Chapter 27 The sixth "Lonely Warrior" (2004-2010)

In February 2002, Wu Jinglian had a new job - he was hired by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the National Informatization Leading Group of the State Council as the deputy director of the National Informatization Expert Advisory Committee and the director of the Special Policy Planning Committee.In this way, his research field has to be extended to long-term economic development, that is, long-term macroeconomic issues. For this, he needs to read a large number of theoretical books and research reports from various countries.Fortunately, Wu Jinglian has always been a fan of science and technology. It is not difficult to study and study in this field, and it is very fun.

In October 2003, the book "Contemporary China's Economic Reform" written by Wu Jinglian was published. It was well received by the market and sold out in less than three months.This book can be said to be the culmination of Wu-style reform theory. Wu Jinglian has high expectations for it, and it has indeed received attention from academic circles at home and abroad in the future. Universities use this as the basis for textbooks.English and Japanese versions have also been published overseas, and traditional Chinese versions have also been published in Taiwan and Hong Kong. At this time, Wu Jinglian had to return to the fundamentals of the macro economy.

The scene of economic overheating began to emerge from the fourth quarter of 2003. The follow-up effects of the loose macroeconomic policies adopted after the East Asian financial turmoil in 1998 began to appear. "Made in China" and the boom in real estate have directly created an economic scene that is both internally and externally prosperous and extremely prosperous. Along with this, there is an unprecedented hunger for upstream energy.Due to the shortage of various raw materials and energy, the prices have been soaring all the way, especially the prices of cement and steel have reached the point of "three prices in January".In the Yangtze River Delta area, there is even a saying of "five ones": "It only needs to invest 10 million yuan to produce one ton of steel, and the production facilities only need to be built in one year, and the production can be achieved in one year, and the investment can be recovered in one year." This crazy input-output efficiency sounds almost legendary.Profit-driven investment. In 2002, the total investment in the national iron and steel industry was 71 billion yuan, an increase of 45.9% over the previous year. In 2003, this figure reached 132.9 billion yuan, an increase of 96%.Similar to the steel industry, investment in electrolytic aluminum increased by 92.9%, and investment in cement increased by 121.9%.In this way, at the end of 2003, China's economic and industrial structure was rapidly advancing towards heavy-duty.

As a result, a heated discussion has lasted for many years in the economic circles and within the government. The theme is so familiar: Is the macro economy overheated and should cooling measures be taken? On October 21, 2003, at the Economic Situation Analysis Meeting of the State Council, Wu Jinglian made a speech titled "Analysis and Prospect of the Current Economic Situation". He divided his views at that time into three types.The first view affirms that the macroeconomy has “overheated” and advocates the adoption of a moderately tight aggregate policy with appropriate fine-tuning to prevent further “overheating” from causing large ups and downs in the economy; the second view holds that the current money supply is suitable for increasing domestic demand And the need to curb deflation, investment growth will only bring benefits, and will not cause "overheating", "gas can not be discouraged", the enthusiasm for growth must be well protected, and there is no need and should not step on the brakes; the third Viewpoints, which may also be the mainstream views of the government, are that the economy has been partially "overheated", but it cannot be said to be "overheated across the board". , to carry out structural adjustments, while expanding the demand for "cold" sectors, while strengthening project approval and investment control for "overheated" sectors.

Wu Jinglian made it clear that he held the first point of view.He said that since 1999, the decision-making authorities have adopted a moderately expansionary monetary policy, which has increased the money supply year by year. After the second quarter of 2003, the growth rate of money supply and bank credit has exceeded 20%, which makes The economy is becoming more and more "hot", and various resource bottlenecks are emerging.What is even more worrying is that the current excessive growth of aggregate demand is driven by the "overheating" of government-led investment.He warned: "If investment is allowed to accelerate and expand, once resources cannot be supported in the short term, the market will collapse and a large number of products will not be sold. As a result, the economy will rapidly change from 'overheated' to 'overcooled'. There is a reason for a 'big rise' and a 'big fall'."

However, Wu Jinglian's opinion does not occupy a mainstream position among policymakers and economists.According to Wu Jinglian's recollection, until the beginning of 2004, the second opinion prevailed.In April and May of 2004, the third opinion became the mainstream, and several ministries and commissions of the State Council jointly issued a notice to control investment in several overheated industries.The mainstream media also published articles arguing the necessity of mainly using administrative means to carry out "macro-control" under Chinese conditions.At the same time, starting from the second half of 2003, the practice of investing huge amounts of capital and resources in heavy and chemical industries to stimulate local economic growth has become the common choice of many provinces across the country, and all regions have the desire and trend to transform from light industry to heavy industry , a "heavy and chemical industrialization era" trend swept rapidly.And the theoretical circles seem to be enthusiastically responding to it. A "Research Report on New Industrialization Road" published by "Economic Daily" is the most vivid example.Some media announced: "Now, the government, academic circles, and business circles have clearly reached such a consensus: heavy chemical industrialization is an insurmountable stage for China's economy."

