英文报刊翻译：中国的土地改革

来源：沪江考研论坛 | 时间：2008-10-27 | 作者：linling1240 | 阅读：1534 次 | [大中小] [收藏] [划词 ]

Land reform in China
中国的土地改革
Oct 23rd 2008
From The Economist print edition
刘思坤译

A timid approach to an issue of burning concern to one-eighth of the world's people
这一迫切关系全世界1/8人口的事件的谨小举措

AGAINST the ear-piercing screech of the global economy hitting the brakes, what sounded like a piece of good news could still be heard this week. China's Communist Party unveiled its plan to double, by 2020, the disposable income of the 750m people in the Chinese cosntryside. One way it hopes to achieve this is through land reform. The party's propagandists hailed this as a "landmark" decision, even drawing parallels with an event for which 30th anniversary celebrations loom: the launch of China's reforms, with Deng Xiaoping's rise to political ascendancy in December 1978. Sadly, there is less to the new reform than meets the eye. As so often with long-awaited party pronouncements, much of the "breakthrough" is already common practice and the toughest issues are skirted. The actual reform is rather minor.

与全球经济紧急刹车的刺耳声音相对的是，听起来这周仍然有条好消息。中国共产党披露了到2020年，中国7.5亿农村人口的可支配收入将翻一倍的计划。要达到此目的方式之一便是土地改革。党的宣传官员将此称为里程碑式的决定，甚至将其与正呈现30周年庆典的事件相提并论：1978年12月，随着邓小平的上台，中国改革正式启程。遗憾的是，新的改革与人们的期待有所差异。在人们久久地等待党的公告之后，许多"突破"已是稀松平常，而最棘手的话题也被边缘化。切中时弊的改革其实很少。

At least, however, it is aimed at the right target: the obstacles preventing farmers from exchanging their land, and building bigger, more economic, landholdings by consolidating the "noodle strips" of family plots they have held since the break-up of the old rural communes. These obstacles have indeed suppressed productivity, incomes and social mobility in the countryside, and contributed to the widening gap between town and country. Removing them would be a huge boost to China's economy. Introducing a proper market in agricultural land would also do much to reduce one of the main sources of social tension in China: land-grabs by local authorities for which peasants are often poorly compensated, if at all. Every year, there are tens of thousands of protests across China by the disgruntled dispossessed.

China's cities have set the example. There the housing market has been in effect privatised for a decade. Land is state-owned but easily traded on long leases. The resulting boom in home-ownership has been a huge factor in the emergence of a prosperous middle class-now grappling with the unfamiliar horrors of a falling market.

中国的城市就是这方面的例证。房地产市场的私有化已经实行了10年。国有土地通过便利的交易可以长期租用。由拥有房屋而激发出来的结果，已经成为繁荣的中产阶级兴起的重要因素--他们现正在被衰退的市场所带来的未知的恐慌所折磨。

The new plan promises something similar in the countryside. It allows farmers "to lease their contracted farmland or transfer their land-use rights". Since decollectivisation and the introduction of Deng's "household-contract responsibility system", rural land has been held by individual families. But it has remained "collectively" owned. Farmers have been granted 30-year leases, or land-use rights, which the party is now promising to make easier to transfer. That, however, is already allowed by law and has been happening for years.

这一新计划对农村社会有类似的举措。它允许农民"可以租借政策规定的农地，或者流转土地使用权"。自从非集体所有制和和邓小平时代"家庭承包经营体制"引入以来，农村土地就被个体家庭所经营，但它们依然归"集体"所有。农民被赋予了30年租借期，或者叫做30年土地使用权。如今党已经承诺让使用权流转更容易，但是，这一举措早已被法律所允许，并且多年以来一直存在着。

The "new" proposals are not explicit on this, but a senior official has since suggested that leases may be made longer than 30 years. Yet the shortness of most peasants' contracts-if they are lucky enough to live in places where local officials have got around to handing them out-is only one part of the problem. The party does not propose lifting the legal ban on farmers' mortgaging their land and houses. So it will remain difficult for them to raise money to up sticks. Nor does it tackle the biggest issue: "collective" ownership, which the party decrees must not change. This may be partly for fear of making a near-reality of private landownership, which would undermine one of the last vestiges of the party's communist heritage.

这一"新"提议虽然在以上方面阐述并不明确，但一位高管已经表态：租借期可能会长于30年，尽管大多数农民契约的短缺只是问题的一部分--如果他们足够幸运，比如当地政府并未将土地剥夺并转交的话。党并不打算对"农民抵押土地与房屋"进行解禁，所以对农民而言挣钱依然是个难题。不仅如此，他们还要解决最大的问题：集体所有制，而党在此问题上不会让步。那么，组建一个旨在消解共产/党最后继承遗产的事物--真正的私人土地市场，就恐怕有些令人担忧了。

What collective means in theory is rather woolly; in practice, much less so. It often refers to a bunch of party-approved village apparatchiks arrogating ownership rights for themselves. It is their stitching up of deals, pocketing of kickbacks and fleecing of farmers that provokes so many protests. Besides safeguarding their interests, the latest plan also preserves strict limits on the transfer of arable land. To preserve "food security", China has set a minimum area for the country's farmland-120m hectares, just below the present level.

什么为集体所有，这在理论解释上就含糊不清，在实践中更是一塌糊涂。集体所有权经常被一伙党任命的村级官僚所"代表"，并据为己有。正是因为暗箱操作、赚取回扣和压榨农民才激发了这么多抗议事件。除了保证他们利益的安全，最新的计划也对耕地的流转维持着严格的限制。为保证"食品安全"，中国已经设定了农村耕地的最小面积--1.2亿公顷（相当于18亿亩--译者注），这刚好低于目前的耕地面积水平。