今年最新一期的《欧洲世界》（Europe’s World）发表了复旦大学特聘教授、观察者网专栏作者张维为的英文文章《中国：为什么要走自己的政治道路》。《欧洲世界》杂志是欧盟系统内影响最大的政治与外交杂志，有时也被称为欧洲的《外交事务》（Foreign Affairs）。这篇文章源于张维为教授2012年11月9日在英国Intelligence Squared主办的辩论会上与香港前高官陈方安生就“西方民主模式是否适合中国”辩论时的发言。现将文章翻译发表，以飨读者。
西方媒体经常将中国渲染成一个社会和政治危机四伏的国家，正等待一场颜色革命，从而变成一个“自由民主”的国家。但去年召开的中共十八大则明确提出：中国不会走这条道路，因为中国已经找到了自己的成功之道，即“中国特色的社会主义”。在许多西方人眼中，这种表述无非是为了再次推迟必要的政治改革，而没有这种政治改革，中国这个国家将没有未来。但是鉴于西方对中国未来的预测总是错多对少，西方现在真有必要认认真真地对待中国的表述。特别是考虑到以下五个原因：
第一 常识判断
中国是一个世界人口最多的国家，其人口总量超过北美、欧洲、俄罗斯和日本等国家和地区的人口之合，在其历史上也从无西方式自由民主的传统。对于苏联照搬西方模式而导致国家解体，多数中国人仍然记忆犹新。中国近现代史还充满了战乱和动荡，从1840年至1978年的百余年间，几乎每隔七八年中国就经历一次大的动荡，甚至战争。百余年的动荡成了中华民族集体记忆的一部分，所以中国人普遍担心国家陷入动荡不安，多数中国人确实担忧：一旦中国引入以对抗为特征的西方政治模式，中国极可能变得天下大乱而无法治理。
中国是一个独特的国家。她是世界延续时间最长连续文明与一个幅员辽阔、人口众多的现代国家的结合在一起的文明型国家。这种国家是历史形成的“百国之和”。如果一定要用一个不完全确切的比方来说明问题，那就是中国有点像欧洲的古罗马帝国没有解体而延续至今，并成功地转型为一个超大型的现代国家：既有统一的中央政府和强大的现代经济，又保持了传统与文化的丰富多样性，而且人民都使用统一的语言拉丁语。
不妨把这样的中国与欧盟做一个比较，欧盟的人口仅为中国人口的三分之一，欧盟地区还是西方自由民主的发源地，但欧盟也无法推行大众民主模式。如果欧盟有一天要以普选的方式来决定其最高领导人的话，欧盟估计将很快陷入混乱，甚至完全解体。
第二 经验实证
经验实证表明，西方的自由民主模式在中国行不通。1911年辛亥革命后，中国尝试了美式民主模式，但带来的是灾难性的后果。整个国家很快陷入了内斗内战的泥潭：数百个政党争权夺利，各地军阀割据一方，凭借列强势力在中国境内互相攻伐，导致国无宁日，民不聊生。中国不仅在经济上一蹶不振，而且付出了数百万生命的代价。这种教训非常深刻，中国老百姓时至今日最害怕还是一个“乱”字。国际研究人员曾独立展开民意调查，研究中国人和美国人价值取向的差异，结果发现中国人最看重的是公共秩序，而美国人最看重的是言论自由（但人们可以质疑：像美国这样一个普遍奉行“政治正确”的社会，能有真正的言论自由吗？）。
笔者先后走访过一百多个国家，多数是发展中国家，但没有找到一个靠西式自由民主模式而走向现代化的成功先例。其实，印度和中国的巨大的差距很能说明问题：六十年前，中印两国几乎处于同一起跑线上，而今天中国的国内生产总值已是印度的四倍，中国人的预期寿命比印度人长10年。
第三 绩效表现
过去三十年中，中国总体上的绩效表现，尤其在那些中国百姓最关心的领域内，可以说比大多数采用西方政治模式的国家要好。当然，中国仍然存有很多问题，其中一些问题还相当严重，需要下决心、花功夫去解决。但是，中国总体上的成功是毋庸置疑的。中国过去三十年的绩效表现比所有发展中国家（包括所有采用自由民主体制的发展中国家）的成绩加在一起还要好。联合国的报告显示，全世界在过去二十年中70%的消除贫困是在中国实现的。中国取得的成绩，也比所有转型民主国家的成就加在一起还要大，从1979年之后的30年间，中国经济规模增长了18倍；而整个东欧／俄罗斯仅增长了约一倍，当然后者的经济起点比中国要高一些。
同样，中国取得的成绩也比许多发达国家更令人瞩目，中国如今已经形成了巨大的“发达板块”，这个板块的人口约3亿，已经与美国的人口相当。中国的“发达板块”在总体的繁荣程度和人均预期寿命等方面已经与发达国家不相上下，这个板块中像上海这样的一线城市完全可以与纽约、伦敦等国际大都市比较和竞争。中国的“发达板块”与中国的另一个巨大的“新兴板块”已经形成了互利双赢的良性互动关系。这种关系很大程度上也是中国迅速崛起的主要原因。
第四 体制竞争
在债务深重的美国和财政困难的欧洲经历了金融危机和经济危机之后，自由民主模式在西方遭受了许多质疑。自由民主制度有其长处，但也有其短处，如一大批目光短浅的政客及其蛊惑人心的言论、头脑简单的民粹主义、资本力量深深地介入政治、特殊利益影响政府决策等，这一切都严重腐蚀和损害了自由民主作为一种政治体制的生命力。事实证明，在西方政治制度下，要真正实现亚伯拉罕·林肯提出的“民有、民治、民享”的治国理想，非常之难。这也正是诺贝尔经济学奖得主约瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨批评美国政治是“1%有、1%治、1%享”的原因。就连当年提出“历史终结论”的弗朗西斯·福山，两年前也在《金融时报》上发表的文章中沮丧地承认，美国民主当不了中国的老师。
第五 中国模式
中国模式在发展经济上取得的巨大成功在全球范围内引起了高度关注，但或许是由于意识形态的原因，中国模式在政治制度方面的意义还未得到广泛的承认。其实，中国早已低调地启动了政治治理方面许多改革，已经建立了一种可称为“选拔加选举”的干部制度：这是一种基于政绩和民众认可的制度，经过竞争激烈的遴选、内部评选和形式多样的小规模选举，许多有才干的领导人得到了晋升。
中国继承了中国儒家贤人政治的传统，中国在各级政府里全面推行了选贤任能的制度。地方官员的政绩评审包括消除贫困、创造就业、发展经济、社会保障等项目，近来环境保护成为日益重要的内容。中国过去三十年的迅猛崛起与这种选贤任能的政治模式有着密不可分的关系。尽管不少媒体还在热炒官员腐败和各种社会问题，但中国的政治治理，与中国的经济发展一样，具有韧性和活力。
