Paul Krugman (Part 1)

 

Credit: Investopedia

這一篇聚焦美國經濟學家 Paul Krugman（中譯：克魯明、克魯曼）。他得過諾貝爾經濟學獎 (2008)，但並非香港中文財經媒體的寵兒，原因如下：

（一）由於歷史原因，香港的主流傳媒（舊媒體）從八十年代初開始吹捧 Milton Friedman（中譯：佛利民 1912-2006），本地大學的經濟系長期由芝加哥學派的徒子徒孫所把持，而 Paul Krugman 並非那個門派的成員。門戶之見+山頭主義，就是那麼簡單。但是情況開始改變，高舉「自由市場」和「積極不干預」旗幟的《壹傳媒》在 2021 年被結業，部份本地大學的財經學科教師團隊已經出現大陸學者多過本地學者的情況。部份財經記者或編輯或寫手移居外國，在網上開設社交媒體頻道發聲（例子：利世民、顏寶剛）。部份本地學者出走，轉型成為財經評論員或經營自媒體（例子：葉秀亮、羅家聰）。特區政府開始模仿中央政府為香港製定五年計劃，轉玩計劃經濟，不再宣揚「自由市場」。現階段是混亂的過渡期，吹捧 Milton Friedman 的舊媒體已死，政府施政方向在改變中，下一個階段會是哪一個經濟學門派主導香港的財經評論，又或者誰人扮演國師影響政府施政，仍然是未知之數。

 （二）Paul Krugman 對現任美國總統特朗普（又名：川普、侵侵）的批評非常嚴厲，認為他的所作所為傷害美國的長遠利益，只是 Benefit his own clique。Paul Krugman 有時會在文章內向美國的民主黨出謀獻策，又或者替民主黨的拜登或奥巴馬辯護。原因？特朗普把當前美國經濟所面對的困難歸咎於民主黨的拜登或奥巴馬。香港的中文財經媒體政治立場接近英美的右翼政黨（即是：共和黨、保守黨），傳媒老闆或高層以為這樣可以討好 HNWI (High-Net-Worth Individual)，吸引富貴讀者或觀眾，有助生存，其實是一廂情願或一場誤會。真正的富裕階層，從來不依賴中文傳媒所提供的資訊來做出投資決定。港產傳媒人也不乏侵粉（例如：陶傑），他們不會喜歡 Paul Krugman 的文章，更不會向自己的粉絲推介 Paul Krugman。簡單地說：港媒眼中，Paul Krugman 不夠右，他的言論或立場也不符合港媒的需要或口味，於是不受重視。 

（三）Paul Krugman 對中國經濟沒有好話說。他認為中國的私人消費不足以支持經濟成長，所以要利用西方國家的需求舒緩國內的失業壓力，否則很多企業會破產。亦即是說，中國的出口（推動經濟的三頭馬車之一，其餘兩頭是投資和消費）承擔了政治任務。香港的中文財經媒體轉發這種言論會自找麻煩，原因？你懂的。萬一閣下不知道從 2021 年至今有多少個國產經濟學家或財經分析員或財經媒體高層被封號（社群媒體帳號被封）、被失聯或被調查（提示：巴曙松），請上網。今時今日的華語世界，財經評論是高風險的玩意，評論中國經濟是玩命。

Paul Krugman 適合那些對港式經濟學感到厭倦的人，讀他的文章也需要一點經濟學的基礎知識。他的文章也適合那些關注美國局勢，想知道美國的經濟學家或真正的紐約居民怎麼看待某個問題（例如：美伊戰爭對油價的影響）的讀者。他的文章會提供一些中文傳媒沒有的觀點。寫財經題材以外，Paul Krugman 也評論美國政治。他是猶太裔，拿過諾貝爾經濟學獎 (2008)，做過大企業的顧問。經濟學家或商科教授成為商業機構的兼職顧問或獨立非執董，是常見的事。 

