邓小平南巡讲话20年后再回首

今年1月18日正逢1992年邓小平南巡20周年。年轻一代论及邓开创的改革开放大业，完全不知其在上世纪80-90年代之交差点夭折，是他在1992年1月的“南巡”及其讲话让改革开放再度焕发生命。

“南巡讲话”对中国人的疗伤效应

1990年代初期，由于“六四”事件的影响，整个中国从南到北，政治方面人们如惊弓之鸟，经济方面乏善可陈。1992年春天邓小平的“南巡”，确实扫去了弥漫在中国上空那种沉闷、彷徨、疑虑和无所适从的阴沉之气。

我至今还记得当时在深圳通过公开与小道两条途径流传的各种消息。当时的中国，最害怕重归“鸟笼经济”的是深圳、珠海等几个经济特区，而某位政治高层那句“要将万元户整得倾家荡产”名言，虽然未公之于世，但却不胫而走，遐迩皆知。正是在此情况下，年届80高龄的邓小平在1992年1月18日到2月21日这30多天当中，走遍了武昌、深圳、珠海、上海等各城市，那篇“南巡讲话”让中国人知道“要加快改革开放的步伐”，不仅特区要办下去，内地也要改革开放。时任国务院副总理的田纪云还发表了一篇内部谈话，传达到科级干部，大意是：“有人要坚持计划经济，好办。建议搞个计划经济特区，发粮票、布票、统购统销。实行自愿原则，让坚持要搞计划经济的人住那里去。看他们愿不愿意去。”

此后，中国大江南北，长城内外，人民掀起“经商潮”，知识分子忙赶“下海潮”，一句人人会说的顺口溜是“十亿人民九亿商，还有一亿在发展。”中国人的生活改善，外资的大量涌入，就是始于90年代“南巡”之后。从那以后，邓一手缔造的经济改革开放的势头，不仅保持10年而无起伏，还为江胡两代尤其是江时代那看似鲜花着锦似的经济繁荣打下了很好的基础。

毋需否认，邓小平是他同时代共产革命领袖级人物中走得最远的人。与今天仍然在世的革命领袖卡斯特罗相比，尤显其眼光之洞达与开阔。但任何大人物都有自己的历史局限，更何况邓小平作为中共当时的实际掌门人，其出发点主要是为了党的核心利益执政权考虑。这一点注定了他的“改革开放”有诸多缺陷，其中最致命的就是他为了中共一党利益，留下了种种通向腐败的制度管道，以及现在不得不面对的政治改革难题。

计划与市场的统一：政府管制经济的通道

计划与市场的统一，于邓而言，算是“摸着石头过河”的权宜之计，但其后果是给政府及其腐败官员留下了掠夺财富的制度通道，造成了目前导致社会高度紧张的官民矛盾。

所谓“计划”，其实质就是要保留政府控制的资源分配大权。按照中国共产党政府的制度设计，中国国土上的任何资源――尤其是农村的资源，不管是土地、矿产、河流、古迹，都属于国有，依据这些公共产权取得的收入都由政府支配。改革以来，政府控制资源与毛时代没有本质差别，却多了个“市场”，“权力”可以通过“市场”变现为金钱。这就是我在《现代化的陷阱》一书里所说的“权力市场化”。正是改革以来开始的市场化进程，使得政府（官员）可以将公共资源的配置权通过市场变现。这种半行政管制半市场化状态，造就了官僚阶层及其依附者成为大大小小的暴富者。

由于有了这条支配公共资源的制度管道，无论土地还是矿产，只要被地方政府发现其价值，毫无例外地都被其以国家的名义强征。因为事涉民众生存资源，于是各地相继上演着一出出政府与民争利的暴力拆迁与暴力征地事件，造成了不 少“失去土地的村庄”，造成了1亿多无地可耕、无业可就、无处可去的“三无农民”，以及失去家园的城市拆迁户。这些利益受损者已经构成了中国今天群体性事件的主角，官民矛盾极端尖锐。