On December 1, 2003, the "Economic Daily" published a full text of a research report "my country's Industrialization Enters a New Stage" by the State Council Development Research Center's "New Industrialization Road Research" research group, which answered the question of whether the Chinese economy has overheated. The question stated: "China's current economy is neither overheated in general, nor overheated in parts, nor is it a normal development without new features. Instead, China's industrialization has entered a new historical stage characterized by the redevelopment of heavy industry." This report Citing the argument of German economist Walter Hoffmann, he believed that "every country's economic development has to go through a stage of heavy industrialization."This is a big judgment on the long-term macroeconomic trend.What is even more eye-catching is that the signatory of this report is the research group of "New Industrialization Road Research" of the Development Research Center.Wu Jinglian knew that at that time, many functional agencies and consulting research units of the State Council had started research on the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) to be formulated in 2005.An important topic of this pre-study is what is the "new road to industrialization" and how to take the "new road to industrialization".Therefore, the views put forward in this report will affect the formulation of the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan".

Interestingly, the author of this report is Li Zuojun, a doctoral student of Wu Jinglian and a researcher at the Industrial Economics Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council. On the day of the Spring Festival in 2004, Wu Jinglian had a happy gathering with his students.Everyone's topic naturally turned to the choice of China's economic development mode and road.Li Zuojun happened to be there too, and he reported his work achievements in 2003 to everyone with great interest, and also touched on the views of the report he wrote. Unexpectedly, his argument that China's economy has entered the "heavy and chemical industrialization stage" was met with criticism. Criticism from some classmates.They believe that the research group’s demonstration is not thorough. First, “every country’s economic development has to go through a stage of heavy industrialization” is not a common theorem of modern development economics; second, using short-term data—China’s The proportion of the industrial economy in the national economy soared from 51.8% in 2000 to 57.3%, which does not prove that this is a long-term normal trend; third, the changes in the internal structure of the industry—the growth rate of heavy industry in the past three years It is higher than light industry, and it cannot prove that heavy industry has become the leading industry of the entire national economy.

Wu Jinglian watched the students' discussion with great interest, but did not express his opinion at that time. In fact, what the students were discussing enthusiastically was exactly the proposition that Wu Jinglian had been pondering over the past few years: What kind of economic growth model should China choose?What worries him is that after entering the new century, under the pressure of GDP, almost all provinces regard "economic heavy-duty" as the "only way" and "must-pass stage" of development, and even some market elements are the most active Some regions and provinces have also put forward the requirement of "restructuring the economy".

According to Wu Jinglian’s recollection: “It wasn’t long before I began to realize the importance of the growth model issue. It only started at the end of 2000 with the discussion on the development of Zhongguancun in Beijing.” Government officials held a two-day seminar to conduct in-depth discussions on the development of high technology in Zhongguancun.When Wu Jinglian and Duan Yongji, chairman of Stone Group, reported the results of the seminar to the leaders of Beijing, the other party asked them the following question in turn: "Beijing's Zhongguancun has been in business for so many years and has a great reputation. But the output value and tax revenue cannot increase, which makes the city very embarrassed. How to solve this problem, I hope to hear your opinions."

