众所周知，中国正在崛起。2018年《财富》发布的世界500强企业中有111家企业来自于中国，仅次于美国126家企业，1995年，只有3家中国企业上榜，到2018年，前十名有3家是中国企业，难怪有人预言，中国将超越美国成为世界500强企业最多的国家。
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这种情况完全可能发生，但胜利的号角不要吹得太响。就拿日本为例：1995年，日本在世界500强的企业仅少于美国4家，位居第二，日本当时的地位得益于几十年国内经济飞速的增长，从1973到1995增长了1,171%，12倍的增长率。中国现在的情况与当时的日本几乎一样，自1995年以来，国内经济增长了16.6倍，从7350亿美元增长到今天的12.2万亿美元，中国GDP的增长与中国企业进入全球500强之间的正相关达到99%。
在我们看来，中国的全球企业占有率和日本一样，国内经济占主导。2018年出现在《财富》榜单上前的前三位中国企业分别是中国国家电网公司、中国石油化工集团公司和中国石油天然气集团公司，其85%的收入来自于国内，还有其他84家进入世界500强的企业也都是国有企业，这些企业全都依赖于国内收入，也有一些上榜的民营企业大部分收入也来自于国内。例如，科技巨头阿里巴巴和腾讯来源于国内的收入分别占总收入的74%和80%。除少数例外，华为和联想的国外销售额占总销售额分别是50%和70%，全球500强中的绝大多数中国公司都很容易受到国内经济大幅放缓的冲击。
我们认为，经济放缓是不可避免的。根据人口统计数据显示，中国的适龄劳动人口正在减少，在劳动生产率没有大幅提高的情况下，劳动力减少意味着GDP增长率下降，日本的适龄劳动人口也经历了类似的下降，但它未能实现维持增长所需的生产率，日本企业已经失败过，中国未必能够成功，推动中国过去20年惊人增长的因素是低生产率基准、农村劳工供应过剩以及易获得的外国技术，现在这些已没有优势。
[h1]中国避免经济放缓的另一个方法——提振国际销售和出口——也面临着阻力:中国对债务的偏好可能会阻碍创新的尝试，因为这会减少外贸的资本投入，削弱中国的出口竞争力。中国的管理方式与创新的教育是对立的，基于这些原因，在经历了飞速的崛起之后，中国的巨人们可能会面临坎坷的未来。让我们先回顾一下人口统计数据[/h1]人口灾难
中国和日本的人口结构惊人的相似。据估计，2015年至2035年，中国劳动人口(15岁至64岁)将下降9%，2050年将下降20%，这意味着有2亿人失业，超过了德国、法国、英国、意大利、比利时、荷兰和瑞士全部劳动年龄人口的总和，而日本在过去20年已经历了类似的下滑:从1997年到2017年，日本的劳动人口减少了13.4%。
劳动年龄人口的上升和下降
在劳动生产率没有大幅提高的情况下，中国劳动年龄人口的急剧下降，很可能伴随着GDP的大幅下降，日本的劳动年龄人口也经历了类似的下降，而且无法提高足够的生产率来维持GDP增长。
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中国1979年实施计划生育政策，是使生育率从每户2.9个孩子下降到1995年的1.6个孩子的主要原因。但人口统计数据显示，这项政策只会加速中国经济的衰退，中国的出生率早在10年前就开始下降，这反映出一种几乎普遍的经济发展模式，即随着生活水平的提高，出生率下降。日本虽然没有计划生育政策，其出生率也从1965年的2.1个孩子下降到了1989年的1.6。
劳动者是一个国家最大的消费者;当劳动年龄人口减少时，收入也会减少，这种情况已经发生在日本身上，随着日本适龄劳动人口的减少，国内消费开始下滑，日本企业开始从全球500强的名单上划掉，适龄劳动人口下降与日本企业退出全球500强之间的正相关为94%。中国也面临着同样的情况。
填充劳动力的有两个关键方法，一是通过移民增加工人数量和提高剩余工人的生产率。对中国来说，移民作为出生率下降的抵消力量似乎不太可能，根据世界银行(World Bank)的数据，2015年居住在中国的外国人不到1%的十分之一，在日本的鼎盛时期，这一比例略高，但在2015年，居住在日本的人当中，只有1.7%是已登记的外国人，相比之下，当年在美国和德国注册的外国人数量约占总人口的15%。
通过大幅提高劳动生产率来抵消劳动年龄人口减少的影响。随着生产率的提高，企业可以向更少的工人支付更多的工资，同时仍然保持盈利，而更高的工资意味着每个工人的国内消费更高，在日本，情况并没有得到改善，在1977-1997的20年间，日本的生产率平均每年增长13%，但在随后的20年里，劳动力大幅减少，生产率平均每年增长不到1%，这些增长的绝大部分来自制造业，而不是服务业，目前服务业占日本经济的70%。
中国似乎在走日本的老路。1995年至2013年，中国劳动年龄人口达到顶峰，劳动生产率平均增长15.5%，但2014年至2018年，劳动生产率增速放缓至平均5.7%，中国的生产率增速在需要加快的时候却在减速,这样看来，中国国有企业前景暗淡，虽然他们的收入比私企高，他们的员工数量也要高得多(SOEs: 143,927人，POEs: 77,073人)，利润也较低(SOEs：7.46亿美元，POEs:17亿美元)，这意味着，这些企业的生产率增速正在放缓，生产率增速明显低于私营企业(SOEs:326338美元每人,POEs:496172美元每人)和利润(SOEs:5355美元,POEs:22507美元)。
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中国能否弥补其生产率下降产生的影响?这取决于中国劳动生产率主要驱动因素的前景，以及中国企业能否用出口(在中国生产，在海外销售)和国际销售(在海外生产，在海外销售)来取代不断下降的国内收入。
Can China Avoid a Growth Crisis?There’s no question that China is on the rise. In 2018, Fortune’s Global 500 ranking included 111 firms headquartered in China—just a handful fewer than the United States’ 126. In 1995, only three Chinese firms made the list; in 2018, three were in the top 10. No wonder some observers predict that China will soon overtake the U.S. as the home to the highest number of Fortune 500 firms.
No wonder:难怪