政治之腿绊住了社会发展

“南巡讲话”的另一要点有关政治。即“坚持两手抓，两手都要硬。坚持四项基本原则，反对资产阶级自由化。……关键是坚持党的“一个中心、两个基本点”的基本路线，一百年不动摇。”
　　
这一条被邓公之后的两代领导人强力坚持，甚至被上升到要求国际社会尊重的“国家核心利益”的高度。但正是这一条使得政府对经济的干预日趋强化，甚至使得中国地方政府出现利益集团化趋势。十余年前，我曾说过，减少腐败必须让政府权力从经济领域退位。但十余年过去，随着政府在经济中的干预作用日强，中国的腐败也越演越烈，许多弊病丛生的制度不仅未被革除，反而呈僵化状态。推究起来原因在于，所谓政府机构必然由作为个体的众多官员组成，而官员们的“经济人”本色决定了他们有自己的利益需求。在权力高于法律、缺乏监督机制的中国 社会中，由于政府掌控政治经济舆论等各领域，政府官员很容易将本集团利益包装成“公共利益”。中国的现实证明，一旦地方政府成为自我服务型的自利型政治集团， 官员们就不再关心公共利益与国家的未来，只专注于通过某种制度安排获利。甚至为实现本集团的特殊利益不惜牺牲公共利益与国家的长远利益。这就是中国市场化改革历时30余年，至今在许多领域仍然保持半市场化半行政干预状态的根本原因。
　　
对中国的政治利益集团来说，维持半市场半行政干预的“不完全竞争”市场状态最理想，无论是前进（民主化改革）还是后退（毛时代）都不符合它的需要。如果让中国成为“完全竞争”市场，政府管制经济的权力或弱化或从某领域退出，这意味着“造租”与“寻租”的能力弱化或者消失，官僚集团将失去“交易资本”；退回到毛时代，政府虽然拥有管制经济的权力却无市场，那么通过权力寻租所得无法通过市场变现。因此，目前这种半市场半行政干预的混沌状态最便于政府官员从中混水摸鱼。

中共党史上，若论开创大政治格局者，至今只有两人，一是毛泽东，二是邓小平。毛泽东“开国之功”至今仍为党内几代人念之不忘，即使是被世界目为反文明的“文革”功业也有人时常怀之念之。邓小平的功业有二，一是将中国人从毛时代的饥饿穷困里解放出来，二是打开了闭关锁国之门。但一因20余年前那场“风波”，二因现实中的政治腐败、贫富差距过大、司法不公等，其伟业已被打上大大的折扣。但我认为，邓留下的制度缺口乃是因其个人局限所致，其后被发挥成今天这般模样，却是其始料不及。

对人物、事件的历史评价，往往需要时间沉淀。我们这一代人最应该做的事情，也许是忠实地记录这个时代人们的真实观感。

A look back at Deng Xiaoping’s speech in southern China two decades ago

By He Qinglian on January 19, 2012
(translated by kRiZcPEc)

http://hqlenglish.blogspot.com/2012/02/deng-speech-20th-anniversary.html

This January 18 marked the 20th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s tour around southern China (Southern tour). When the younger generations talk about the economic reform that Deng initiated, they have completely no idea that it almost went dead at the turn of 1980s and 1990s, and came back to life only after Deng went to the south and gave a speech in January 1992.

The healing effect of the “Deng’s Speech in his Southern tour (Speech in the South)”

Because of the impacts of the “June-4th incident”, all across China, from north to south, people were all fearful of politics and the economy was lackluster at the beginning of 1990s. When Deng traveled around southern China in Spring 1992, the atmosphere of dullness, disorientation, and anxiety did indeed get swept away.

To this date I could still recall the various news circulated both through public and private channels in Shenzhen. At that time in China, the places most fearful of the return of “birdcage economy (opening of economy with restrictions)” were special economic zones (SEZ) like Shenzhen and Zhuhai. The remarks of a top official that “households with savings of 10,000 or more would be ‘fixed’ to bankruptcy” got widely circulated even though it wasn’t made in public. It was against this backdrop that Deng Xiaoping, an octogenarian, traveled far and wide to such cities as Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shanghai in the space of thirty-odd days from January 18 to February 21, 1992 and delivered the “Speech in the South” to reassure the people that “economic reform would speed up”, that SEZ would be here to stay and that reform would be carried out in the inland regions as well. Tian Jiyuan, then Vice Premier of State Council, made an internal speech specifically on that topic. The message he conveyed was: “Some insist that the country sticks to planned economy. Fair enough, I suggest that we establish a planned SEZ, where coupons for food and clothes are issued, and rationing is practiced, and let those advocates of planned economy go there–let’s see if they would want to be there or not.”

After that, all across China, trading emerged as a trend among the people, the intellectuals hurriedly jumped on that bandwagon and became businesspeople themselves. At that time, there was a catchphrase that everyone knew: “Of the one billion population, nine in every ten people engage in business, and the remainders are moving to that direction.” It was after Deng’s Southern tour in 1990s that the improvement in the people’s lives and an influx of huge amount of foreign investments took place. After that trip, the reform and opening policy that Deng personally started didn’t just get adhered to for a decade without interruption, it also laid a sound and solid foundation for the apparent economic boom under the leaderships of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

Without doubt, of his contemporaries, Deng Xiaoping was the communist revolution leader who went furthest. In comparison with Fidel Castro, a revolution leader who is still alive, Deng’s vision was all the broader and more insightful. But all great persons had their own historical limitations, apart from this, Deng Xiaoping, the actual head of the Communist Party of China of the time, set out to do anything with mainly the core interests and the ruling rights of the party in mind. This made it certain that his “reform and opening” policies were laden with flaws, the deadliest of which was, in order that the interests of CPC could be guaranteed, he left behind various channels which led to corruption and the difficult issues of political reform that must be dealt with today.