問題來了：那間公司是因為做假帳以及企業管治問題而破產的能源企業 Enron。欲知詳情，請上網。Paul Krugman 被指牽涉利益衝突，沒有向公眾公開和 Enron 的合作關係。批評者認為 Enron 重金禮聘 Paul Krugman 是為了控制輿論，因為他在 The New York Times（紐約時報）寫的報紙專欄頗具影響力。Paul Krugman 曾經替 The New York Times （紐約時報）寫專欄 25 年，在 2024 年底結束合作關係。之後他透過 Substack 發表文章。舊媒體影響力下降或自身難保，財經寫手轉戰新媒體，是常見的事。以下精選部份他的 Substack 文章給讀者參考，部份文章是 For subscriber only。

Paul Krugman 的觀點，你未必同意，但是有助刺激思考以及拓闊眼界，總好過聽本地的「財經演員」（港式財經術語：財經分析員的貶義稱呼）用英語傳媒提供的二手資料發表三流評論，然後成為別人轉型當國師的踏腳石。Aunite 的一貫做法，是推廣一些有助提升讀者見識程度的文章。能够包容不同的觀點，才能站得更高，看得更遠，不會被當權者玩弄。Paul Krugman 是研究國際貿易的專家，適逢美國總統特朗普用關稅發動貿易戰，不妨聽聽美國的經濟學家怎麼說。 

Paul Krugman 曾經來港出席公開活動，面對當時的特首梁振英，他用身體語言宣示立場，筆下的文章形容梁振英是 the Beijing-backed leader of Hong Kong，哈哈。 Paul Krugman 是具備爭議性的人物，有個性，立場鮮明。他曾經在大學教書，但文章風格並非學院派，不會悶壞人，請放心。

 

延伸閱讀／參考資料：

The Nobel Prize

Paul Krugman

Facts

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2008/krugman/facts/

Paul Krugman 

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2008 

Born: 28 February 1953, New York, NY, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

Prize motivation: “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity”

Prize share: 1/1

Work

International trade has long been a central issue in economic science. The traditional theory posits that different countries have different circumstances, and therefore their people tend to produce different goods. Paul Krugman instead claimed in his 1979 theory that economies of scale mean that world trade is dominated by similar countries producing similar products. Economies of scale and reduced transport costs also explain why an increasing proportion of people live and work in cities.

（推介原因：Paul Krugman 的履歷。）

Investopedia

Paul Krugman: Influential Economist and Nobel Laureate

By Ann Behan Updated January 07, 2026

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/paul-krugman.asp

Key Points:

• Paul Krugman is a renowned economist known for redefining international trade theory.

• He received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on trade patterns.

• Krugman's New Trade Theory introduced concepts like economies of scale and brand diversity.

• He popularized New Economic Geography, explaining why industries cluster in specific regions.

• As an influential media columnist, Krugman is known for his clear, accessible writing on economics.

Excerpt: Paul Krugman is a Neo-Keynesian economist, Nobel laureate, academic, author, and media columnist known for his work on international trade theory and economic geography. Considered one of the world's most influential economists, Krugman is renowned for redefining existing theories of international trade and either founding or co-founding several new disciplines in international economics, from New Trade Theory (NTT) and New Economic Geography (NEG) to models of financial crises and exchange rate movements. In 2008, Krugman was the sole recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity." 

Krugman has taught on the faculties of Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Princeton, Stanford, and the London School of Economics.

At the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), he has served since 2015 as both Distinguished Professor of Economics and Distinguished Scholar in the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality.

The City University of New York. “Paul Krugman.”

As an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times since 2000, Krugman’s blog, The Conscience of a Liberal, has made him well known to a broad audience for his outspoken views on economic and political issues. Throughout his career, he has been a prolific and diverse author, with a long list of publications ranging from best-sellers on economics and politics for a general audience to textbooks and academic papers on macroeconomics, exchange rate theory, international development, international trade, and economic geography. As of October 2023, he is the author or editor of 27 books and over 200 academic papers in professional journals.

（推介原因：Paul Krugman 的學說重點與學術地位。Investopedia 是值得推介的網上財經術語辭典。）

 

Paul Krugman

I am an Opinion columnist for The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/by/paul-krugman 

What I Cover

Most of my writing involves economics, but I weigh in on other issues such as technology, global politics or domestic policy, when I think I can add something to the discussion. I also write a weekly newsletter.

