1991年我問北京的司機師傅："中國共產黨解決了人民的溫飽問題了......"
他回答：把人民當豬養還不容易。
Robert Reich
This just in from the International Monetary Fund: China has become the largest economy in the world, finally surpassing the United States. The U.S. became the largest world economy in 1872, surpassing Great Britain. Great Britain became the world’s largest economy in 1870, surpassing … China.
Being the world’s largest economy doesn’t mean having the world’s highest standard of living. The median household income in the U.S. is $52,000. The median household income in China is $2,500.
****
Is China's economy really the largest in the world?
For the first time in more than 140 years, the US has lost the title of the world's largest economy - it has been stolen by China, according to the IMF. But how reliable are the statistics underpinning this claim? The BBC's economics editor, Robert Peston, explains lower down why China matters to all of us.
The Chinese economy is now worth $17.6tn, slightly higher than the $17.4tn the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates for the US.
So for the first time since 1872, when it overtook the UK, the US has been knocked off the top spot.
The IMF calculated these figures by using purchasing power parity (PPP) which enables you to compare how much you can buy for your money in different countries. As money goes further in China than in the US, the figure for China is adjusted upwards.
Without the PPP adjustment, the IMF estimates that China's economy is worth far less - $10.3tn.
But how much faith can be placed in the accuracy of GDP figures supplied by China when even the current premier, Li Keqiang has doubted their validity in the past?
A declassified US diplomatic cable revealed that in 2007, Li, who was then secretary general of Liaoning Province, had told the US ambassador that Chinese GDP statistics were "man-made" and "for reference only".
But with a population of 1.36 billion people, China really should be the world's largest economy, argues Matthew Crabbe, author of Myth-Busting China's Numbers. He's spent more than 20 years looking at the country's figures and the facts behind them.
His reaction to China's new title: "So what?"
He points out that if you look at per capita spending power - the value of all goods and services produced within a nation in a given year divided by the average population for the same year - then, even adjusted for PPP, China ($11,868) is still lagging a long way behind not only the United States ($53,001) but also the likes of Turkmenistan ($12,863) and Suriname ($16,080).
So how easy is it to accurately measure the size of the Chinese economy or even just parts of it?
Not very, says Crabbe. "One of the key things that has to be understood is that distortions that happen at the village and provincial levels become amplified as they go out the statistical gathering chain.
"Year on year the GDP figures for each province grew faster than the national total, which logically and mathematically could not be."
He attributes part of this discrepancy to corruption but also says that inaccuracies became exacerbated by the sheer size of the country and the rate at which it was growing.
Inaccurate GDP figures can have serious consequences for companies that base investment decisions on them. Crabbe has a cautionary tale.
In 2005 the Chinese government readjusted its GDP figures and the statistics on which they were based, including retail sales. The consensus in the retail community at the time was that nobody really understood the true size of the retail market in China.
"I went through each of the sectors to see what the real size of each of those would be, how fast they were growing and therefore what the real size of the retail market was.
"My conclusion was that the real retail market at that time was half the value of the official government figure," he says.
Crabbe discovered there were problems with definitions of what retail goods actually were. The government figures included wholesale sales of consumer goods, some government procurement, and some business to business sales - so not everything that had been included was strictly retail.
It's difficult to gauge whether the accuracy of definitions and the data have really improved in recent years. But the IMF forecasts growth of 7.4% in China for 2014 and 7.1% in 2015, compared to US growth of 2.2% this year and 3.1% next year.
This means that the Chinese are unlikely to relinquish their number one status soon. In fact the IMF predicts that by the end of this decade the Chinese economy will be worth $26.98tn - 20% bigger than the US at $22.3tn.
But while the US held the top spot for 142 years, China may not be able to match that record - long term financial forecasts from the IMF and others indicate that by 2100 India could overtake them both.
The most important number in the world, for the past 30 years and next five years, is China's growth rate. For 30 years its economy grew at a mind-boggling rate - roughly 10% a year but that stopped when the global economy hit problems in 2008 and it fell very sharply.
Then the Chinese government did something remarkable and persuaded its banks to lend as if there was no tomorrow. They lent for investment and investment went up from an already extremely high 40% or so of GDP, to about 50% and the growth rate picked up again. There's been nothing like it in the history of capitalism. It's astonishing.
The Chinese have worked out that this new way of growing through debt funded investment rather than exports can't go on forever and is actually potentially quite dangerous. So they are trying to reconstruct the economy but it's not going desperately well and growth is now around 7%.
I'm not sure whether we can trust these numbers to be honest though. I think most of us would say that if we're slightly uneasy about most government statistics, then we're profoundly uneasy about China's statistics. We do know that China is slowing down and there is a big debate about how fast that should be happening.
But the big story that has influenced all our lives in the last 30 years has been the economic revolution in China. For years it improved our living standards by making the things we buy cheaper and cheaper. It gulled central banks everywhere into thinking they had inflation under control so they kept interest rates way too low for too long.