Merger of Planned and Market Economy: the channel for the government to control the economy

For Deng Xiaoping, the merger of planned and market economy was an expedient measure of “Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones”. The consequences of this, however, were it left behind institutional channels through which the government and officials could plunder wealth and gave rise to the conflicts between the people and the government that led to high tension in society.

The so-called “planned economy” , in short meant that the government would retain the power of resource allocation. According to the institution designed by the CPC government, all resources on the Chinese soil—in particular those of farming villages, be they land, minerals, rivers, or monuments—were, and still are, owned by the state, the government had total control of the revenues generated from all this public property. The way the government control resources at the beginning of economic reform did not differ in essence from Mao’s era, yet there emerged a market that did not previously exist. Through the market “power” could be cashed for money—the phenomenon “marketization of power” that I mentioned in my book the Pitfalls of Modernization. Beginning since the economic reform, the advance of marketization was precisely what enabled the government (officials) to cash through the market their right of public resources allocation. This state of semi-administrative control and semi-marketization made it possible that individuals inside the bureaucracy and those dependent on it became upstarts, big or small.

With this institutional channel of public resources control, anything from land to mineral would be expropriated in the name of state without exception, so long as the local governments realized their values. Since this involved the living resources of the people, time and again across the country incidents of forcible demolition, eviction, and land requisition instigated by the governments occurred, leaving many villages with no land, giving rise to over 100 million landless, jobless peasants who had no place to go; numerous urban dwellers, too, had lost their homes. These victims became the main body of ‘mass incidents’ in today’s China, and the tension between officials and the people has been extremely heightened.

Social Progress hindered by Politics

Another main point of the “Speech in South” was about politics. Deng said, “[We] adhere to the principle of “doing two jobs at once and attach equal importance to each. Stick with the four cardinal principles and oppose bourgeois liberalization…The key is to uphold the party’s basic line of “one center and two basic points” for a hundred years without wavering.”
　　
The two leaderships succeeding Deng Xiaoping adhered to this stance vigorously, they even lifted it to the height of “core interests of the state” and demanded the international community to respect it. Yet it was precisely this doctrine that allowed the government to steadily strengthen its intervention in the economy, the doctrine even brought forth the trend of local governments turning into interest groups. Over a decade ago, I said that to reduce corruption government power must exit from the economy. More than ten years had gone by, as the government’s presence in economy grew by the day, corruption became ever more serious. Many flawed systems hadn’t been abolished; on the contrary, they appeared to be rooted even more deeply. The reason for this, as my research indicated, was that the so-called government organization necessarily comprised many officials, whose “homo economicus” nature dictated that they had their own interests needs. In the Chinese society where power is above the law, and where supervision system is non-existent, officials could easily present the interests of their own group as “public interests” as the government has control over areas like politics, economy and public opinion. The reality in China has proven that once a local government became a self-serving political group catering for its own interests, the officials would cease paying attention to public interests and the future of the country. Instead, they would focus only on how to gain through certain kind of channels; they may even seek to cater for their own special benefits at the expanse of public interests and the long term good of the country. This is the root cause that many areas of the economy remain in the state of semi-administrative control despite market reform has been carried out for more than thirty years.

For China’ political interest group, it is most ideal that the state of semi-free market, semi-administrative intervention is maintained. To go a step further and start a democratic reform, or to move backward to Mao’s era would not suit their needs. To let the Chinese market become one that has “total competition” in place, the government’s regulatory power over the economy would either be weakened or have to exit from certain areas, and this means the capability the bureaucracy has in “rent-making” and rent-seeking would diminish or disappear, their “trading capital” would be gone. And if the country regresses to Mao’s era, the government would have the power to control the economy, but there would be no market, and therefore the officials could not cash what they have gained through rent-seeking with the power in their hands. In sum, the current murky state of semi-market and semi-administrative intervention makes it most convenient for officials to fish in troubled waters.

In the history of the CPC, only two persons had created grand political landscape. Mao Zedong was one and Deng Xiaoping was the other. Mao Zedong’s accomplishment of “founding a republic” is still cherished by generations inside the party, some even have a fond memory of the Cultural Revolution, which the world sees as anti-civilization. Deng Xiaoping had two merits. First, he emancipated the Chinese people from hunger and destitution of Mao’s era; second, he ended the seclusion state the country was in and opened up its door. However, these merits of his were largely compromised because of the “storm” more than two decades ago, of corruption, of too wide a wealth gap, and of miscarriage of justice. Yet I think the institutional flaws Deng Xiaoping left behind were a result of his own limitations, he could not have foreseen how those flaws would be played out today.

It often takes time for objective evaluation of historical figures and events to come about. Perhaps what people of our time should do most would be to faithfully and accurately record the genuine perception of the people in this era.