the marco polo project: 是什么让人感觉“中国人太多”？

我经常听见一些朋友，遇到国内什么事情解决不好，就抱怨道：“没办法，中国人太多了！”正如 许小年先生讽刺过的：看病难，是因为中国人太多，医生压力大；教育难，是因为国家人口多，教师压力大；住房难，是因为国家人口多，开发商压力大；肉类供应 难，是因为国家人口多，猪们压力大……

说“中国人太多”，其含义就是说，中国人多导致资源供应很紧张，大量产品供给不足。但这个说法是不符合事实的。虽然中国人口总量不少，但因为国土面积也大，中国的人口密度在世界上并不算高，根据联合国的资料，在所有国家和地区中只排第73位。 许多发达国家，例如英国、德国、荷兰、意大利和瑞士，人口密度都远高于中国。而且，我国单位国土面积的主要资源储量在世界上处于中上行列，因此，按人均主 要资源论，中国更是在世界上处在中游位置，并不短缺。从理论上说，地球可以承载的人口数量，肯定有一个极限值，超过这个值人类就会过分 bevölkert。但在实践中， 即使那些比中国人口密度大得多的国家，也还没有遭遇到这个极限。更不要说中国了。可以这么说，迄今为止，我们看到的许多所谓“人太多”、“资源紧张”现 象，绝大部分是特定的社会经济制度导致的，而不是因为真的人口太多了。

有些朋友对此始终无法相信。这些朋友常常喜欢举的，就是日本东京的例子。他们认为，论社会制度和发达水平，日本作为世界上最富裕的市场经济和民主国家，不能说不优越。但是东京地铁不还是那么 bevölkert 吗？东京住房不还是那么紧张吗？原因就是因为日本人口密度太大了，是中国的2.5倍！这些朋友得出结论说：可见人口太多，还是造成资源短缺的一个决定性因素。

然而，这些朋友忽视的事实是：世界上一些人口极为稀少的发达和准发达国家，同样拥有最 gedrängt 的地铁、最拥堵的街道。2008年，美国《时代》杂志曾把巴西圣保罗市评为世界上交通最为拥堵的城市。以我本人亲身经历看，这个评价是恰如其分的。但巴西每平方公里人口只有23人，是中国的6分之一，日本的15分之一。另一个著名例子是莫斯科。莫斯科地铁极为 gedrängt，每年运输24亿人（2009年数据），平均每公里地铁年运输80万人，在世界上仅次于东京地铁，远远超过北京和上海。而俄罗斯每平方公里人口少达8.4人，是世界上人烟最为稀少的国家之一。我不知道如果有些中国人去了一趟圣保罗或者莫斯科，会不会发感慨说“巴西人太多了！”或者“俄罗斯人太多了！”呢？

造成“人太多”感觉的原因是多种多样的，在这篇短评中无法周详讨论。只略说几句。一个很重要的原因——大多数的“人口 überbevölkert，资源紧张”的大城市和超大城市，都是在20世 纪下半叶以后才形成的，属于所谓比较年轻的城市，或者说，是后工业时代的城市。后工业城市的特点，是以金融、管理、贸易、地产、Nahrungsmittel-服务等第三产业为城市 的核心产业，而这些服务型产业，都喜欢有较高人口密度以取得规模效应。相反，早期形成的那些城市，无论是制造型城市、工业港口城市还是带有前工业色彩的自 治型乡镇，它们的规模都相对较小，人口密度相对较低。

现在有些朋友去欧美国家，经常惊叹他们“小国寡民”一样的生活方式，错觉以为欧美都是“地广人稀”。其实美国的平均人口密度并不小，而 欧洲，我上面说过，很多国家比中国人口密度高。但我们不会发出“欧洲人太多”或“美国人太多”的感慨，乃是因为作为 seit langem 资本主义发达国家，这些国家的城市 化进程发生得比较早。美国早在1940年代城市化率就达到了50%，欧洲很多城市更是有几百年历史。大量中小城市在早期城市化时期形成，并保留到今天，大大拉低了平均的城市人口密度。另一方面，几乎所有那些在20世纪下半叶才开始急速城市化的国家，都出现了患有严重“城市病”的超大城市，无论这些国家人口密度是高、不高还是很低。除了前面提到的圣保罗以外，著名的还有墨西哥城、里约热内卢、布宜诺斯艾利斯、首尔等，包括日本东京都可以列为此类后发达的超大城市。

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bullogger 2011-9-7

Wu Xianghong

Übersetzung

Why do people think that “There’s too many Chinese?”