China generated these enormous surpluses, which it then lent to the US to finance its colossal deficit. China was the big economic force in the world - and it still is - but it's moving in the opposite direction and the speed at which it slows down and the way that it slows down influences all our lives.
We should be under no illusion that the really big thing in the world, which will have an impact on our living standards is what happens in China. Nothing else really matters in comparison.
Listen to More or Less on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, ordownload the free podcast
*****
童工悲歌 東莞鞋廠13歲少年猝死
李忠謙 2014年12月05日 15:54
中國的童工問題由來已久。（搜狐）
來自雲南偏鄉的13歲少年李有斌，日前在他工作的東莞鞋廠大門口猝死，直到12月5日整起事件才由《南方都市報》揭露，讓中國的童工問題再次浮上檯面。令人惋惜的是，李有斌的親人曾向鞋廠求助數小時之久、而非直接將他送醫。等到廠方人員願意掏錢資助，李原本還有氣息的身軀，早已僵硬冰冷。
來自窮困偏鄉的少年
李有斌來自少數民族群聚的雲南德宏自治州，奶奶因病癱瘓、爸爸年初胃病過世，有斌雖然只是個13歲的孩子，但作為家裡唯一的男子，也只得輟學工作養家。經過人力派遣公司介紹，他9月遠赴離家約1500公里的東莞，拿著名為「陶富華」的四川成年男子的假身份，在當地的日暉鞋廠找了份差事。
根據《南方都市報》報導，李有斌雖然年紀很小，但他「皮膚黝黑、長相老成」，外表跟「陶富華」證件上的照片確有幾分類似。無論是人力派遣公司知法犯法，亦或者是鞋廠方面審核不實，總之李有斌就在這間每日必須上工10到12小時的單位待了下來，在生產線上付出大量勞動。
沒做滿3個月 扣7成薪資
根據李有斌的母親回憶，孩子不久前才打電話回家說「工作太累了、熬不住、想辭職」，但人力派遣公司說一定要工作滿3個月，否則之前的工資就會被扣除70%。經濟拮据的李家當然沒有本錢讓公司扣錢，有斌也只得繼續撐下去。11月16日晚上10時許，有斌的室友下班後發現他昏倒在床上，怎麼晃也叫不醒，趕緊通知有斌也在東莞工作的叔公。
強撐工作 疑似過勞猝死
有斌的叔公趕來後，發現有斌的鼻孔已經滲血，無法言語。因為自己身上只剩幾十塊人民幣，又聽說醫院的收費很高，因此叔公並未打電話叫救護車，而是抱著孩子往鞋廠討救兵。鞋廠保安先後連解人力派遣公司的負責人與鞋廠老闆，但都聯絡不上。直到凌晨二時許，鞋廠方面的工作人員才趕到保安處，掏出兩百塊鈔票要叔公送孩子去醫院。但此時有斌已經渾身僵硬、手腳冰涼，死在鞋廠大門附近的牆角。
有斌的遺體目前仍停放在東莞市殯儀館，因為他的家屬還在跟鞋廠協商賠償事宜。有斌的家人希望非法僱用童工的鞋廠，按照城鎮居民人均可支配收入的二十倍做一次性賠償，但鞋廠方面卻質疑有斌謊報年齡，目前僅願表達遺憾。《南方都市報》稱，因雙方均未將此事上報，東莞政府目前也沒有介入調查。
中國曾簽署《就業最低年齡公約》
根據《國際勞工公約》的《第十五號公約》（有關開始就業最低年齡公約）第二條第三項規定：「（開始就業或工作之）最低年齡不應低於完成強迫教育所需之年齡，更不應低於十五歲。」該公約經中國全國人大常委會於1998年批准，而且還特別聲明「在中華人民共和國領土內及中華人民共和國註冊的運輸工具上就業或者工作的最低年齡為16 週歲」。
但關懷勞工權益的《中國勞工通訊》發現，中國目前仍存在大量輟學後從事經濟活動的兒童，尤其在廣東、浙江、福建等東南部經濟發達地區最為常見。童工幾乎都是來自經濟落後地區的貧困家庭， 雖然中國訂有《禁止使用童工規定》等法律，但執法部門查禁的行動並不積極，偏鄉大量的童工供給與資方對童工的大量需求，也讓童工問題在社會結構上難以根除。
童工問題仍是中國難解之痛
根據《中國勞工通訊》於2006年實地訪查的結果，證明工廠或家庭作坊大量僱用童工的狀況確實存在。由於童工的配合度高、工資較低，資方也免去幫童工保險等支出，在技術要求較低的產業確實也喜歡僱用童工。8年過去了，童工傷病的新聞仍不時出現在陸媒版面，而今東莞鞋廠的一具13歲冰冷屍體，能讓中國社會看到多少童工及其家庭的悲哀，又有多少童工為大量僱用中國勞動力的台商產業效力？
在無數Made in China的沈默字體之下，讓人不禁想問。
沒有留言:
張貼留言