It’s entirely possible that this could happen, but the triumph would likely be fleeting. Our skepticism is rooted in Japan’s example: In 1995, Japan was second only to the United States on the Fortune 500 list, with just four fewer companies. It had achieved that position thanks to several decades of soaring growth in the domestic economy—an astounding 1,171% from 1973 to 1995, a growth factor of 12. The China story is almost identical: Since 1995, the domestic economy has grown by a factor of 16.6, from just $735 billion to $12.2 trillion today, and the correlation between the rise of Chinese GDP and the ascent of Chinese firms onto the Global 500 list is 99%.
Growth factor：增长点
In our view, China’s share of global business is predicated, as was Japan’s, on a dynamic domestic economy. The top three Chinese companies on the Fortune list in 2018—State Grid Corporation of China, China Petrochemical Corporation, and China National Petroleum Corporation—generated more than 85% of their revenue domestically. They, along with 84 others out of China’s 111, are state-owned enterprises, or SOEs; you would expect such companies to be reliant on domestic revenue for growth. But many of the privately owned enterprises (POEs) on the list also generate the bulk of their revenue from domestic customers. The numbers for tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, for example, are 74% and 80%, respectively. The implication is clear:With a few exceptions—notably Huawei and Lenovo, which generate 50% and 75%, respectively, from sales in foreign markets—the great majority of the Chinese companies on the Global 500 would be vulnerable to a major slowdown in the domestic economy.
be reliant on：依赖于
And a slowdown is inevitable, we believe. Demographic data shows that China’s working-age population is shrinking. In the absence of drastic improvements in labor productivity, a smaller workforce means a lower GDP growth rate. Japan has experienced a similar decline in working-age population, and it has been unable to achieve the productivity gains necessary to maintain growth. It is unlikely that China’s firms will succeed where Japan’s have failed, primarily because the factors that have driven China’s spectacular growth over the past 20 years—a low baseline of productivity to begin with, an excess supply of rural workers, and easy access to foreign technology—have significantly weakened.
In the absence of drastic improvements in labor productivity：在劳动生产率没有大幅度提升的情况下
Low baseline of productivity(较低的生产标准）-excess supply of rural workers(农村生产力过剩）-easy access to foreign technology(易获取国外技术）-这一系列的过程中的优势已明显减弱。
China’s other option for averting an economic slowdown—boosting international sales and exports—also faces headwinds: China’s penchant for debt could hamstring attempts to innovate by reducing the capital available for investment in international sales and dampening the country’s export competitiveness. And Chinese management style is antithetical to fostering innovation. For these reasons, we believe that after a meteoric rise, China’s giants could face a rocky future. Let’s begin with a review of the demographics.