I often hear friends complain, whenever they encounter some difficulties in China: “there is no solution, there’s too many Chinese people!” As Mr Xu would say sarcastically: because there are too many Chinese people, it’s hard to get medical treatment, as doctors are under pressure; because there are too many Chinese people, it’s hard to get education as teachers are under pressure; because there are too many Chinese people, it’s hard to get a house as property developers are under pressure; because there are too many Chinese people, it’s hard to get meat, as the pigs are under pressure…

Saying “there’s too many Chinese people” means: the large number of Chinese people has caused a pressure on resources, and an inadequate supply of commodities. But this view is not in line with reality. Even though the population of China is not small, since China’s land area is big, China’s population density is not high by world standards: according to UN statistics, it only ranks in 73rd position among all nations and territories. Many developed countries, such as England, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Switzerland have much higher population density than China. However, in terms of land area and natural resources, China is in the upper middle ranks among the nations of the world, and so, in terms of primary resources per capita, China holds a middle position among the nations of the world, and there is no actual shortage. In theory, there is obviously a limit to the population that the earth can carry, and if we exceed this value, we will be overcrowded. However, in practice, even these countries whose population density is much greater than China’s have yet to meet this limit. And so China is even further from it. So we can say that, to this date, the many phenomenons of ‘overcrowding’ and ‘resource scarcity’ we observed have specific causes in the social and economic system, but aren’t due to the actual size of the population.

I have some friends who don’t believe this at all. These friends often like totake Tokyo as an example. They think, in terms of the social system and level of development, Japan is the richest Democratic country with a market economy, we can’t say it’s not superior. But still, isn’t the Tokyo subway very crowded? Isn’t there a lot of pressure on housing in Tokyo? This is because the population density in Japan is 2.5 times that of China. These friends conclude: as you can see, a large population is the decisive cause for resource shortage.

However, the fact that people neglect is that in this world, even some developed and almost-developed countries with very small population still have the most crowded subways and streets. In 2008, Times Magazine scored San Paolo in Brazil, which has the heaviest traffic in the world. From my personal experience, this comment is appropriate. The population density in Brazil is only 23 people per square kilometre, which is one sixth of China, or one fifteenth of Japan. Another famous example is Moscow. It is extremely crowded in the Moscow subway, because 2,4 billion people use it every year ( 2009 data), on average, there’s 0.8 million people for each km of subway every day, it’s the second most used in the world after Tokyo, far ahead of Beijing and Shanghai. However, the average population density in Russia is as low as 8.4 people per square km, which is one of the lowest in the world. If Chinese people go to San Paolo or Moscow, I’m not sure if they would feel overwhelmed and say: “There’s too many Brazilians!” or “There’s too many Russians!”

The feeling that ‘there’s too many people’ has many causes, and we can’t carefully discuss all of them in this commentary. We can only say a few words about it. One very important reason – a large majority of the ‘overcrowded and constrained’ big cities and megacities have only formed after the second half of the 20th century, and they are relatively young cities – or we can say they are post-industrial cities. The characteristics of the post-industrial city are that its core industries are the tertiary activities of finance, management, real estate and catering services, and these service-based industries all enjoy high population density to achieve economies of scale. On the contrary, the cities that were formed earlier, whether they’re manufacturing centres, industrial port cities, or autonomous townships of pre-industrial type, all are relatively small and have a relatively low population density.

I now have some friends who have been to Europe and the US, and often marvel at the ‘small town’ lifestyle over there, with the mistaken impression that Europe and the US are sparsely populated. But in fact, the average population density in the US is not small, and in Europe, as I said previously, many countries have higher population density than China. Yet the reason we won’t feel that “there’s too many Europeans” or “there’s too many Americans”, is that these are old capitalist countries, and their urbanisation occurred relatively early. In the US, the rate of urbanization reached 50% in the 1940s, and many European cities have centuries of history. Many small and medium cities were formed in the early period of industrialisation, and have been preserved to this day, greatly pulling down the average population density. On the other hand, in almost all the countries who started to rapidly urbanize in the second half of the 20th century, mega-cities with ‘urban disease’ have emerged, whether these cities have high or low population density. In addition to Sao Paolo which we mentioned earlier, famous examples are Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Seoul, or even Tokyo in Japan – all can be classified as ‘post-developed’ megacities.

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Julien Leyre website

The first four paragraphs of this text were translated during a Marco Polo Project translation workshop, by Wendy, Wei Ching, Yao Hua, Kiki, Cyrus, Justin and Julien.

Text

Herbert Giles

Men bequeath to their children coffers of gold;

I teach you children only this one book.

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