"To be honest, we didn't think about this issue before, so naturally we couldn't come up with good suggestions." Next, he was quite surprised by the measures Beijing adopted—in the middle of 2002, after a long period of After the debate, "the viewpoint of developing the automobile manufacturing industry finally prevailed".In October of this year, Beijing Hyundai Motor Co., Ltd., a Sino-Korean joint venture, announced its establishment. On December 23, the first batch of cars assembled with Korean components began to roll off the assembly line. In 2003, Beijing Hyundai produced a total of 55,000 cars, realized sales revenue of 8.77 billion yuan, and profits and taxes of 3.71 billion yuan. In addition to the supporting enterprises in Beijing, mainly Hyundai itself and the parts suppliers it brought from South Korea, the whole The annual sales revenue is 11.4 billion yuan.In this way, Beijing Hyundai created what Beijing's mainstream media called a "200-day modern miracle". In this way, Beijing's fiscal revenue and GDP growth finally came true because of "a car".However, the short-term huge output value and large profits and taxes cannot dispel Wu Jinglian's doubts: Beijing Hyundai is basically still a car KD manufacturer (assembler) that mainly assembles parts provided by foreign parts suppliers until two years after it went into production. ).Under the circumstances that the automobile industry is highly mechatronic and the cost of electronic devices accounts for 1/3~3/4 of the cost of cars, Beijing wants to become a car production base with high added value and high profitability, rather than simply doing assembly Processing, earning a meager processing fee, without developing the rich human resources in Zhongguancun, and giving full play to its entrepreneurial spirit and creative ability, is absolutely impossible. Another thing that shocked Wu Jinglian happened in Shenzhen in 2003. Shenzhen is an important high-tech industry center in China, especially the industrial base of information and communication technology. It has many Chinese and foreign high-tech companies such as Huawei, ZTE and Taiwan Foxconn.Wu Jinglian is a senior advisor to the Shenzhen Municipal Government. At the biennial senior advisor meeting, Shenzhen’s party and government leaders pointed out in their work report that Shenzhen’s economy has a “major defect” of “too light structure” and needs to be “heavy.” "Transformation.Accordingly, they also put forward the idea of ​​expanding the area of ​​jurisdiction and developing heavy chemical industry.Ren Zhongyi, an old leader of Guangdong Province who attended the meeting at the time, did not agree with this. Scholars such as Wu Jinglian and Gao Shangquan also compared Shenzhen with Hong Kong. The latter has been developed for more than 100 years. By the end of 2003, the developed land only accounted for the available land. 22% of that of Hong Kong; the GDP of the former is only 1/6 of that of Hong Kong, but there is a shortage of land, which shows that there is still a lot of room for improvement in Shenzhen's industrial quality. Hope to expand the extension. However, at the beginning, Wu Jinglian only regarded the investment boom in heavy industrialization across the country as the optimal choice of industrial structure in some regions, and did not link it with the choice of China's economic growth mode.After reading the research report of the Development Research Center, he realized that this is a major theoretical and policy issue that has a bearing on the overall situation. In April and May of 2004, Wu Jinglian went south to Zhejiang twice for research, where he saw the seriousness of the problem. Since 1993, Wu Jinglian has a special liking for Zhejiang, and regards it as a test field for observing the growth of China's market economy.Since the reform and opening up, Zhejiang is the place with the most developed private economy. The industry is mainly light industry and processing industry. Since 1998, the foreign trade economy has developed rapidly. , Wu Jinglian discovered vivid economic vitality here, and since then, Zhejiang Province has become his favorite place to walk.This time, Wu Jinglian conducted research in 9 counties and cities in Zhejiang. He found that after more than 20 years of quantitative expansion, Zhejiang’s economy has become weak. The model is not as good as Jiangsu, and the potential is not as good as the late-developing province." sigh.According to Wu Jinglian's observation and analysis, Zhejiang's problems lie in the low-grade products, low-tech content, and low-level market formats. Therefore, great efforts should be made in structural adjustment and industrial upgrading.However, his views do not seem to be accepted by many officials in Zhejiang. The latter believes that China's current economic development has entered the "heavy and chemical industrialization era", and Zhejiang's economy, which has always been known for its "light and small industries" (light industry, small enterprises, collective enterprises and processing industries), has "lacked thickness", so it must Efforts to transform to "heavy-duty" in order to catch up with the "national tide