十八大亮相的新一代中国领导班子能很好地证明了这一点。中国最高决策团队成员，即中共中央政治局的常委，几乎都出任过两任省一级的第一把手，并有相当的政绩。中国一个省的规模，几乎是欧洲国家平均规模的四到五倍，治理好非常不易。很难想像在中国这种选贤任能的体制下，像美国前总统乔治·布什和日本前首相野田佳彦这样的低能领导人会成为国家的领袖。
现在看来西方自由民主制度下的政治人物做秀的成份越来越多，他们往往只关心自己任内的事情，甚至只关心未来的100天。与这样的模式相比，中国模式不仅胜在领导人的能力上，而且胜在能够为下一代的事情进行未雨绸缪的长远规划。
中国选贤任能的治理模式挑战了“民主与专制”这种二元对立论。从中国的视角看来，国家的本质，包括政府的合法性，都来源于国家所代表的内容，即国家是否能够实现良政善治和卓越领导，是否能够赢得民心。正因如此，即使中国政治体制还存在许多缺陷，它仍然能够创造世界上最迅猛的经济增长奇迹、能够大幅提升多数人民的生活水平。根据华盛顿的皮尤调查中心2012年的报告，82%的中国受访者对自己的未来表示乐观，这个数字大大高于西方自由民主国家。
温斯顿·丘吉尔的名言“民主也许是最不坏的制度”，在西方文化语境下，也许有其道理，也就是说，民主体制能替换掉不称职的领导人，所以它是“最不坏的选择”。但这有点象中国古代战略家孙子所说的“下下策”，在儒家贤人政治传统深厚的中国，国家总要追求“上上策”，也就说要尽可能地选择最优秀的领导人。这绝非易事，但这种努力不会停止。到目前为止，中国通过政治体制创新，已经产生了一种独特的体系，在很多方面它融合了“上上策”和“下下策”：既让久经考验的贤人、能人走上领导岗位，又通过任期制、集体领导、年龄限制等制度设计让应该退出的人也能退出。从现在情况来看，中国“选拔加选举”的选贤任能模式，已经不害怕与西方的大众民主模式进行竞争。
中国从西方学习了许多东西，今后还将继续这样做，因为这符合中国自己的利益。但现在或许已经到了西方应该，如邓小平所说的，“解放思想”了。他们应该更多地了解中国，甚至向中国学习一些东西。我们可以预见，中国模式将不断改进而走向完善，并锁定中国在未来的十年内崛起为世界最大的经济体，这一切对于中国和整个世界的经济和政治格局都将产生重大而深远的影响。
原载于2013年春季号《欧洲世界》（Europe’s World）
Why China prefers its own political model
By Zhang Weiwei
China is often portrayed in the Western media as beset with social and political crises, awaiting only a colourful revolution to make it a liberal democracy. But China’s recent 18th Party Congress clearly demonstrated that this isn’t on the cards, and instead suggests that the country has found its own way to success, officially called “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Many in the West may dismiss this as nothing more than an attempt to further delay much-needed political reform, without which China’s future would be hopeless. After so many wrong predictions about the future of the Middle Kingdom, here are five reasons why it’s time to take Beijing’s claims seriously.
1. Common sense. China’s population is larger than those of North America, Europe, Russia and Japan combined, and has no tradition whatsoever of liberal democracy and memories are still fresh of the devastating breakup of the Soviet Union. Going further back, China’s more recent history saw chaos and wars, and on average from 1840 to 1978 a major upheaval every seven or eight years. So the Chinese fear of chaos is based on common sense and its collective memory, with very real fears that the country might well become ungovernable if it were to adopt the adversarial Western political system.