My Background

I’m an economist by training, with an original focus on international trade and finance, who taught at M.I.T. and Princeton University among other places, and am now a distinguished professor at City University of New York Graduate Center.

My pre-Times research was honored, among other things, with the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics. I am the author (or editor) of 27 books, and I am one of the founders of the “new trade theory,” a major rethinking of international trade that explains the emergence of new trade patterns between countries, based, in part, on how consumers started to seek out different brands for everyday products. I received my undergraduate degree at Yale University and my Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T. I grew up in Albany, N.Y.

Journalistic Ethics

I rely almost entirely on public information, rather than insider access. I try to get my facts right, try to listen to multiple views, and make a point of admitting when I got something wrong. I have no financial stake in anything I write, and no connection with any political campaign. You can learn more about The Times’s ethics guidelines here.

（推介原因：Paul Krugman 自述寫作路線。）

After 25 Years, my Parting Words for Readers

Dec 17, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/opinion/paul-krugman-retirement-column.html

（推介原因：Paul Krugman 跟《紐約時報》的讀者說再見。）

 

Leaving the New York Times

The full story

Paul Krugman

Jan 29, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/leaving-the-new-york-times

Not going to post the whole thing here; you can read it over here: 

https://www.contrariannews.org/p/departing-the-new-york-times?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

 

Departing the New York Times

I left to stay true to my byline

Paul Krugman

Jan 29, 2025

https://www.contrariannews.org/p/departing-the-new-york-times?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

Excerpt: As many people reading this know, last month I retired from my position as an opinion writer at the New York Times—a job I had done for 25 years. Despite the encomiums issued by the Times, it was not a happy departure. If you check out my Substack, you will see that I have by no means run out of energy or topics to write about. But from my perspective, the nature of my relationship with the Times had degenerated to a point where I couldn’t stay. 

Charles Kaiser has written a fair-minded article in the Columbia Journalism Review about my departure. What I want to do in this post is add more context. Let’s be clear: I am not planning to have a running feud with the Times: I came, I saw, I felt I had to leave, and I moved on.

But I believe that the story of why I left says something important about the current state of legacy journalism.

The background: until 2017 or so, I felt extremely happy with my role at the Times, for a couple of reasons.

（推介原因：Paul Krugman 自述離開《紐約時報》的前因後果。）

The Heritage Foundation Shows How MAGA Will Die

Even corrupt institutions can reach a tipping point

Paul Krugman

Dec 30, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-heritage-foundation-shows-how

Excerpt: Will they change it to “The Trump Heritage Foundation”? 

I have never, to put it mildly, been a fan of the Heritage Foundation. Ever since I started paying attention to Heritage’s work — which I started doing when I began writing for The New York Times, 26 years ago — the foundation has been a propaganda shop pretending to be a think tank, a producer of dishonest “research” purporting to justify a right-wing agenda of deregulation, dismantling the social safety net, and tax cuts for the rich. I wrote at length about Heritage’s deplorable record back in November.

Still, Heritage could have been worse. And sure enough, it has gotten worse in recent months, with Kevin Roberts, the foundation’s president — and the architect of Project 2025 — making it clear that he’s fine with white nationalist antisemites like Nick Fuentes.

And a funny thing has happened. It turns out that even at a fundamentally corrupt institution like Heritage there are lines you can’t cross. Suddenly, Heritage is experiencing a mass exodus of staff. In the latest wave of departures, more than a dozen staffers left to join an organization led by former Vice President Mike Pence. Heritage is, essentially, losing everyone who is even marginally competent or has any kind of reputation to protect.

My guess is that there have long been many people at Heritage who were privately disgusted at what the organization had become. I never said they were stupid. But they lacked the courage to leave until they saw their colleagues jumping ship. Then there was a mass rush for the exit.

Roberts may imagine that he and Heritage can ride out this storm, but I don’t believe they can.

Heritage has never been a source of credible research, but its role in the conservative movement has been to provide an intellectual gloss by producing what looked to the gullible — i.e., many people in the news media — like credible research. For example, back in 2002 David Broder, widely described as “the dean of the Washington press corps,” praised Heritage for its “intellectual honesty.” That was foolish even then, but I don’t think anyone would say that now.