Averting：避免 risks averting：风险防范
faces headwinds:面临阻力
penchant for：对...的偏好
is antithetical to：与...对立
meteoric rise：迅速崛起，新星崛起，像流星般稍纵即逝，最终是一个rocky future，像岩石一样陨落
[h1]The Demographic Disaster[/h1]The demographic parallels between China and Japan are striking. China’s working population (people aged 15 to 64) is estimated to fall by 9% from 2015 to 2035, and by 20% in 2050. That’s a loss of 200 million people—more than the total working-age populations of Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland combined. Japan has experienced a similar decline over the past two decades: Its working population fell 13.4% from 1997 to 2017.
Experienced可用seen替代
[h3]The Rise and Fall of Working-Age Populations[/h3]The steep decline in China’s working-age population is likely to be accompanied by a sizeable drop in GDP in the absence of dramatic gains in labor productivity. Japan experienced a similar decline in its working-age population and was unable to boost productivity enough to maintain GDP growth.
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China’s infamous one-child policy, implemented in 1979, is often seen as the reason the birth rate fell from 2.9 children per family to 1.6 in 1995. But demographic data suggests that the policy only accelerated a decline that China was already experiencing. The country’s birth rate began falling a decade earlier, reflecting a nearly universal pattern of economic development in which birth rates fall as standards of living rise. In Japan, the birth rate fell from 2.1 in 1965 to 1.6 in 1989 without the help of a one-child policy.
reflecting a nearly universal pattern of economic development in which birth rates fall as standards of living rise：反应了一种普遍的经济发展模式--出生率随着生活水平提高而下降
A country’s workers are its most powerful consumers; when the working-age population shrinks, so do revenues. That has already happened to Japan’s global giants. As the country’s working-age population fell, domestic consumption faltered, and Japanese firms started sliding off the Global 500 list. The correlation between the decline in the working-age population and Japanese firms’ leaving the Global 500 was 94%. China faces the same situation.
Faltered：摇摇欲坠，颤抖，这里指减少
Two key ways a country can compensate for a shrinking workforce are by boosting the number of workers through immigration and by boosting the productivity of the remaining workers. Immigration as a countervailing force to a falling birth rate seems unlikely for China, which, like Japan, is not known for welcoming foreign workers. According to World Bank data, in 2015 less than one-tenth of one percent of the people living in China were foreigners. During Japan’s heyday, that country’s rate was somewhat higher, but still only 1.7% of people living in Japan in 2015 were registered foreigners. By contrast, the number of registered foreigners in both the United States and Germany that year was about 15% of the total population.
countervailing force：抗衡力量Heyday：全盛期Countries can also offset a shrinking working age population through dramatic improvements in labor productivity. With increased productivity, companies can pay fewer workers more money and still remain profitable, and the higher pay translates into higher domestic consumption per worker. In Japan’s case, the improvements didn’t happen. The country averaged 13% per year in productivity gains for the 20 years leading up to its peak working-age population in 1997. But in the two decades that followed, during which the workforce shrank, productivity growth averaged less than 1% per year. And the vast majority of those gains came from the manufacturing sector, not the service sector, which now represents 70% of Japan’s economy.
Compensate=offset=countervail:抵消
China seems to be following a similar path. Although its productivity growth averaged 15.5% from 1995 to 2013, when its working-age population reached its peak, productivity growth slowed to an average of just 5.7% from 2014 to 2018. In other words, China’s productivity growth rate is decelerating just when it needs to speed up. This gloomy scenario is especially problematic for China’s SOEs. Although they have larger revenues than POEs, on average, they also have significantly higher numbers of employees (a median of 143,927 versus 77,073) and lower profits (a median of $746 million versus $1.7 billion). That means they are heading into the slowdown with a productivity growth rate significantly lower, on average, than that of the POEs, as measured by revenue per employee ($326,338 versus $496,172) and profits per employee ($5,355 versus $22,507).
Can China correct or compensate for its falling productivity? That will depend on the long-term outlook for the main drivers of its labor productivity and on the ability of its firms to replace falling domestic revenues with exports (producing in China and selling abroad) and international sales (producing abroad and selling abroad).
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--2019/9/2
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