of heavy chemical industrialization".According to a report in "Zhejiang Daily", "a Zhejiang version of the 'heavy chemical' story has begun".As a result, leaders at all levels took action upon hearing the news and increased their support for locally selected "backbone enterprises" by giving them low-cost land and helping them obtain bank loans to support their march into heavy chemical industries such as steel, petrochemical, and automobile manufacturing.Some enterprises engaged in clothing, household appliances, and mobile phone terminals are also actively raising funds to turn to "heavy industries."This year, more than 40 private enterprises in Zhejiang Province reported to the National Development and Reform Commission, requesting the production of cars, pickups or buses.At that time, Bird, the country's largest mobile phone manufacturer by sales, realized state-owned holdings, and did not need the abundant funds accumulated from selling mobile phones to develop independent technologies that it lacked. Instead, it prepared to invest huge sums of money in the production of automobiles. According to the situation at the time, Stalin, who ruled China since the beginning of the First Five-Year Plan in 1953, "give priority to the development of the socialist industrialization line of heavy industry" and its theoretical basis, that is, what Stalin called "the fundamentals of Marxist reproduction theory." "Principle" is back again.It's just that this time the theoretical argument is no longer Stalin, whom people are no longer interested in, but a German professor of development economics, Hoffmann.In 1930, he extrapolated based on the past experience of developed countries, and proposed the famous "Hoffman Empirical Theorem": in the late stage of industrialization, "the production of the capital goods industry will exceed the production of the consumer goods industry"; In the 1930s when the concept of industry was introduced, this stage of economic development was called the "heavy industrialization stage". The biggest inspiration for Wu Jinglian from the students’ Spring Festival discussion is that in order to understand the problems in China at hand, he still needs to use the method taught by Gu Zhun to make a comprehensive review of the history of modern economic development of various countries in the world and the evolution of related theories. Only by clarifying the ins and outs of the problem can we find the answer to the current problem.Since the Spring Festival in 2004, he has consulted a large number of literature on development economics, collected relevant empirical data, sorted out the process of industrialization in foreign countries and the evolution of development economics, and then put China's problems in this context be analyzed. The biggest gain that Wu Jinglian gained from theoretical combing was that he realized that neither Stalin’s theory and line nor the “Hoffman Empirical Theorem” were just the so-called early growth models that Western countries had surpassed at the end of the 19th century ( Or called "extensive growth mode", "extensive economic development mode") theoretical expression.It was Marx, the founder of Marxism, who first analyzed and criticized this investment-driven growth model.Anyone who has read Marx's works knows that Marx's conclusion in the mid-19th century that capitalism will soon be replaced by socialism comes from the analysis of this growth model.Because in this growth mode, with the increase of the investment rate, it will inevitably lead to the reduction of the profit rate and the impoverishment of the proletariat, thus resulting in the formation of monopoly and the intensification of class struggle.It is very paradoxical that Stalin, as a believer in Marxism, established the priority development of heavy industry derived from this growth model, accumulation (investment) as the only source of growth, etc. This principle made the later socialist countries, including China, follow this "principle" to carry out industrialization along this route. From the perspective of contemporary economics, the so-called "Hoffman empirical theorem" is a theory that reflects this early growth model.Because in the early economic growth of Western countries, economic growth mainly relied on replacing labor with machines. Therefore, in order to develop the economy, it is necessary to give priority to the production of heavy industrial products such as machines, machine tools, and coal and steel.Hoffman made a theoretical error when he extrapolated the changing trend of industrial structure based on the empirical data in the early growth period to the late stage of industrialization when the growth model has undergone fundamental changes. The fundamental change in the growth model of advanced industrialized countries such as Europe and the United States occurred in the late 19th century.After the second industrial revolution, their development mode changed from relying on the input of capital and other resources to relying on technological progress and efficiency improvement.The first economist to question the growth model based on earlier days was Nobel laureate Robert Solow.He