Q1: According to a report released by the Forum, the competitiveness ranking of the Asian economies remains unchanged, despite a sluggish recovery. Why are they so resilient? 问：根据已经发布的论坛研讨报告，除了缓慢的经济复苏，亚洲各经济体的竞争力排名并未发生变化，为什么如此坚挺？ Because there are still so much to catch up with the West. Lagging behind forces them to work harder and macro economic policies are relatively more effective because money could be spent wisely on badly needed infrastructure that boosts competitiveness. The gap is evident in GDP, especially per capita GDP, that boosts desire. The bigger players are China, Japan, India, and the Republic of Korea. China and Japan together is the size of the US economy. The Republic of Korea, being the last, was already ranked no. 11 in the world last year. Asian countries of similar relative per capita GDP of the US level has continued to grow for decades. China’s per capita real GDP is now around 20% of the US level. Other countries achieved this in early 1950’s such as Japan, in mid 1960’s such as Singapore, in mid 1970’s such as Taiwan and Republic of Korea. A key premise, of course, is a strong US economy ahead with a good market for Asian products. While China, Japan, and ROK are getting more expensive in labor, other Asean countries are supplementing Asia growth with cheaper labor there.
回答： 与西方国家相比，亚洲国家的国内生产总值，特别是人均国内生产总值的差距是十分明显的。亚洲经济中相对较大的是中国、日本、印度和韩国四个国家。中国和日本加总的经济体量已经和美国持平。而四个国家中排名最靠后的韩国也已经在2015年跻身世界经济总量排名的第11名。当人均国内生产总值到达美国某一水平的亚洲国家在过去数十年内仍然保持增长。中国目前的人均国内生产总值水平接约美国的20%，而日本、新加坡、台湾和韩国则分别在上世纪50年代、60年代中期和70年代中期达到了这样的水平，到了这一水平他们仍然急速增加几十年。当然，增长的一个重要条件是美国经济的发展和美国市场对于亚洲产品的巨大需求。随着中国、日本和韩国的劳动力价格持续升高，其他亚洲国家正以其更为低廉的劳动力作为补充促进着亚洲的增长。
问：新兴经济体的加总起来占据世界经济总量的比重不可小视。2015年，新兴国家占据了全球生产总值的30%。促进新兴国家一体化发展的重要性有多高？这一过程中又能释放哪些经济活力？ In fact, it is not a surprise as China alone was consistently 30% of the world’s GDP most of the last one thousand years. It is just reverting to the mean. It has significant implication for world peace. Most of the world’s wars are due to territorial disputes. It is hard to fight with each other if countries can benefit significantly from each other’s economic success. Western economic giants like Ricardo already told us how important it is to have free trade because each country could focus on their comparative advantage to make the whole pie much bigger. Yet recent international arrangements such as TPP and TIPP are deviating from this trend in some sense. China is trying to renegotiate terms through the Belt and Road Initiative.
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