Political Risk Returns to China and Looks Here to Stay


习近平正面临可能是其任期内最大的考验。这一考验的结果可能会重塑外国跨国公司在中国的运营方式、全球制造业投资的流动，以及中国与发达民主国家的关系。


周一凌晨，一场在北京举行的抗议中国严厉防疫政策的活动。

不久前，中国领导人习近平再次确立他位于中国政治权力巅峰的地位，如今，他正面临可能是其任期内最大的考验。 6park.com
Shortly after Chinese leader Xi Jinping reaffirmed his position at the pinnacle of Chinese political power, he faces what could be the biggest test of his tenure. 6park.com
  
这一考验的结果可能会重塑外国跨国公司在中国的运营方式、全球制造业投资的流动，以及中国与发达民主国家的关系。更重要的是，引发这一考验的几个基本因素在可预见的未来不太可能消退。 6park.com
The outcome could reshape how foreign multinationals operate in China, the flow of global manufacturing investment, and China’s relations with developed democracies. What is more, several fundamental factors leading to this moment are unlikely to fade for the foreseeable future. 6park.com
  
几十年来，在华经营的外国公司受益于中国庞大的劳动力，基本上回避了政治问题。渴求投资的地方政府往往会预先化解可能使商业复杂化的政治问题，尤其是独立的劳工维权活动、对土地征用的抵抗或其他形式的有组织的抗议。这是长期以来中国有别于印度等其他潜在制造业竞争对手的一个关键因素。跨国制造商对政治风险的担忧主要是关于地缘政治，而不是中国本身的状况。 6park.com
For decades, foreign companies operating in China have benefited from access to the country’s massive labor force, in exchange for largely steering clear of politics. Investment-hungry local governments, in turn, have often acted pre-emptively to defuse political problems that might complicate business—particularly independent labor activism, resistance to land acquisition, or other forms of organized protest. 6park.com
That has been one key factor that has long distinguished China from other potential manufacturing competitors such as India. To the extent that multinational manufacturers worried about political risk, it has primarily been about geopolitics, rather than conditions in China itself. 6park.com
  
但本月爆发的针对劳动条件和防疫政策的抗议活动，对上述安排背后的两个关键假设构成了严重挑战：一个是企业在中国投资时，可以指望基本层面的政治稳定，另一个是由于担心遭到政府报复，工人不会大肆开展维权活动。 6park.com
But the twin protests—over labor conditions and Covid-19 policies—erupting this month represent a serious challenge to two key assumptions underlying this arrangement. First, that companies can count on a fundamental level of political stability when they invest in China. And second, that workers won’t push labor actions too far for fear of state reprisals. 6park.com
  
  
在中国，小规模的地方抗议活动并不罕见，尤其是针对工作场所或经济问题的抗议。但今年11月在苹果(Apple)供应商富士康(Foxconn)郑州工厂爆发的针对未支付奖金和严格封控措施的暴力抗议活动，因其规模、激烈程度以及发生在一家大型跨国工厂而受到关注。工人们显然也取得了胜利，他们得到了合同将被履行的保证，并可以选择辞职并获得人民币1万元（约合1,400美元）。 6park.com
Small-scale local protests in China, particularly over workplace or financial issues, aren’t uncommon. But the violent protests against unpaid bonuses and harsh lockdown conditions that erupted in Apple supplier Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory in November were notable for their scale, ferocity and the fact that they occurred at a major multinational factory. They also resulted in a clear victory for workers, who received guarantees their contracts would be honored and the option to quit with a 10,000 yuan, equivalent to $1,400, payment.



目前至少四个中国大城市的街头和校园正在迅速涌现各自为战的抗议活动，一些抗议者甚至直接要求习近平下台。这些抗议活动的起因是封控中的新疆维吾尔自治区首府乌鲁木齐发生火灾，造成10人死亡，引发了人们的不满。 6park.com
The separate protests now proliferating across Chinese streets and campuses, triggered by anger over 10 fire deaths in locked-down Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, involve at least four major cities and have featured, in some cases, direct calls for Mr. Xi to step down. 6park.com
  
在这些抗议活动中，人们的不满都与中国严格的疫情防控政策有关。到目前为止，这些政策成功避免了人员大量死亡，但常常显得武断无情。 6park.com
In both cases the anger is related to China’s harsh Covid-control policies, which have successfully prevented large scale fatalities so far, but often appear arbitrary and cruel. 6park.com
  