But now that its illusion of credibility is gone, what is Heritage good for? It’s not as if MAGA wants to see any genuine policy research, or as if a hollowed-out Heritage would be capable of doing such research even if it tried.

（推介原因：熟悉財經新聞的香港讀者應該記得美國傳統基金會 (Heritage Foundation)。曾幾何時，這個右翼美國智庫對香港的經濟自由度高度評價，曾經連續 25 年把香港評為全球最自由的經濟體，排名高過新加坡。特區政府的財金官員經常利用美國傳統基金會（Heritage Foundation）的研究報告替自己的面上貼金。Paul Krugman 對傳統基金會（Heritage Foundation）評價極低，認為是垃圾等級。香港的中文財經媒體不會跟你說這些，所以要推介這篇文章。 ）

美國傳統基金會最新經濟自由度排名剔除香港

指北京影響日益加深

BBC 中文

2021 年 3 月 4 日

https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/business-56277534

節錄：在美國傳統基金會（Heritage Foundation）最新一期經濟自由度指數中，香港首次被剔出評級，與澳門一起列入中國評分。該指數被長期與香港亞洲金融中心的美譽聯繫起來。除了去年被新加坡趕超外，香港連續 25 年蟬聯首位。美國傳統基金會解釋，今年的指數只計算了擁有經濟主權的獨立經濟體，將香港除名是為了表示，在經歷了 2019 年數月抗議後，北京對香港政策的影響力日益增強。

（推介原因：連垃圾等級的美國傳統基金會（Heritage Foundation）也 Downgrade 香港，說明香港的國際地位有如江河日下。）

 

特區政府新聞公報

香港連續二十五年被評為全球最自由經濟體

2019 年 1 月 25 日

https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201901/25/P2019012500768.htm

節錄：香港特別行政區政府今日（一月二十五日）歡迎傳統基金會連續二十五年高度評價香港作為全球最自由的經濟體。在今年《經濟自由度指數》報告中，香港的總分維持於九十點二分。這使香港再次成為唯一一個總分超過九十分的經濟體。財政司司長陳茂波表示：「此成績再次肯定了我們多年來對維護自由市場原則的堅持。」

傳統基金會繼續讚揚香港的經濟應對逆境的能力、有優質的司法制度、廉潔的社會風氣、透明度高的政府、高效的監管制度，以及高度開放的環球商貿環境。傳統基金會於一月二十五日在華盛頓發表了二○一九年《經濟自由度指數》報告。香港自該指數在一九九五年開始編製以來一直名列榜首。香港在今年報告中的總分（九十點二分；一百分為滿分）遠高於全球平均的六十點八分。在報告所載列的十二項用以評估經濟自由度的因素當中，香港在其中八項取得九十分或以上的佳績。

（推介原因：特區政府的財金官員利用美國傳統基金會（Heritage Foundation）發表的研究報告來替自己的面上貼金。那是 2019 年初，之後發生的事，你懂的。）

China’s Trade Surplus, Part I

The world’s biggest economy is exploiting its export prowess to cover for its domestic failures

Paul Krugman

Dec 28, 2025

∙ Paid

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/chinas-trade-surplus-part-i

Key Points:

• China’s surplus briefly made headlines a few months ago when it passed the trillion-dollar mark. While there is no special significance to that number, it helped bring attention to an important point: that China’s surplus has been surging for years — roughly since 2020. 

• China’s trade surpluses are causing major economic disruptions around the world – particularly in the US and in Europe. Furthermore, China is an authoritarian regime. Its growing dominance of several strategic industries poses serious concerns, both in terms of national security and technology capture.

• Next week I’ll discuss how China’s surplus causes problems for the rest of the world, and how other nations — especially in Europe — should respond.

（推介原因：Paul Krugman 寫中國，形容是  authoritarian regime。）

China’s Trade Surplus, Part II

How the surplus is achieved, and why it’s a problem

Paul Krugman

Jan 04, 2026

∙ Paid

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/chinas-trade-surplus-part-ii

Key Points:

• Last week I explained that the root cause of this massive trade surplus is the refusal of the Chinese government to change an economic strategy that has become unsustainable. 

