本文原载2012年11月10日《纽约时报》，观察者网译

世界上最大的两个经济体本月都在经历最高领导人的换届，这种巧合被西方媒体描述为一个不透明的共产党国家与一个透明的大众民主国家的鲜明对比。

这种对比是非常肤浅的，它实际上涉及的是两种政治模式之间的竞争：一种是更强调选贤任能的模式，另一种则迷信选票的模式。相比之下，中国选贤任能的模式可能胜出。

中国的经济奇迹已为世界关注，但中国政治制度的改革却没有引起足够的注意，这也可能是由于意识形态的原因而被故意忽视了。事实上，中国毫不张扬地推进了国家治理方面的许多重要改革，中国已经建立了从上倒下的一整套可以被称为“选拔加选举”的制度：大体来说，干部晋升必须经过初步考察、征求意见、内部评估、较小范围内的投票等程序来选出能干的，有民望的领导人。就此来看，中国共产党可能已成为今天世界上最重视选贤任能的组织之一。

这种选贤任能的制度，深深地扎根于中国儒家渊源流长的政治文化传统。这种传统产生并维持了上千年的科举制度，科举制度无疑是世界历史上最早的以公开考试的方式来选拔官员的制度。

中国继承了这种传统，并将其贯彻到整个体制中，尽管这种努力并非总是成功的。官员晋升的考核标准，涵盖了消除贫困、创造就业、地方经济和社会发展，以及最近越来越受重视的环境保护等。中国过去30多年的迅速崛起，与这种选贤任能的制度是分不开的。尽管有不少耸人听闻的腐败丑闻和社会问题，但总体而言，中国的政治制度，正如其经济一样，保持了弹性和活力。

在体制建设方面，中国共产党在各个级别上已经确立了严格的退休年龄和任期制。中共中央总书记、国家主席和政府总理，最多只能任两届，总共10年。在最高层，中共中央政治局实行集体领导，这有效防止了文化大革命期间出现过的个人崇拜问题。

这些精心设计的改革消除了领导人权力终身制的危险，而权力终身制正是引发阿拉伯之春的一个主要原因。目前正在举行的中国共产党十八大，将产生中国新一代的领导人，这无疑是对中国选贤任能制度的最好诠释。

中国最高决策机构，即中共中央政治局常委的候选人几乎都担任过两任省委书记或具有其它相应的工作历练。在中国，治理一个省的工作，对主政者才干和能力的要求非常之高，因为中国一个省的平均规模几乎是欧洲四、五个国家的规模。很难想像在中国这种选贤任能的制度下，像美国小布什和日本野田佳彦这样低能的领导人能够进入国家最高领导层。

以即将接班的中国领导人习近平为例，他曾在经济充满活力的福建担任省长，后又担任过民营经济高度发达的浙江省委书记，其后又担任过上海市委书记，上海是中国的金融和商业中心，还有许多强大的国有企业。换言之，在习近平担任中央政治局常委之前，他主政过的地区，就人口而言，超过1.2亿，就经济规模而言，超过印度。其后他又有5年时间，以国家领导人的身份来熟悉整个国家层面的政治、军事等领域内的领导工作。

中国选贤任能的制度挑战了“民主或专制”这种陈旧的二分法。从中国的视角看，一个政权的性质及其合法性，应该由其实质内容来判断，这种实质内容就是能否实行良政善治、能否拥有勤政能干的领导人、能否使多数民众感到满意。尽管中国政府还存有许多不足，但它确实保证了世界上最高的经济长期增长并大大改善了绝大部分国民的生活水平。根据美国皮尤调查中心的民调，在2012年受访的中国民众中，高达82%的人对自己的未来表示乐观，这一比例远远超过其他参与调查的国家。

亚伯拉罕·林肯的理想是“民有、民治、民享”的政府，但在现实中这一理想并非轻易可及。美国的民主制度距林肯的理想还相距遥远，否则诺贝尔经济学奖得主约瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨就不会公开谴责美国的制度是“1%有、1%治、1%享”。当然，“1%”的说法也可能过于严厉了。

中国已成为世界上最大的经济、社会和政治的改革的实验室。中国这种“选拔加选举”的模式已经可以和美国的选举民主模式进行竞争。

温斯顿·丘吉尔有一句名言：“民主是最坏的制度，但其他人类已尝试的制度更坏”。在西方的文化背景中，情况可能确实如此。许多中国人将丘吉尔的这句名言意译为“最不坏的制度”，也就是中国伟大战略家孙子所说的“下下策”，它至少可以保证坏领导人的出局。然而，在中国儒家选贤任能的政治传统中，政府应该永远追求“上上策”或“最最好”的目标，力求选拔出最卓越的领导人。这当然很难做到，但这种努力不会停止。

中国通过政治制度上的创新，已经产生了一种制度安排，这种制度安排在很大程度上实现了“上上策”（选出久经考验的领导人）与“下下策”（保证坏领导人出局）的结合。

附：英文原版

Meritocracy vs. Democracy

By Zhang Weiwei

BEIJING

The world’s two largest economies are both revealing their next leaders this month, and this coincidence has been depicted in the Western media as a sharp contrast between an opaque Communist state and a transparent populous democracy.

