年饥荒， 整个的国民经济差不多处于破产的边缘，现在（的体制），造成现在的问题。”
中共当局近期开展的反腐活动，以及抓捕在微博所谓“造谣、传谣”人士。马旸认为，这些活动背后另有目地。
《稀缺中国》作者马旸：“说是要抓老虎和苍蝇，现在看到他们两个都在抓，但是，我们觉得这不光是政治原因，也是用政治的手段来开始一些经济方面的改革。”
他们说，中国水资源紧缺、环境恶化、食品供给不足，地理资源和自然能源有限本身，就是很难解决的问题，再加上中共当局过去几年进行的很多基建投资、生产投资、和房地产投资，带来很多债务和泡沫增长，而陈旧落后的政治体系，都是制约中国未来十年发展的因素之一。
自去年中共“十八大”后，新一届中共党魁习近平相继出台了一系列举措，包括﹕燃起了“反贪腐、转作风、应民意”等三把大火﹔“坚持‘老虎’‘苍蝇’一起打！”、“打铁还要自身硬！”﹔习近平还公开承认“腐败问题愈演愈烈，最终必然会亡党亡国！”等。
英国《金融时报》发表评论文章说，不幸的是，在今天的中国，打击腐败基本上依赖于起诉腐败官员，而不是改革政治、经济和社会制度，它们给腐败提供了肥沃的土壤。
前中央政治改革研究室研究员 吴伟：“现在社会存在的各种各样的矛盾，和经济发展过程中，各种各样的难题很多，要解决这些问题，他必须抓住这个社会上这些问题一些主要的或者深层次的原因，如果从经济发展和自然生态破坏来看，中国目前需要的是真正的体制改革。”
《稀缺中国》还提到，随着中国人口老化、独生子女政策导致的就业人员短缺，高校毕业生就业难，普通民众难以负担高涨的房价等，都是中共当局应当解决的隐患。
采访编辑/常春 后制/施怡君
New Book: “In Line Behind a Billion People" Makes Xi Jinping Anxious
At present, the growth of China’s economy is slowing down,
giving rise to attention inside and outside China.
Damien Ma and William Adams, authors of an American book,
In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define
China’s Ascent in the Next Decade, said:
that the biggest issue for China’s growth is “scarcity". This “scarcity"
isn’t limited in resources and the availability of primary goods,
but also covers social and political issues.
China issues’ expert recommends this book to the international
community and says that this book will help people to understand
why Xi Jinping, the current Chinese president is so anxious.
If you want to know what makes Chinese President
Xi Jinping sleepiness at night, read this book now!
According to the report of “Voice of America", the U.S. China
issues’ expert from University of California strongly recommends
the book “In Line Behind A Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define
China’s Ascent in the Next Decade".
The writers of the book are Damien Ma, a researcher at
the Paulson Institute and William Adams, senior
international economist at the PNC Financial Services Group.
They discuss the biggest factor which will limit
the development of China in the next decade.
Damien Ma answered when questioned by a Reporter from
U.S. Wall Street Journal, “China was endowed with limited
natural resources from the get-go,
but the incredible resource and energy-intensive growth model
of the last 10-15 years has exerted enormous pressures on these
already scarce endowments
—and the ripple effects of this kind of growth on future development
are going to become more evident over the next decade."
The first one-third of the book analyzes the scarcity of
resources in China which include energy, commodities, food
and labor.
However, Ma and Adams do not limit the subject matter,
but extend the concept of scarcity to the social and political
arena.
Damien Ma: “China still has a sort of 20th century political
system that is trying to deal with 21st century problems and
society.
You can talk about the information environment.
You have an entire generation of people growing in
a society and an environment that is very different from
the political system that were used to.
So in other words, for the last three decades, the system didn’t need
to be too sophisticated in managing society, but now I think
it needs to be a lot more sophisticated."
Li Shanjian, a political commentator, “In fact, I think that
the system is always the problem.
It caused the previous problems like the three years of famine
when the entire national economy was on the verge of bankruptcy.
The system also caused the current issues."
The Chinese Government launched anti-corruption activities
and arrested so-called “micro-blog rumor mongers".
Damien Ma thinks these activities have their unsaid reasons.
Damien Ma: “It said will beat fly and tiger. It looks that it beats
fly and tiger. But we think this is not only for political reasons,
but using a political means to start some economic reforms."
They claim in their book that China is short of water,
the environment is deteriorating, food supply is not sufficient.
The geography and natural energy resources are very limited.
All of these issues are hard to solve. Furthermore, the Communist
government made lots of investments in infrastructure,
production and real estate which has created a lot of debts and
dangerous bubbles.
With the unenlightened political system, they are factors
that will limit the development of China in the next decade.
Since the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 18th congress
which took place last year, Xi Jinping the new party leader
launched a series of initiatives.
These initiatives include, “an anti-corruption campaign, changing
work practices, and listening to public opinion",
“Consistent with beating fly and tiger together",
“blacksmith should have muscles", etc..
Recently, Xi Jinping said publicly that “corruption is
getting worse and worse, which will destroy the party,
destroy the country", etc..
The British “Financial Times" published a review article
which said that unfortunately beating corruption in today’s
China is basically relying on suing the corrupted officials.
It’s not based on reforms of the political, economic,
social systems, which affords a fertile ground for corruption.
Wu Wei, former researcher of Central Political Reform
Institute, “Now, there are a variety of social contradictions.
With economic progress there’re all kinds of difficulties.
To solve these issues, he (Xi Jinping) must grasp at the root
of the deep social problems.
Standing on point of the economic development and the
damage of the natural ecology, what’s China need now is
a real system reform."
In Line Behind a Billion People also mentions that:
along with the aging Chinese population, the one-child policy
has led to the shortage of employees, college graduates find
it hard to find a job, ordinary people don’t have money to pay
for the expensive house, etc..
All of these are risks that the authorities should solve now.