• In the past, China achieved stunning economic growth in part through a combination of very high savings and very high investment. Its savings remain very high, but investment in China is running into diminishing returns in the face of slowing technological progress and a shrinking working-age population.

• Yet the Chinese government keeps failing to take effective steps to reduce savings and increase consumer demand. Instead, China is in effect exporting its excess savings via its massive trade surplus. It’s using consumer demand in the rest of the world as a safety valve to keep Chinese workers employed.

• Otherwise, without the massive trade surplus, the Chinese economy would fall into a deep slump given its insufficient consumer demand.

（推介原因：Paul Krugman 認為中國的私人消費不足以支持經濟成長，中國政府也無法令老百姓減少儲蓄和增加消費，所以要利用西方國家的消費力舒緩國內的失業壓力，否則很多企業要破產。簡單地說，貿易順差有必要，是用來維穩的。）

 

China’s Trade Surplus, Part III

How should policy respond?

Paul Krugman

Jan 18, 2026

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/chinas-trade-surplus-part-iii

Key Points:

• As I pointed out in Part II, there is a theoretical case for simply buying the cheap stuff China supplies. But in practice China’s massive surplus creates serious problems for the rest of the world, and therefore requires a serious policy response.

• “The rest of the world” for this discussion mostly means the United States and Europe, who are the key global economic players outside China. While other nations also have choices to make, only the US and the EU are big enough to influence China’s behavior.

• If anything, China is subsidizing the rest of us by selling us goods cheaply. Also, because the balance of payments always balances, the counterpart of China selling more goods than it buys is China purchasing more overseas assets than it sells. In practice China buys an enormous quantity of U.S. Treasury bills and other safe assets that pay low interest rates — and helps keep those rates low.

• China is like a store that offers merchandise at highly discounted prices and also offers buy-now-pay-later plans with low financing charges. In effect, China is subsidizing the rest of us.

• That said, China’s soaring trade surplus creates three major problems in importing countries.

• First, China’s surging exports are economically and socially disruptive. The “China shock” caused by the rapid growth of Chinese exports between the late 1990s and around 2010 eliminated well over a million jobs in the United States, with job losses concentrated in a relatively limited number of communities.

• The second reason that China’s enormous trade surplus is harmful to its trading partners rests on an old argument against completely free trade — the importance of retaining domestic capacity in industries crucial to national security. This concern has much more force now than it did, say, 30 years ago. As Abraham Newman and Henry Farrell have argued, we are living in an age of “weaponized interdependence,” in which governments that have control over economic “chokepoints” — crucial nodes in the world production system — can and do use that control to throttle, or threaten to throttle, geopolitical rivals.

• The point instead is that massive Chinese trade surpluses threaten to give the Chinese government control of multiple chokepoints. And China is an authoritarian state that can’t be expected to refrain from weaponizing the rest of the world’s dependence on its exports.

• For example, China recently used its dominance of rare earth production and especially rare earth processing to put the screws on the United States, Japan and the EU amid trade disputes. In a recent dispute between the Dutch government and China over unauthorized technology transfer, China threatened to disrupt the entire EU automotive industry by withholding critical supplies of semiconductor chips. So it’s entirely reasonable to harbor concerns over allowing China to acquire leverage over chokepoints in the global economy.

• Third, there is the risk that China will lock in a long-term advantage in the industries of the future. To illustrate this concern, consider a case of international competition that doesn’t appear related to China: U.S. leadership over Europe in information technology. Last December I showed that it’s not America as a whole that dominates this sector. Rather, that dominance overwhelmingly arises from high-tech clusters in the Bay Area and Seattle, where an early lead has created a self-reinforcing “ecology” of skilled workers and specialized suppliers that makes it very hard for Europe to break in.

• But it seems particularly risky to assume that this will be the case if and when China dominates multiple industries of the future. For example, can we be sure that China won’t embed monitoring capabilities in its information technology – a risk that has been associated with Huawei?

• In short, there are very good reasons for other nations to refuse to passively accept China’s huge trade surpluses. However, But this response shouldn’t take the form of crude protectionism. In the next section I will discuss policy options to counter China’s trade surpluses.