pointed out that if investment determines growth, the higher the investment rate, the higher the growth rate, then due to the law of diminishing returns on investment, the investment rate in Western countries should continue to rise, while the growth rate should continue to decline, but all this was before the 20th century. Nothing happened for 40 years.He thus argued that the key factor of modern economic growth is not investment, but technological progress and efficiency improvement.Kuznets, another Nobel laureate in economics, studied the empirical data of dozens of countries, which also confirmed the principle proposed by Solow. On the basis of extensive analysis, Wu Jinglian came to the conclusion that there is no "insurmountable" "heavy and chemical industry stage" in the economic development of various countries.China's top priority in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" (2006~2010) is to strive to realize the "economic growth mode" that was required in the "Ninth Five-Year Plan" (1996~2000) formulated in 1995 but has not yet been realized. Transformation from extensive to intensive". After criticizing the growth model driven by capital investment, Wu Jinglian went on to reflect on another extensive growth model, which is the export-oriented strategy that many people talk about, which he called "the continuation of the extensive growth model." . In Wu Jinglian's view, China's economic growth in the first 20 years was basically the success of two strategies. From 1978 to 1993, it was the success of the import substitution strategy, and then it was the success of the export-oriented strategy.It is precisely because the implementation of the latter policy alleviates the shortage of domestic demand caused by the growth model driven by resource input, thereby absorbing the excess production capacity formed by excessive investment in the form of a large amount of cheap manufactured goods exported, so that high economic growth can be maintained. And this is the secret of China's rapid economic growth for decades. However, the long-term implementation of the export-oriented strategy has produced two very serious negative consequences. On the one hand, it induces "specialization" in the production of labor-intensive products, slowing down the upgrading of technology and industrial structure.Under the protection of export-oriented policies, the long-term maintenance of the trade structure dominated by processing trade has made China seem to have become a "world factory" in terms of export volume, but most of them are at the low end of the value chain. Chinese factories Lacking its own independent innovation and proprietary technology, it can only "win by quantity".This has caused us to consume a large amount of non-renewable resources, suffer from environmental pollution, and bear the notoriety of "dumping", but the bulk of the profits are not in our own hands. There has been a "what China buys is expensive, and what it sells is cheap" of deformities. On the other hand, this export-oriented policy is based on the premise that the RMB exchange rate is undervalued.In order to maintain the undervaluation of the domestic currency, the central bank has to intervene in the market and purchase a large amount of foreign currency. In 2003, the central bank purchased an average of US$200 million to US$300 million per day, which soared to US$500 million to US$600 million in 2004.If things go on like this, this will make the operation of the national monetary policy in an extremely passive state, leading to problems such as excessive currency issuance and flooding of liquidity, which may cause inflation and the formation and eventual burst of asset bubbles.Judging from the experience of Asian countries, from the "Four East Asian Tigers" to Malaysia and Indonesia, all economies that adopted export-oriented strategies, without exception, experienced a financial crisis after a period of successful development, and some countries that did not respond properly fell into Long depression. Therefore, in Wu Jinglian's view, the continuation of the export-oriented policy characterized by winning in quantity and undervaluing the exchange rate has exacerbated China's external economic imbalance. If it is not changed, there will be a complicated situation where inflation and asset bubbles coexist— ——By the second half of 2009, the actual performance of China's economy was once again "unfortunately speaking" by him. As an economist and policy consulting researcher, Wu Jinglian knows that his responsibility is not only to understand the theory of growth model transformation, but also to put forward specific suggestions on how China should realize the growth model transformation and how to improve efficiency.Therefore, he conducted extensive research on ways to improve efficiency in various countries, and combined with China's actual situation, he proposed the following four basic directions: First, try to transfer the surplus rural labor force to urban non-agricultural industries with higher efficiency than agriculture, and strive to improve their cultural and technical level, so as to increase their added value