The Chinese Communist party will celebrate its 90th anniversary on July 1 with a pride that testifies to the pragmatism it has shown since Deng Xiaoping determined to lift the nation out of poverty some 30 years ago, and set a course to make China what it is today. But the party also faces three huge challenges that should make us wonder what the country will be like when the centenary comes round.

　　中国共产党将于7月1日迎来建党90周年庆典，这件令其自豪的事情证明了该党约30年来所奉行的务实政策的成功。大约30年前，邓小平决心带领中华民族摆脱贫困，并为中国开创了一条新路，引导中国发生了翻天覆地的变化。但与此同时，中共也面临三大挑战。我们多半想知道，到中共建党100周年的时候，这个国家将变成什么样子。

　　First, China will this decade make the transition from a borderline to a fully fledged middle-income country, with per capita income rising more than three times to about $13,000. This will be a quite different experience from the trebling of per capita income that has occurred since Deng, because richer, more complex economies need high-quality institutions, especially in the legal arena, to sustain human development. This is far more important than national output, steel production or any other metric.

　　首先，未来10年，中国将实现从刚刚摆脱低收入国家身份到成为成熟中等收入国家的转变，人均收入将增长两倍以上，至1.3万美元左右。这段经历将与邓小平时代人均收入增长两倍的经历截然不同，因为更富裕、更复杂的经济需要高质量的制度（尤其是在法律领域），以维持人类发展。这种制度要比国民产出、钢铁产量或其它任何一种指标重要得多。

　　In their absence, countries get stuck in a middle-income trap – as evidenced by Argentina, Venezuela and the former Soviet Union. The Fraser Institute ranks China’s institutional quality 82nd in a group of 141 countries. While it scores well in size and efficiency of government, it is weak in other areas, particularly regarding the rule of law and neutral legal institutions. The problem with reform in this area is that it clashes directly with the primacy of the CCP party over both the state and the judiciary.

　　如果建立不起这种制度，国家将落入“中等收入陷阱”——阿根廷、委内瑞拉和前苏联的经历就证明了这一点。根据菲沙研究所(Fraser Institute)的排名，中国的制度质量在141个国家中位列第82位。尽管它在政府规模与效率方面得分不错，但在其它方面都表现欠佳，尤其是在法治和中立的法律机构方面。中国制度改革的棘手之处在于，它与党凌驾在政府和司法之上的现实发生了直接冲突。

　　Second, China is in the throes of a leadership change which, while carefully orchestrated, is exposing political and ideological struggles, not least for membership of the State Council. The revival of Maoism by some of the “princelings”, the revolutionaries’ children, is significant.

　　其次，中国正处在领导层更迭的阵痛期。此次换届安排得不可谓不精心，但仍暴露出不同派系在政治和意识形态上的角力——在对国务院位置（原文如此：译者注）的争夺上，这一点表现得尤其明显。某些“太子党”复兴毛泽东思想的现象也值得注意。

　　Uncertainty is already apparent in foreign and domestic policies that sometimes reflect an assertiveness that derives from economic power, and sometimes a latent sense of insecurity that speaks to angst about both the party’s own legitimacy and rising social tensions. The escalation of the latter has resulted in a sharp crackdown on human rights activists and lawyers. Meanwhile, internal rivalries lie behind an intrusion of the military, state-owned enterprises and regional party elites into many areas of policymaking that is heightening political uncertainty.

　　在外交和国内政策方面，不确定性已相当明显。这些政策有时反映的是一种源于经济实力的过分自信，有时反映的则是一种潜在的不安全感——即中共对自身合法性及社会紧张气氛不断加剧感到不安。这种不安情绪升级的结果就是对人权活动家和律师发动强力镇压。与此同时，内部对抗也是军队、国企和地方党委精英插手众多政策制定领域、从而导致政治不确定性加剧的原因所在。

　　In the international security arena, a more truculent China has already emerged over the past two years. Posturing to Japan, South Korea and the US, complex relations with North Korea and Iran, and the courting of Pakistan – plus, to India’s chagrin, the construction of naval facilities – all have a sharper edge nowadays and point to tensions that detract from a crucial domestic agenda.