• There’s a full-scale war raging in Ukraine, while Chinese military action against Taiwan seems all too plausible. I’ve already mentioned the possibility that China, an authoritarian regime that plays a crucial role in many supply chains, might weaponize that position. And given the state of American politics, Europeans have reason to be nervous about their technological and military dependence on the United States.

• The bottom line is that free trade isn’t an inviolable principle. There are good reasons to intervene to in order to protect some industries from the effects of foreign, and especially Chinese, competition.

• If the goal is to aid an industry, tariffs are almost always the wrong policy tool. Subsidies are almost always a better choice.

（推介原因：Paul Krugman 分析中國跟西方國家尤其是美國和歐盟的貿易順差所帶來的挑戰，以及美國和歐盟應該如何回應。）

China’s Very Bad, No Good Trillion-Dollar Trade Surplus

It’s a sign of weakness, not strength, but a problem for everyone

Paul Krugman

Jan 16, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/chinas-very-bad-no-good-trillion

Key Points:

• Giant Chinese trade surpluses create problems in other countries too — although not the problems crude mercantilists like Donald Trump imagine. And China’s attempt to export its problems (for that’s what this amounts to) will meet a protectionist backlash; in fact, this would have happened even if Trump weren’t about to take office.

• First things first: When a nation runs a trade surplus, what it that telling us? Many people, Trump obviously among them, think such a surplus is a sign of national strength — if you’re selling more to other countries than you’re buying, that must be because you’re outcompeting them. But that isn’t at all how it works.

• For a nation’s balance of payments always balances. That is (with some slight technical adjustments), Trade balance + Net inflows of capital = 0

• I often run into people who believe that a successful economy, one achieving rapid productivity growth and leading in cutting-edge technology, will both run big trade surpluses because it’s so competitive and attract lots of foreign capital because it’s such a good investment. But that’s arithmetically impossible.

• In fact, when an economy surges past its rivals in productivity and technology, it usually does attract a lot of foreign investment — but that means that it runs a trade deficit, not a surplus.

• Conversely, when nations experience big declines in trade deficits or increases in trade surpluses, it’s usually because something bad has happened. Look at what happened to current accounts (a broad definition of the trade balance) in southern Europe during the euro crisis 15 years ago:

• The Chinese economy is having big problems adjusting to the prospect of slower economic growth; extremely high rates of investment are no longer sustainable in the face of diminishing returns, yet the government remains unwilling to do the obvious, and promote higher consumer spending.

• Running big trade surpluses is one way to compensate for weak domestic demand. And China has been promoting big trade surpluses by weakening the value of its currency (“real” means adjusted for international differences in inflation, “effective” means that we’re looking at a weighted average of exchange rates against China’s trading partners):

• Without question, China’s big trade surplus is helping to keep its economy afloat — for now. But the weak yuan policy is almost certain to backfire, big time, because the rest of the world won’t accept those surpluses for very long.

• Consider the so-called “China shock” — or maybe we should call it the first China shock — created by surging imports from China beginning in the late 1990s. These imports displaced 1-2 million manufacturing jobs, but that’s not a huge number in an economy as big and dynamic as ours; in the normal course of events around 2 million workers are fired every month.

• My favorite example is the furniture industry, in which employment fell by around 300,000, or 45 percent, in the 2000s, largely because of imports from China. That’s not a large number in a 150-million-worker economy. But furniture manufacturing was concentrated in the North Carolina piedmont.

• A naïve economist would say that if imports increase overall national income, which they usually do, there’s a simple answer: have the winners compensate the losers, and everyone gains. But there are two big problems with that argument. First, it never happens — in practice, the winners don’t compensate the losers. Second, money can’t compensate for the loss of community in places hard hit by foreign competition.

• As a practical matter, however, regional job loss in the face of import surges generates a powerful political backlash. So the rest of the world just isn’t going to accept China’s attempt to export its way out of policy failure. Trump would probably slap high tariffs on China no matter what, but that giant trade surplus means that Europe, the UK, and probably everyone else will do the same.