and income. Second, promote the extension of the existing industrial chain of the manufacturing industry, which mainly focuses on simple processing, to the high-end of the value chain (or "smile curve") that can create higher added value such as research and development, design, brand sales, and after-sales service. Third, develop the service industry, especially the producer service industry that serves producers, in order to reduce transaction costs, which account for an increasing proportion of the total cost of the modern economy. Fourth, use modern information technology to transform the entire national economy in order to reduce information costs and improve the overall efficiency of society. In the middle of 2004, Wu Jinglian's two units: the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the National Committee of Informatization Experts also started the pre-study of the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan".On these two platforms, he showed the research results of the previous period and made suggestions for the guidelines of the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan". The first time Wu Jinglian publicly expressed his views was at the symposium of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in July 2004. Propensity".He demonstrated the infeasibility of the heavy-duty road, and warned that the fast running of "heavy-duty" will cause China to encounter an energy crisis.In the following period of time, as the leader of the "Eleventh Five-Year" project group of the Economic Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, he conducted in-depth discussions with members of the Economic Committee and senior officials from the National Development and Reform Commission responsible for drafting the "Eleventh Five-Year" document. A basic consensus was reached.Finally, recommended by the Economic Committee, he gave a speech entitled "Eleventh Five-Year Plan Must Seriously Solve the Problems of Industrialization Road and Growth Model" at the plenary meeting of the CPPCC National Committee in March 2005, which was warmly welcomed by the members. At the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" symposium held by the National Informatization Expert Advisory Committee on October 20, Wu Jinglian delivered a long speech entitled "The Choice of Development Mode and Growth Mode", fully expounding his views—— Regarding China's growth model, it is necessary to realize the transformation from investment-driven to technological progress and efficiency improvement.Wu's speech sparked a very lively discussion.Some officials from news organizations strongly opposed Wu's point of view, and believed that Chinese people should have the right to enjoy high consumption levels such as high car ownership and high energy consumption rates like Westerners; and human beings are the masters of the earth, and the resources on the earth It was originally used to meet human needs.Most of the members, including Liu He, the former director of the Expert Committee and then deputy director of the Central Finance and Economics Group Office, and Yang Weimin, a member of the Expert Committee and director of the Planning Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, two senior experts in development economics, held approximately the same position as Wu Jinglian. View. Unlike in the economic circle, Wu Jinglian's experience in the economic circle is much more lonely. Standing opposite Wu Jinglian was his "old rival", Li Yining of Peking University, and some important economists, including Fan Gang, director of the National Economic Research Institute, Lin Yifu, director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University, and many other local administrative officials. On December 13, 2004, Li Yining made it clear at an academic forum at Peking University that heavy-duty is still an inevitable stage of China's economic development. He said: "Wu Jinglian opposes one-sided 'heavy-duty'. I agree. But heavy The development stage of the chemical industry does exist...the development of a big country cannot bypass the road of heavy chemical industry, especially China, a country with a population of 1.3 billion." Then, Li Yining discussed the issue with his good storytelling method: "There is a popular story in the economics circle. Two people were traveling in the countryside. When they heard a tiger screaming suddenly, one of them squatted down quickly, took out the sneakers from the backpack and put them on. Want to run. Another person said, tigers run faster than humans, what's the use of changing your sneakers? This person said that as long as I can run faster than you. Take it off and climb up the tree. Tigers can’t climb trees, and if they can’t eat, they chase them forward and eat the person who changed their sneakers. This story tells us that big winds and waves in the economy are unavoidable, and our enterprises don’t If you think you can hide, what’s the use of hiding? Changing your sneakers is also hiding. You have to have your own tricks and strong skills. If you are Wu Song, it’s even better if you kill the tiger.” He further deduced: “The current economy