AMID the bustling trade and raucous traffic of the Vietnamese capital, innumerable banners exhort citizens to “Celebrate the Spring, Celebrate the Party.” These days, Hanoians do not have much to celebrate. Not long ago, Vietnam was one of the developing world’s pin-ups. Now it is lagging badly.
在越南首都熙熙攘攘的贸易与刺耳的交通噪声中，数不清的标语横幅提醒市民要“赞美春天，赞美党”。如今的河内人没多少可赞美的。不久前越南还是发展中国家的佼佼者之一，现在它却大大落后了。 The most immediate concern is inflation, which last year rose to above 20% for the second time in three years (see chart). Vietnam now has Asia’s highest inflation rate, a fact that government censors have asked local journalists to stop reporting. Thousands of businesses have gone bankrupt, property prices have collapsed and banks and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are riddled with bad debts. 人们最直接的担心是通胀；去年的物价上涨在三年中第二次超过20%（见图表）。现在越南的通胀率位居亚洲之首，政府审查机构已责令本国记者不再报道这一事实。数以千计的企业破产，楼价崩盘，银行与国有企业（SOE）呆账缠身。 The reversal has been sudden. Vietnam’s GDP increased by more than 8% a year from 2003 to 2007, when the country attracted a surge of foreign investment. Now the World Bank is predicting that growth will average 6% a year in the five-year period up to the end of 2012. McKinsey, a consultancy, argues that unless Vietnam boosts its labour productivity by more than half, growth is likely to dwindle to below 5%. That will be well short of the government’s target of 7-8%. As McKinsey argues, “the difference sounds small, but it isn’t.” By 2020, Vietnam’s economy could be almost a third smaller than it would have been had economy continued to grow at 7% a year. 逆转来得很突然。从2003到2007年，越南的GDP以每年大于8%的速度增长，外国投资大量涌入该国。现据世界银行预计，在截至2012年底的5年中，经济发平均年增长率只有6%。咨询公司麦肯锡（McKinsey）认为，如果越南不能将劳动生产率提高一半以上，则经济增长很可能会萎缩到5%以下。这将远低于政府7-8%的目标。正如麦肯锡所说的，“这一差别听上去不大，但事实并非如此。”到2020年，越南的经济可能会比它以每年7%的速度增长所能达到的水平低三分之一。 Everyone, even communist leaders, agrees on the main reasons for the slowdown. The poorly run, corrupt and wasteful SOEs, which account for about 40% of output, weigh the economy down. The formula of low-wage, low-cost manufacturing no longer works as it once did. Countries such as Cambodia and Bangladesh now undercut Vietnam in cheap manufactures. Yet the country has failed to move up the value-chain into more productive activities and higher-tech goods. 所有的人，甚至共产党领袖们，都对经济放缓的主要原因看法一致。产品大约占总额40%的国有企业经营不善、贪腐普遍、浪费严重，因此拖累了经济。低工资、低成本的制造业模式不再像过去那样有效。柬埔寨和孟加拉国一类国家现在正以低价与越南竞争廉价制造业市场。而国家的价值链又未能攀升以进行更富成效的生产活动，生产更有科技含量的产品。 Frustratingly, however, realising this and doing something about it seem to be two different things in the minds of Vietnam’s communist rulers. A few optimists were hoping for changes at a three-day meeting of senior party cadres last month. Alas, there was a lot of breast-beating and little else. Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party, urged the party to reform if it wanted to avoid an existential threat. But although his speech was made public, the rest of the meeting—in time-honoured fashion—took place behind closed doors. 但令人压抑的是，在越南共产党统治者的心中，认识到这一点和对此采取措施似乎是两码事。有少数乐观主义者寄希望于上月举行的共产党高干会议，盼望这次为期三天的会议能带来改变。唉，与会者只会大发豪言壮语，除此实在没多少东西。共产党总书记阮富仲（Nguyen Phu Trong）告诫全党：想要避免生存危机，就必须进行改革。但尽管官方公开发表了他的讲话，但会议的其他部分则延续了闭门举行的悠久传统。 Calls by the party to reform or die are not new. “They’ve been saying that for 20 years,” says Carl Thayer, an expert on Vietnamese politics at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. What is missing, now as in the past, is any detailed plan about how to implement reforms such as restructuring the clunky state-owned sector, streamlining public investment and improving transparency. Nine executives from Vinashin, a debt-ridden state-owned shipbuilder, went on trial on March 27th charged with mismanaging state resources. It is the biggest case of its kind for several years, but the politicians who encouraged and financed the company’s grandiose expansion, including the prime minister, are not likely to be held to account. 共产党不是第一次提出不改革就会灭亡的呼吁。“这话他们说了20年了，”设在堪培拉的澳大利亚国防科学研究所（Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra）的越南政治专家卡尔•萨耶尔（Carl Thayer）说。但无论过去或现在都缺少实施改革的详细计划——例如怎样重组笨拙的国有企业、精简政府投资和提高透明度。3月27日，负债累累的国营造船厂越南船舶工业公司（Vinashin）的9名高管因被控对国家资源处置不当而出庭受审。这是几年来这一类案子中最大的一宗，但鼓励这家公司的浮夸扩展并为之提供资金的政治家包括该国总理似乎却不会为此负责。 Even if there were a change of mind at the top, it would still be difficult for leaders to implement change throughout the system. Power in Vietnam is more dispersed than in neighbouring China, and vested interests in business and politics are bigger obstacles to change. Moreover, whereas China’s Communist Party has had some success in reinventing itself as an Ivy League-style networking club for the elite, its comrades in Vietnam appear stuck in the past. The legitimacy won by military victories more than a generation ago is fading into distant memory, and Vietnamese leaders’ claim to economic competence is increasingly difficult to sustain. 即使高层改变了方针，领袖们要在整个体系中实施改革还是十分困难的。越南的权力分散状况要比邻近的中国更为严重，而商界与政界的既得利益群体对改革障碍更大。此外，中国共产党在让自己改造为常青藤联盟式的全国精英人士网络方面已经取得了一定成绩，但它的越南同志们似乎还在坚持旧日的方针。几十年前武装斗争的胜利赢来的正统地位已在遥远的记忆中逐渐淡漠，而越南领袖自诩善理经济的夸耀越来越站不住脚了。