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| 注册日期：2005-11-18 |
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Poll: 'Communist' China is leading backer of capitalism
Poll: 'Communist' China is leading backer of capitalism
By Andres Oppenheimer
A new poll conducted in 20 countries around the world made a striking finding: The country with the highest level of support for free-market capitalism is communist China, while the part of the world most critical of it is Latin America.
Furthermore, contrary to daily claims by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro that world capitalism is on its death throes, the opposite seems to be taking place. While the poll found that most of the world wants more regulation of large corporations, global support for the free market is rising.
The poll of nearly 21,000 conducted by GlobeScan, a firm that does much of its work for the BBC, and by the Program of International Policy Attitudes of the University of Maryland, asked respondents around the world whether they agree with the statement that ``the free market economy is the best system.''
A record 74 percent of those polled in China said yes, followed by 73 percent in the Philippines, 71 percent in the United States, 70 percent in India and South Korea, 66 percent in Great Britain and Nigeria, 65 percent in Germany and 63 percent in Poland.
By comparison, only 42 percent of Argentines, 57 percent of Brazilians and 61 percent of Mexicans agreed with that statement. The only other country that showed similar skepticism about the free market was Russia.
China, India, Eastern Europe and other developing countries not included in the poll, such as Vietnam, are tilting the world's ideological balance toward capitalism. (The massive support for the free market in China reminds me of a joke I heard in Beijing last year, that China's Communist Party's initials CCP may soon stand for China's Capitalist Party.)
CHINA'S SUCCESS STORY
Together, the pro-free-trade countries listed in the poll account for about 70 percent of the world population and for the bulk of its economic output. They also happen to be the ones with the most dramatic successes in the reduction of poverty. Since China started its opening to the world in the late 1970s, world poverty has been reduced by nearly half, according to World Bank figures.
Another GlobeScan poll released in recent days showed that 60 percent of the population in China and 54 percent of the population in India trusts multinational corporations. By comparison, only 49 percent of Mexicans, 34 percent of Brazilians and 23 percent of Argentines have a positive view of these companies.
''It would be better if the numbers were the other way around,'' sighed Susan Segal, head of the New York-based Council of the Americas, a group made up of 175 U.S. corporations that are active in Latin America. ``Investors want to go somewhere where it is easy to do business and where they believe there will be a good environment to do business.''
Many Latin Americans -- especially South Americans -- are leery of U.S.-styled capitalism because free market reforms were rushed in the 1990s amid widespread corruption, which in some countries led to little gains in productivity and massive financial crises. In Asia, on the other hand, market reforms were implemented gradually over the past three decades, focused on improving competitiveness, and resulted in record economic growth rates.
As a result, Asian countries nowadays are drawing 63 percent of the developing world's investments. Latin America, on the other hand, has dropped from 55 percent of the developing world's investments three decades ago to 37 percent today.
LATIN AMERICA IN FLUX
Is Latin America doomed? Dan Lund, president of Mundamericas, a Mexico-based polling firm that helped conduct the GlobeScan polls, told me he doesn't think so. Latin America's public opinion is in flux. With the right leadership, public opinion can rapidly shift toward support for free market and political reforms, he said.
''What we see is not a choice for a left-of-center or right-of-center model, but for who is going to administer the model,'' Lund said. ``In most Latin American countries, the essential model of a market-driven economy is accepted.''
My conclusion: I agree. Cuba's economic disaster and Venezuela's failure to reduce poverty despite its oil boom have convinced many Latin Americans that old-guard socialism doesn't work.
But in today's world, where China, India, Vietnam and Eastern Europe are rolling out red carpets to foreign investors, Latin American politicians should take the lead in wooing foreign investments rather than reciting outdated anticapitalist slogans.
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2006-02-05 23:36:07