The academic community is discussing a question: Can China bypass the heavy chemical industry stage? The development of developed countries has gone through the light industry stage, heavy chemical industry stage, consumer goods manufacturing stage, and then to the IT stage. Will China also go through the heavy chemical industry stage like them? What? The final conclusion of the discussion of this issue in the economics circle is that small countries can bypass it, but China is a big country and cannot be bypassed. Because we want to establish our own independent system, a large country with a population of 1.3 billion cannot do without its own independent basic industry. " In response to Wu Jinglian's suggestion that "the early growth model is an old road that has been proven to be unworkable", Li Yining retorted that China did experience a round of concentrated development of the heavy chemical industry in the early days of the founding of New China, but that round of "heavy duty" was not established. On the basis of real consumer demand, there are great flaws in the structure.Since the mid-1990s, after experiencing the rapid development of light industry, China's "secondary heavy industry" has begun to emerge.This not only has the objective law of "from light to heavy" at work, but also reflects the real needs of industrial development itself for equipment renewal and transformation. Once Li Yining's speech was published, it was immediately defined by the media as a new "Wu Li Controversy".Sina.com made a special topic, and posted a small survey, asking netizens to vote "Who do you agree with in the Wu-Li Controversy?"However, Wu Jinglian did not respond positively to Li Yining's criticism.One or two months later, when the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference was discussing Wu Jinglian’s speech “The Problems of Industrialization Road and Growth Model Must Be Seriously Solved During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period (2006-2010)” (Li Yining is also the deputy director of this committee), There was no confrontation between them. If the differences between Wu Jinglian and Li Yining belonged to the exchange of fire across the air, then at the "China Development Forum" in July 2005, Fan Gang rebutted Wu Jinglian face to face. Wu Jinglian first reiterated his criticism of the traditional industrialization path in his speech, and proposed the necessity of changing the growth model, and raised seven problems: not to exploit strengths and avoid weaknesses, and allocate resources efficiently; relax technological innovation and improve efficiency; Occupying the resources used to develop the service industry; causing high tension in water, land, coal, electricity, oil and other resources; destroying the ecological environment; increasing the difficulty of solving employment problems; implying financial risks of increasing bank bad debts.He believes that if the extensive economic growth mode is not completely changed, the problem of resource constraints is not resolved, and the problem of macroeconomic overheating is difficult to solve. At the same time, the proportion of the service industry in GDP has not increased. So we have such a situation: in this very long value chain, we are mainly engaged in the lowest added value and the lowest profit margin The processing part. So there is a saying: We consume a lot of non-renewable resources, suffer from environmental pollution, and bear the notoriety of 'dumping', but the bulk of the profits are not in our own hands." Fan Gang’s views are not the same as Wu Jinglian’s. In his speech, he said: “We need to develop into high-tech industries, there is no doubt about it. In the past 30 to 40 years, for the employment of hundreds of millions of farmers in China, we still cannot give up traditional industries, labor-intensive, or even resource-intensive industries.” The basis of Fan Gang's argument is China's employment problem.He believes that in the long run, China's primary issues are how to achieve balanced development, how to maintain social stability, and how to solve the "three rural" issues, otherwise China's economy and society will collapse and economic growth will not continue.And all these problems are in the final analysis the problem of China's transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society.He said: "The biggest challenge is the transfer and employment of 250 million to 300 million farmers. How can these jobs be created? I think there is one thing, that is, the Chinese have to do everything. The heavy chemical industry in traditional industries must also do If the heavy chemical industry does not work, if the employment in this area goes to other places, it will not be good for us." In an interview with the media after the meeting, Fan Gang was even more blunt: "In my opinion, if there is any new type of industrialization, for China, all industries should be developed first! There are too many Chinese people, and it cannot be done without it. But we need to adopt a better system and use newer technologies as much as possible. For example, we can now use new information technology to transform