抗议活动的发生还有更深层次的社会转变背景，这些转变使缺乏特殊技能的工厂工人获得更多优势，而使中国已经处境艰难的受过教育的年轻人雪上加霜。中国16至24岁年龄段人口的失业率为18%，一方面，这在很大程度上是由新冠防疫限制措施所致，另一方面，这也与中国政府的政策不无关系，这些政策打击了科技等昔日迅猛增长、曾吸纳大量年轻而受过教育的从业者的行业。与此同时，从中国农村迁移到城市找工作的农民工正在迅速老龄化，人数看起来接近见顶，而中国经济近年来更加依赖制造业和出口。农民工是中国制造业帝国的骨干。 6park.com
The unrest is also taking place in the context of deeper changes handing additional leverage to unskilled factory workers—and piling further pressure on China’s already stressed educated youth. 6park.com
Unemployment in the 16-to-24 age bracket is 18%, in significant part due to Covid-related restrictions, but also due to policies championed by Beijing that have punished previously fast-growing industries such as tech, which used to absorb large numbers of young, educated workers. 6park.com
At the same time, China’s supply of workers who migrate from rural areas to find work in cities—the backbone of its factory empire—is aging rapidly and looks close to peaking, even as China’s economy has become more dependent on manufacturing and exports in recent years. 6park.com
  
这种新的人口结构似乎将以几十年所未有的方式对制造商和政府构成挑战。这一基本现实使中国政府不得不面对一系列极不如人意的政策选择，所有这些选择似乎都可能进一步削弱跨国公司对中国作为一个不可或缺的制造业中心的信心，而且信心的动摇已经发生。 6park.com
All of this adds up to a populace that appears primed to push the envelope with manufacturers and the government in a way that hasn’t been the case for decades. And that fundamental reality leaves Beijing with a deeply unsatisfactory set of policy options— all of which seem likely to further damage the already shaken confidence of multinationals in the country as an indispensable manufacturing hub. 6park.com
    
如果政府以雷霆手段压制抗议者，进一步加强已经颇为严格的疫情防控措施，这将给西方跨国公司带来更多的政治压力，而更严格的封控措施也将对工厂生产造成更多的干扰。 6park.com
If the government cracks down hard on protesters and further intensifies its already harsh Covid controls, that will pile more political pressure on Western multinationals—and more harsh lockdowns will create further disruption to factory production. 6park.com
  
不过，如果中国政府屈服于公众的压力，在一定程度上放松防疫措施，结果很可能造成大量人员死亡，可能会引发更严重的动荡。抗议成功也可能使学生和劳工活动人士更大胆地要求进行更多的改变。 6park.com
But if Beijing caves to public pressure and eases Covid controls at the margin, the result could easily be large-scale fatalities—a potential trigger for even worse unrest. Success could also embolden student and labor activists to push for further changes. 6park.com
  
中国正面临迄今为止国内最大的一波新冠疫情，根据官方数据，全国每日新增病例约为40,000例，相比之下10月下旬时只有约1,000例。与此同时，截至2022年中期，中国大约3,600万80岁以上的人口中，只有约40%的人接种了三针疫苗。 6park.com
China is in the midst of its largest Covid outbreak yet, with new cases nationwide at around 40,000, according to official data, up from around a thousand in late October. Meanwhile, only around 40% of China’s roughly 36 million citizens above 80 had received three vaccine shots by mid-2022. 6park.com
  
根据香港2022年初的一波灾难性的疫情推断，凯投宏观(Capital Economics)估计，如果中国的奥密克戎疫情失控，仅80岁以上的人口就可能死亡约150万人。香港老年人的疫苗接种也同样举步维艰。 6park.com
Extrapolating from the disastrous early 2022 outbreak in Hong Kong—which has also struggled to vaccinate its elderly—Capital Economics estimates that an uncontrolled Omicron outbreak in China could kill around 1.5 million citizens in the above-80 age bracket alone. 6park.com
  
无论怎样，有一点似乎很明显，那就是中国正处于一个重要的转折点。未来情况如何仍很难说。不过，最近的事态发展可能会进一步加快制造商脱离中国、寻求多元化的计划，即使这个对未来关系重大的11月代表着中国开始不再致力于动态清零。 6park.com
Whatever happens, it seems clear that China is at a significant inflection point. How the chips will fall remains very difficult to say. But recent developments are likely to further accelerate manufacturers’ plans to diversify away from China, even if this momentous November represents the beginning of the end for China’s commitment to zero Covid. 6park.com