China is in many ways unique. It is an amalgam of the world’s longest continuous civilisation with a huge modern state. It is a product of hundreds of states amalgamated over its long history into one. A very rough analogy would be something along the lines of the ancient Roman Empire continuing to this day as a unified modern state with a centralised government and modern economy while retaining all its diverse traditions and cultures, and with a huge population still all speaking Latin as their common language.
And leaving China aside for a moment, not even the European Union as the birthplace of liberal democracy and with only one third of China’s population yet find it’s unable to afford its own liberal democracy model. If it chooses to retain popular elections as a way of selecting its top leaders, the EU may well end up facing chaos or even disintegration.
2. Empirical evidence. China tried American style democracy after its 1911 Republic Revolution, and it turned out to be a devastating catastrophe. The country was immediately plunged into chaos and civil war, with hundreds of political parties vying for power and with warlords fighting one another with the support of various foreign powers. The economy was shattered and tens of millions lost their lives in the decades that followed. That lesson remains so sharp that even today ordinary Chinese are most fearful of luan, the Chinese word meaning chaos. Independent opinion surveys on values in China show that public order is generally ranked top, whereas for Americans freedom of speech is the number one value (even though, one may wonder how a politically correct society like the United States can have genuine freedom of speech).
Having myself travelled to over 100 countries, most of them developing ones, I cannot recall a single case of successful modernisation through liberal democracy, and there’s no better example illustrating this than the huge gap between India and China: both countries started at a similar level of development six decades ago, and today China’s GDP is four times greater and life expectancy 10 years longer.
3. Performance. China has arguably performed better than most liberal democracies over the past three decades, especially in those domains that are of greatest concern to most Chinese. China has its share of problems, some of which are very serious and call for determined solutions, but the country’s success overall is beyond question. China has performed better than all other developing countries combined, including all the liberal democracies of the developing world. Some 70% of the world’s poverty eradication has been achieved in China over the past 20 years, according to the United Nations.