traditional industries, instead of doing this or that. You can only argue that you should not do this or not. That can also solve the problem of employment and income equality for hundreds of millions of farmers in China, so your theory is credible.” In addition to Li Yining and Fan Gang, the theoretical circles at that time disagreed with Wu Jinglian's views, as well as Lin Yifu, a well-known expert in development economics, and Long Yongtu, an expert in foreign trade. On January 25, 2005, the China Economic Research Center of Peking University held the "Roundtable Discussion on China's Economic Development Strategy in the New Century". Lin Yifu invited Wu Jinglian to give a keynote speech, and Long Yongtu was the main commentator.Commenting on Wu Jinglian's speech, Long Yongtu pointed out: "Our country can only honestly go on the road of processing trade for another 10 years, and then work for foreign companies for another 20 years." Lin Yifu argued from the "comparative advantage theory".In his view, China has a surplus of labor force and should pay more attention to the development of labor-intensive rather than capital-intensive industries. "In China, a developing country with a relatively abundant labor force, the implementation of the comparative advantage strategy can also enable laborers to be fully employed through the development of labor-intensive industries. The wage level will continue to increase as the labor force changes from relatively abundant to relatively scarce. Therefore, laborers can continue to benefit from economic growth. Therefore, compared with the catch-up strategy of developing heavy and chemical industries, the comparative advantage strategy can better achieve the unity of fairness and efficiency.” This round table meeting is a peaceful and in-depth academic discussion among scholars.Wu Jinglian said in his reply that he was not asking for the abolition of my country's labor-intensive export processing enterprises, but he could not stay forever in the current situation where foreign capital takes 90% of the value, and the Chinese only get 5%~10% or even lower. status.Modern comparative advantage theory focuses on dynamic comparative advantage.After the development since the reform and opening up, China's technological strength has been greatly enhanced. It is entirely possible for some processing enterprises to extend their own industrial chains and increase the additional value of products in terms of research and development, design, brand marketing, supply chain management, and after-sales service. value. 在一年多的时间里，吴敬琏不放过任何一个宣传自己观点的机会，如此“布道”使他看起来更像是一个传道士。然而这位银发长者一边说，一边却发现，越来越多的地方政府把快速实现当地GDP和财政收入高增长的法宝押在了产值大、利税高的“重型化”上。他的警告似乎并没有得到足够的重视，反对的力量以及因此而产生的利益实在太过强大，它以不容分说的囊括之势，把他的声音全然冲淡。 2005年9月28日，清华大学公共管理学院召开了一个产业发展国际研讨会上，吴敬琏是第一个演讲者，题目是《中国重工业及化工产业的发展》。细心的《南方周末》记者邓瑾记录了现场的一个细节：“离研讨会开始还有一刻钟。75岁的吴敬琏走到会场一侧的投影仪前，不断校正，希望有一个最好的展示效果。尽管当天的研讨会规模不大，而且与会的近20名专家中有一半来自日本和美国，吴敬琏仍然非常重视。” 在半小时的演讲里，吴敬琏再一次论证了中国的工业化道路应该转向技术和效率导向的内生型增长（新型工业化道路／新增长模式），而不是继续依赖过去靠资金和资源高投入的粗放型增长。这就需要建立一个有利于技术进步和效率提高的体制，而这个体制建立的关键又在于政府自身的改革，即政府能否从为自己带来权力和利益的资源配置中退出，让位于市场。 在这次研讨会的间隙，吴敬琏对上前采访的邓瑾说：“现在关于中国重化工业以及经济增长模式的讨论并没有达到应该有的深度和高度。”他显得有点急切，甚至建议《南方周末》就此展开深入的讨论。邓瑾在题为《一个人的“传教”》的报道中写道：“吴积极参与辩论，当他的观点遭到许多学者的质疑后，他一一回应。然而令他无奈的是，之后就鲜有人接他的招了。所以他希望有辩论，更热烈的辩论。” 也是在清华演讲的两个月后，吴敬琏出版了他的新著《中国增长模式抉择》。在开卷导论的第一段，他就明白写道：“现在呈献给读者的这本书，并非在书斋中披阅前贤论著、静心进行学术探索的产物，而纯然是为了回答我国现实经济生活中提出的实际问题作理论和政策研讨得出的结果。” 尽管此书是为现实所做，吴敬琏还是秉持了严谨的研究风格，完成了一部学术性很强的论著。在书中，他将早期经济增长与现代经济增长进行了理论上的比较，提出了新中国工业化建设的成就与问题，进而论证了走新型工业化道路的必要性与可能性。 让吴敬琏稍感欣慰的是，在这场旷日长久的论战中，他尽管不无“孤独”，却也不是“一个人在战斗”。一些学者，其中包括参加起草“十一五建议”的中央财经领导小组办公室副主任刘鹤和“十一五规划”的主要起草人、国家发改委副秘书长杨伟民以及社科院经济研究所的发展问题专家张平等，都对《中国增长模式抉择》一书给予了很高的评价，认为该书对“十一五”规划的制定起了重要的“导向作用”。这一著作同时也获得了“首届全国信息化研究成果·特别贡献奖”、发展经济学大师张培刚的“张培刚发展经济学优秀成果奖”等多个奖项。 学者专家以及规划官员之间的认真讨论最终还是结出了成果。到2005年年底，众说纷纭的增长方式之争尘埃落定。 10月18日，新华社受权播发《中共中央关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十一个五年规划的建议》。《建议》指出，我国正处于改革的攻坚阶段，在“十一五”时期，应当“以转变政府职能和深化企业、财税、金融等改革为重点，加快完善社会主义市场经济体制，形成有利于转变增长方式、促进全面协调可持续发展的机制”。2006年3月，全国人民代表大会通过了《中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十一个五年规划纲要》。这个《规划纲要》指出，“必须加快转变经济增长方式”，“加快建设资源节约型、环境友好型社会，促进经济发展与人口、资源、环境相协调。推动国民经济和社会信息化，切实走新型工业化道路”。为此，“十一五规划”提出了六个“立足”： ——立足扩大国内需求推动发展，把扩大国内需求特别是消费需求作为基本立足点，促使经济增长由主要依靠投资和出口拉动向消费与投资、内需与外需协调拉动转变。 ——立足优化产业结构推动发展，把调整经济结构作为主线，促使经济增长由主要依靠工业带动和数量扩张带动向三次产业协同带动和结构优化升级带动转变。 ——立足节约资源保护环境推动发展，把促进经济增长方式根本转变作为着力点，促使经济增长由主要依靠增加资源投入带动向主要依靠提高资源利用效率带动转变。 ——立足增强自主创新能力推动发展，把增强自主创新能力作为国家战略，促使经济增长由主要依靠资金和物质要素投入带动向主要依靠科技进步和人力资本带动转变。 ——立足深化改革开放推动发展，把改革开放作为动力，促使经济增长由某些领域相当程度上依靠行政干预推动向在国家宏观调控下更大程度发挥市场配置资源基础性作用转变。 ——立足以人为本推动发展，把提高人民生活水平作为根本出发点和落脚点，促使发展由偏重于增加物质财富向更加注重促进人的全面发展和经济社会的协调发展转变。 虽然“转变经济增长方式”（2007年10月举行的“十七大”将“转变增长方式”的提法改为“转变经济发展方式”）、“优化产业结构”、“走新型工业化道路”等口号都写入了党和政府的文件，但是吴敬琏对此并不盲目乐观。正像他在2003~2005年的讨论中多次说过的，从第九个五年计划起，中国领导就要求“转变经济增长方式”，但是一直收效甚微。其原因盖在于现行体制：一方面，增长方式的转变存在着“体制性障碍”另一方面，能够支持和鼓励创新创业活动的政经体制和经营环境还没有建起来。 因此，中共中央所提出的“以转变政府职能和深化企业、财税、金融等改革为重点，加快完善社会主义市场经济体制”的任务，就成为能否顺利转变经济发展方式的关键点。 在《中国增长模式抉择》一书的最后一节，他一如多年所坚持的那样认为：“转变经济增长模式最终取决于政府自身改革的成效……关键中的关键，乃是转变政府职能，建设法治下的有限政府和有效政府。”他写道：“由于政府改革的实质是政府的自我革命，而自我革命往往是比较困难的，对于在旧体制中有种种权力和利益的人来说就更困难。但是，我们只能坚定不移地推进政府自身的改革，因为这一任务能否完成，将最终决定市场化改革和经济增长方式转变的关键。” 接着我们将会看到，事态的发展仍然曲折坎坷。