But beneath this superficial contrast is a competition between two political models, one based more on meritocratic leadership and the other on popular election. And the Chinese model may win.

While China’s dramatic economic rise has attracted global attention, its political and institutional changes have been little noticed or deliberately ignored for ideological reasons.

In fact, without much fanfare, Beijing has introduced significant reforms into its way of governance and established an elaborate system of what can be called ‘‘selection plus election.’’ Briefly, competent leaders are selected based on merit and popular support through a vigorous process of screening, opinion surveys, internal evaluations and various small-scale elections. The Communist Party of China may arguably be one of the world’s most meritocratic institutions.

Meritocratic governance is deeply-rooted in China’s Confucian political tradition, which among other things allowed the country to develop and sustain for well over a millennium the Keju system, the world’s first public exam process for selecting officials.

Consistent with this tradition, Beijing practices — not always successfully — meritocracy across the whole political stratum. Criteria such as performance in poverty eradication, job creation, local economic and social development, and, increasingly, cleaner environment are key factors in the promotion of local officials. China’s dramatic rise over the past three decades is inseparable from this meritocratic system.

Sensational scandals of official corruption and other social woes aside, China’s governance, like the Chinese economy, remains resilient and robust.

On the institutional front, the Party has introduced a strict mandatory retirement age and term limits at all levels. The general secretary, president and prime minister now serve a maximum of two terms of office, or 10 years. Collective leadership is practiced within the Politburo in part to prevent the type of the personality cult we witnessed during the Cultural Revolution.

These carefully designed changes have eliminated any possibility of permanent entrenchment of power in the hands of any individual leader (which was a major cause of the Arab Spring).

Nothing can better illustrate this meritocratic governance than the line-up of the next generation of Chinese leaders to be unveiled at the 18th Party Congress now in session.

Virtually all the candidates for the Standing Committee of the Party, China’s highest decision-making body, have served at least twice as a party secretary of a Chinese province or at similar managerial positions. It takes extraordinary talent and skills to govern a typical Chinese province, which is on average the size of four to five European states.

Indeed, with the Chinese system of meritocracy in place, it is inconceivable that people as weak and incompetent as George W. Bush or Yoshihiko Noda of Japan could ever get to the top leadership position.

Take the incoming leader, Xi Jingping, as an example. Xi served as the governor of Fujian Province, a region known for its dynamic economy, and as party secretary of Zhejiang province, which is renowned for its thriving private sector, and Shanghai, China’s financial and business hub with a powerful state-sector.

In other words, prior to taking his current position as the heir apparent to President Hu Jintao, Xi had in fact managed areas with total population of over 120 million and an economy larger than India’s. He was then given another five years to serve as vice president to get familiar with running state and military affairs at the national level.

China’s meritocracy challenges the stereotypical dichotomy of democracy v. autocracy. From Beijing’s point of view, the nature of a state, including its legitimacy, has to be defined by its substance: good governance, competent leadership and success in satisfying the citizenry.

Notwithstanding its many deficiencies, the Chinese government has ensured the world’s fastest growing economy and vastly improved living standards for most people. According to the Pew Research Center, 82 percent of Chinese surveyed in 2012 feel optimistic about their future, topping all other countries surveyed.

Indeed, Abraham Lincoln’s ideal of ‘‘government of the people, by the people, for the people,’’ is by no means easy to achieve, and American democracy is far from meeting this objective. Otherwise the Nobel economics laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz would not have decried, in perhaps too critical a tone, that the U.S. system is now ‘‘of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent, and for the 1 percent.’’

China has become the world’s largest laboratory for economic, social and political change, and China’s model of ‘‘selection plus election,’’ is in a position now to compete with the U.S. model of electoral democracy.

Winston Churchill’s famous dictum — ‘‘democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried’’ — may be true in the Western cultural context. Many Chinese even paraphrase Churchill’s remark into what China’s great strategist Sun Tzu called ‘‘xiaxiace,’’ or ‘‘the least bad option,’’ which allows for the exit of bad leaders.

However, in China’s Confucian tradition of meritocracy, a state should always strive for what’s called ‘‘shangshangce,’’ or ‘‘the best of the best’’ option by choosing leaders of the highest caliber. It’s not easy, but efforts in this direction should never cease.

China’s political and institutional innovations so far have produced a system that has in many ways combined the best option of selecting well-tested leaders and the least bad option of ensuring the exit of bad leaders.

Zhang Weiwei is a professor of international relations at Fudan University and senior fellow at Chunqiu Institute. He is the author of ‘‘The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State.’’

（International Herald Tribune/New York Times, 10 Nov. 2012）