三中全会：中国强调市场的决定性作用

Reuters - China's ruling party pledged to let markets play a "decisive" role in allocating resources as it unveiled a reform agenda for the next decade on Tuesday, looking to overhaul the world's second-largest economy to drive future growth.

China aims to achieve "decisive results" in its reform push by 2020, with economic changes a central focus of overall reforms, the ruling Communist Party said in a communiqué released by state media at the end of a four-day closed-door meeting of the party's 205-member Central Committee.

"The core issue is to straighten out the relationship between government and the market, allowing the market to play a decisive role in allocating resources and improving the government's role," the party said in its statement.

It added that it would set up a central leading team for "comprehensively deepening reform," responsible for "designing reform on an overall basis, arranging and co-ordinating reform, pushing forward reform as a whole, and supervising the implementation of reform plans".

In previous policy statements, the Communist Party had often described markets as playing a "basic" role in allocating resources, Xinhua news agency said, meaning the new language amounts to an upgrading of its role in the party philosophy.

"They are looking to break away from government control, allowing the markets to take the lead. In the past, prices and investment decisions were predominantly made by the government," said Dong Tao, Asia ex-Japan chief regional economist with Credit Suisse in Hong Kong.

"This is a revolutionary philosophy, by Chinese standards."

Still, the party did not issue any bold reform plans for the country's state-owned enterprises (SOEs), saying that while both state firms and the private sector were important and it would encourage private enterprise, the dominance of the "public sector" in the economy would be maintained.

While the statement was short on details, it is expected to kick off specific measures by state agencies over the coming years to reduce the role of the state in the economy.

Historically, such third plenary sessions of a newly installed Central Committee have acted as a springboard for key economic reforms, and this one will also serve as a first test of the new leadership's commitment to reform.

Among the issues singled out for reform, the party said it would work to deepen fiscal and tax reform, establish a unified land market in cities and the countryside, set up a sustainable social security system, and give farmers more property rights - all seen as necessary for putting the world's second-largest economy on a more sustainable footing.

Out of a long list of areas that the meeting was expected to tackle, most analysts have singled out a push towards a greater role of markets in the financial sector and reforms to public finances as those most likely to get immediate attention.

As part of that, Beijing is expected to push forward with capital account convertibility, and the 2020 target date for making significant strides on reform could set off expectations that the government will be looking to achieve breakthroughs on freeing up the closely managed yuan by then.

Few China watchers had expected Xi and Li to take on powerful state monopolies, judging that the political costs of doing so were just too high. Many economists argue that other reforms will have only limited success if the big state-owned firms' stranglehold on key markets and financing is not tackled.

But instead, the focus will be on indirect steps to limit the power of state behemoths and open up space for nimbler, private and foreign rivals - opening up key markets to private and foreign investment and deregulation tested in free trade zones.

Some reforms could face stiff resistance from powerful interest groups such as local governments or state-owned monopolies, people involved in reform discussions have said.

路透社11月12日报道，中国执政党12日公布了今后十年的改革议程，保证将使市场在资源配置中起决定性作用，并将对中国——世界第二大经济体实行彻底改革以推动其未来的发展。

中国共产党在官方媒体发布的十八届三中全会公报上指出，中国的目标是到2020年在推动改革上取得“决定性成果”，也指出经济体制改革是全面深化改革的重点。日前，由205名委员组成的中央委员会在北京参加了四天的非公开会议。

公报指出，核心问题是处理好政府和市场的关系，使市场在资源配置中起决定性作用和更好地发挥政府的作用。

公报还指出，中央将成立全面深化改革领导小组，负责改革总体设计、统筹协调、整体推进、督促落实。

在之前的政策声明中，中国共产党常称市场在资源配置中起“基础性”作用，新华社表示，这一表述上的变化意味着市场将在党的哲学体系中发挥更大的作用。

“人们在试图寻找脱离政府控制的出路，旨在允许市场来起主导作用。过去，价格和投资决定都是由政府来做。”瑞士信贷亚洲区首席经济学家陶冬说道。

“以中国的标准来讲，这就是一个革命性的突破。”

不过，中国共产党并没有公布针对国企改革的大胆方案，公告指出国有企业和私营部门都很重要，它会鼓励私营企业，而“国营部门”在经济中的支配作用也将继续保持下去。

尽管公告细节不足，接下来的几年中国家机构有望实行具体措施，减弱国家在经济中的作用。

历史上，新成立的中央委员会召开的三中全会都是主要经济改革的跳板，这一次的三中全会也将作为首次测试以考验新领导集体改革的决心。

在改革方面，公告指出将深化财政、税收改革，建立城乡统一的土地市场，建立可持续的社会保障制度，赋予农民更多财产权力，这些都是中国实现可持续发展所必不可少的措施。

在期待全会解决的一长串领域中，大多数分析师挑选出最可能得到人们及时关注的问题：促进市场在金融领域发挥更大的作用以及改革公共财政。

同时，人们也希望中央能推动资本项目可兑换的进程，而在改革上取得长足发展的2020年目标也让人们翘首企盼：到那时，政府在开放严格控制的人民币上将取得突破性进展。

很少有中国事务观察家曾预料到习主席和李总理会针对强大的国有垄断企业，毕竟这样做的政治成本太高。不少经济学家认为，如果大型国有企业对主要市场和融资的束缚没有得到解决，那其他改革的成功则会受到一定的限制。

相反，未来焦点将会集中在非直接方式限制国有大型企业，向小型企业、私营企业、外国企业开放市场，向私营和外商资本开放核心投资市场，放松在自由贸易区已经试验过的一些管制。

参与改革讨论的人们表示，一些改革可能会面临强大利益集团（如当地政府或国有垄断企业）的顽强抵抗。