　　在国际安全领域，中国在过去两年变得更加咄咄逼人。对日本、韩国和美国摆出架子，与朝鲜和伊朗关系复杂，巴基斯坦则在一旁大献殷勤，还有就是在巴基斯坦建设海军设施（此事令印度颇为恼火）。如今，这一切都变得更加尖锐，导致中国与有关国家关系紧张，干扰了其至关重要的国内议程。

　　Third, China is at a crucial economic juncture. It has to attend to rising inflation in goods and property prices, rooted in the sharp rise in recourse to credit, sometimes of questionable quality, to finance high investment and growth. The political will to attack the underlying causes of inflation is weak, however, and there is no desire to use market mechanisms to set interest rates and the appropriate price of capital.

　　第三，中国经济正处在一个紧要关头。它必须应对不断抬头的商品和房地产价格通胀。通胀的根源在于，中国为确保高投资和高增长所需的资金，显著加大了对信贷（信贷质量有时存在问题）的依赖。但政府化解通胀根本原因的政治意愿很低，也不愿利用市场机制来设定利率和合适的资本价格。

　　China must also press on with rebalancing; that is, the move away from an investment-centric growth model to one based on consumption and services. This is a complex task, liable to lead to pronounced economic volatility – and it is also intensely political. It entails redistributing power from those who have benefited to date – companies, coastal regions, the military and provincial party elites – to those left behind, including consumers, migrant workers and the countryside, on which 780m citizens still depend for their livelihoods.

　　中国还必须加紧推进再平衡过程，也就是说，摆脱以投资为中心的增长模式，转到基于消费和服务的增长模式。这是一项复杂的任务——很可能导致明显的经济波动——而且极具政治意义。它需要把现由既得利益者（企业、沿海地区、军队和省级党政精英）掌控的权力重新分配给被落在后面的阶层，包括消费者、农民工和农村地区——7.8亿中国人仍依赖农村维持生计。

　　In line with the Chinese proverb about crossing the river by feeling the stones, economic and financial policies change slowly. But, contrary to recent assuring statements from Wen Jiabao in this column, inflation is not yet beaten, and there is little evidence that successful rebalancing is occurring. If anything, investment is holding up too well, while households are compromised by rising inflation and financial repression. More than 40 per cent of household wealth is held as bank deposits, on which the real interest rate stands currently at -2.3 percent.

　　正如“摸着石头过河”这句中国谚语所言，中国经济和金融政策的改变是缓慢的。但是，与中国总理温家宝最近为本专栏撰稿中那些抚慰人心的声明正相反，中国的通胀并没有被遏制住；而且鲜有证据显示，中国正成功实现再平衡。相反，投资势头丝毫未减，老百姓则为日益抬头的通胀以及金融压制所累。中国逾40%的家庭财富都是银行存款，而目前的实际存款利率为-2.3%。

　　Incremental change, however, will not substitute for institutional change and this is the CCP’s greatest challenge for the coming years. It has pulled China out of poverty with unprecedented speed and success by being smart and flexible. But in steering it to become a middle-income nation, it will need far more of the latter quality if, in aspiring to high-income status and global leadership, it is not to fall at what we might call a Bric wall.

　　但是，渐进式改革无法取代制度改革，这一点将是中共未来几年面临的最大挑战。凭借聪明和灵活，中共带领中国以前所未有的速度摆脱了贫困，取得了空前的成功。但在引领中国跻身中等收入国家的道路上，中共必须具备远胜以往的灵活性——前提是它志在让中国成为高收入国家和全球领袖，而不是止步于一道由“金砖”(Bric)垒起的围墙。