• Am I saying that Trump is right? No. Tariffs on China are unavoidable unless China makes major policy changes, but the tariffs should be smart and reflect real policy concerns, not a visceral belief that trade deficits mean you’re losing. Also, even given what I’ve said, 60 percent tariffs are wildly excessive.

• And since China’s trade surplus is a global concern, we should be acting in concert with our allies, not alienating Europe, Canada and Mexico with tariffs on everyone. Among other things, let’s not forget that Trump basically wimped out on China last time after the Chinese retaliated against U.S. farm exports; that would be much less likely to happen if America was working with its allies, not against them.

• But while the response to China’s trillion-dollar surplus could and should be much smarter than I fear it will be, that surplus is bad news for China and a problem for everyone else. It’s a sign of inability to grapple with the nation’s problems, and it won’t provide economic relief for very long.

（推介原因：Paul Krugman 形容中國經濟：Running big trade surpluses is one way to compensate for weak domestic demand. 國產的經濟學家都明白但是不敢公開講的道理：中國政府無法令老百姓減少儲蓄和增加消費，真正原因是政治制度令民眾缺乏安全感，更沒有幸福感，想走的人太多。再加上教育和醫療制度落後，民眾想要較佳的服務就要儲備足夠的金錢以及離開中國。另一個制度性的原因，是戶籍制度令農民難以成為真正的城市居民，不利消費。取消戶籍制度有利消費和有助社會流動，但是會削弱中共政權對廣大農村的控制能力。前總理溫家寶公開講過：中國的政治制度是經濟發展的瓶頸。這是中共的老大難。不改，經濟處於瓶頸。改，影響政權的穩定性。簡單地說：兩難。 ）

（台灣）經濟日報

中共刊物《求是》警告盲目擴大出口風險

籲減少貿易順差

來源：聯合報

記者：賴錦宏

2026/04/02

https://money.udn.com/money/story/5603/9418104?from=edn_subcatelist_cate

節錄：中共中央機關刊物《求是》刊文警告，盲目追求擴大出口和貿易順差會對經濟發展帶來不容忽視的潛在風險，包括在一定程度上擠壓內需相關產業的發展空間。文章提出，並非要壓減出口，而是應透過擴大進口、優化貿易結構，適度減少貿易順差。 

據「求是網」，在3月31日出版的最新一期中，刊登署名《求是》雜誌特約評論員的文章《積極推動進出口平衡發展》。文章指出， 近年來中國出口規模和貿易順差持續擴大，不是政府指令和政策干預的結果，而是經濟結構、產業基礎與外部環境多重因素共同作用的結果，「是產業鏈供應鏈韌性持續增強、製造業整體實力穩步提升、國際市場競爭力不斷鞏固的集中體現。」

但文章稱，出口規模不是越大越好，盲目追求擴大出口和貿易順差會給經濟發展帶來不容忽視的潛在風險；對內，資源要素過度向出口部門傾斜，會在一定程度上擠壓與內需相關的產業發展空間，制約發展方式轉變與內生動力培育；對外，出口規模佔經濟比重越大，經濟運行越易受到國際市場差額影響，長期順貿發展因素。

文章強調，推動進出口平衡發展，並非壓減出口，而是透過擴大進口、優化貿易結構，適度減少貿易順差。此外，文章也建議對先進技術、關鍵設備、能源資源產品及優質民生消費品實施較低的進口暫定稅率。

去年中國貿易順差超過1兆美元，出口對經濟成長的貢獻接近三分之一。大陸總理李強3月22日在中國發展高層論壇2026年年會開幕式上說，中國從來不追求貿易順差，承諾將進口更多國外優質商品，並呼籲各方一道推動貿易優化平衡發展。

彭博2日報導，在李強近期釋放推動貿易平衡的訊號後，《求是》刊文進一步顯示，北京正日益重視歐盟等貿易夥伴對中國巨額順差的關切。

（推介原因：中共黨媒《求是》對中國的貿易順差的最新評論。）

 

積極推動進出口平衡發展

來源：《求是》2026/07

作者：《求是》雜誌特約評論員

2026-03-31

https://www.qstheory.cn/20260331/2224116a00f940c09f8d34b1d388eda1/c.html

（推介原因：這是《求是》評論文章的簡體字原文。）

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