And China has also performed better than all the transitional democracies combined, because the Chinese economy has grown 18-fold since 1979. Eastern Europe, for example, albeit from a very different starting point, has seen its collective economy only double in size. As well as performing better than many developed countries, China now has a huge ‘developed region’ with a population of about 300m, about the same population as the U.S., and in many ways it matches the developed countries in overall prosperity and life expectancy. China’s first-tier cities like Shanghai are today able to compete with New York or London, while its ‘developed region’ is engaged in a dynamic and mutually beneficial interaction with the rest of China – China’s ‘emerging region’. This mutually reinforcing interaction explains to a large extent why China is able to rise so fast.
4. Competition. The liberal democracy model is in deep trouble, witnessing the financial and economic crises of deeply indebted America and of distressed Europe. Despite its well-known strengths, liberal democracy as an institution has been seriously eroded by such persistent problems as demagoguery, short-termism, simpleminded populism, the excessive influence of money and the role played by special interests. Abraham Lincoln’s ideal of “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has proved itself by no means easy to achieve among the liberal democracies. Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz would not otherwise have criticised, perhaps too harshly, the American polity as “of the 1%, by the 1% and for the 1%”. Even Francis Fukuyama, the advocate of the end of history thesis lamented in a Financial Times op-ed two years ago that American democracy now has little to teach China.
5. The China model. The economic successes of the China model have attracted global attention, but the model’s political and institutional ramifications have received comparatively little notice, perhaps for ideological reasons. Without much fanfare, Beijing has introduced significant reforms into its political governance and has established a system of what can be called ‘‘selection plus election’’: competent leaders are selected on the basis of performance and popular support through a vigorous process of screening, opinion surveys, internal evaluations and various small-scale elections.
In line with the Confucian tradition of meritocratic governance, Beijing practices – not always successfully – meritocracy across the whole political stratum. Performance criteria for poverty eradication, job creation, local economic and social development and, increasingly, a cleaner environment are key factors in the promotion of local officials. China’s dramatic rise over the past three decades has been inseparable from this meritocratic political model. Leaving aside sensational official corruption scandals and other social ills, China’s governance, like the Chinese economy, remains resilient and robust.
A good example of this was the line-up at the 18th Party Congress of the next generation of Chinese leaders. Six out of seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s highest decision making body, have served at least twice as the party secretary of a Chinese province with a respectable performance. It takes extraordinary talent and skill to govern a typical Chinese province, which on average is the size of four to five European countries combined. Indeed, the Chinese system of meritocracy makes it inconceivable that anyone as incompetent as America’s George W. Bush or Japan’s Yoshihiko Noda could ever get to the top.
It’s not far-fetched to claim that the China model is arguably more about leadership, and that it’s capable of planning for the next generation, while the liberal democracy model is increasingly about showmanship and seems content with planning for the next election, or even the next 100 days.
China’s meritocratic governance challenges the stereotypical dichotomy of democracy versus autocracy. From China’s point of view, the nature of the state, including its legitimacy, has to be defined by its substance, i.e. good governance, competent leadership and success in satisfying the citizenry. So despite its many deficiencies, the Chinese polity has delivered the world’s fastest growing economy and has vastly improved living standards for most Chinese. According to the Washington-based Pew research centre, 82% of Chinese surveyed in 2012 felt optimistic about their future, well ahead of all the Western liberal democracies.
Winston Churchill’s famous dictum “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried” may be true in the Western cultural context. And many Chinese even paraphrase Churchill’s remark into what China’s great strategist Sun Tze called xiaxiace, or the least bad option, which allows for the exit of bad leaders. But in China’s Confucian tradition of meritocracy, a state should always strive for what’s called shangshangce, or the best of the best options by choosing leaders of the highest calibre.
This isn’t easy, but efforts to this end should be ceaseless. China’s political and institutional innovations so far have produced a system which has in many ways combined the best option of selecting well tested meritocratic leaders and the least bad option of ensuring the exit of bad leaders through a collective leadership and strict term and age limits. China’s meritocratic model of ‘selection plus election’ now seems increasingly in a position to compete with the Western model of popular democracy.
China has learnt much from the West, and will continue to do so to its own benefit. It may now be time for the West, to use Deng Xiaoping’s famous phrase, to “emancipate the mind” and learn a bit more about, or even from, Chinese ideas and practices. The China model, with the further improvements that can be expected, is likely to cement China’s rise in about a decade to the status of the world’s largest economy, with all the associated economic and political ramifications that means for China and for the rest of the world.
——Europe’s World, Spring 2013.
