被遗忘的香港土地制度

飞雪寒冰

In Hong Kong, the tiny corner of China where it is still permitted to gather freely outside a McDonald’s, several thousand people took to the streets last weekend. They were protesting at the contents of the budget. But, unlike their counterparts in Greece and Ireland, they were not lamenting cuts to public services necessitated by big deficits. Rather, they were outraged by what their government was proposing to do with its large surplus: give each and every one of them HK$6,000, or about US$770.
在中国偏居一隅的弹丸之地——香港，政府仍允许民众在麦当劳(McDonald’s)餐厅外自由*会。3月6日，就有数千人走上街头，抗议政府财政预算案的内容。但与希腊和爱尔兰的抗议者不同，香港民众并不是抱怨政府因高额赤字而被迫削减公共服务支出。相反，令他们感到愤怒的，是政府处置庞大财政盈余的方案：向每位成年市民派发6000港元，约合770美元。

The people of Hong Kong are too savvy to take this bribe lying down. Many worry that the cash handout will stoke inflation, already running at 4.5 per cent and identified by John Tsang, financial secretary, as the most ominous cloud on the economic horizon. The payout, an embarrassing U-turn for Mr Tsang, was meant to placate a public angered at the government’s parsimony in the face of a whopping surplus. Revenue exceeded expenditure of HK$304bn by HK$71.3bn, four times the HK$17bn surplus of the previous year. Many wonder if the authorities could not spend the money more wisely, or not collect so much in the first place.
香港民众相当理性，不愿就这样被政府收买。许多人担心，发钱会推高本已攀升至4.5%的通胀率——香港财政司司长曾俊华(John Tsang)认为，通胀是香港经济面临的最大挑战。此次发钱的本意是平抚公众对于政府拥有庞大盈余、却异常吝啬的怒气，而对曾俊华而言，这却是一次令人尴尬的政策大掉头。香港政府2010至2011年度财政支出3040亿港元，财政盈余713亿港元，较上年170亿港元的盈余高出3倍。许多人不禁想知道，政府是不能够更明智地花掉这笔钱，还是从一开始就不应该聚敛这么多收入。

飞雪寒冰

Christine Loh, head of Civic Exchange, a Hong Kong think-tank, calls it the “Scrooge budget”. The government’s habit of racking up annual surpluses means it has accrued fiscal reserves of HK$592bn, equivalent to 23 months’ expenditure or 34 per cent of gross domestic product. Why, asks Ms Loh, is it so allergic to increasing recurring expenditure? Could it not spend even a fraction of the money on cleaning up the city’s pollution by introducing greener buses, or improving the wholly inadequate care provided to elderly and disabled people?
香港智库——思汇政策研究所(Civic Exchange)行政总监陆恭蕙(Christine Loh)称之为“吝啬鬼预算案”。香港政府积攒年度盈余的习惯，意味着它已累积了5920亿港元的财政储备，相当于23个月的财政支出，或34%的本地生产总值(GDP)。陆恭蕙质问道，政府为何如此抵触增加经常性开支？难道不能拿出很小一部分钱，更换一批更环保的公共巴士来清理香港的污染，或改善目前根本不到位的老年人和残疾人保障政策吗？

There are reasons why the government is reluctant to lift recurring expenditure. The Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, mandates a balanced budget. The government has also stuck to a “golden rule” of keeping expenditure below 20 per cent of GDP, a level this year’s budget is in danger of breaching narrowly.
有几个原因导致香港政府不愿增加经常性支出。相当于宪法的香港基本法，要求政府须保持收支平衡。同时，香港政府还坚守保持财政支出与GDP之比低于20%的“指导原则”——今年的预算有可能略高于这一水平。

飞雪寒冰

But the debate is clouded. The culprit is the policy on land, the allocation and commercialisation of which makes Hong Kong’s economy go round. It also creates huge distortions and opacities, making it hard to talk sensibly about levels of tax and expenditure.
但有关这一问题的辩论却有些扑朔迷离。问题的根源在于香港的土地政策。香港土地的分配和商业化经营，带动了整个香港经济的运转，也严重扭曲和掩盖了事实，让人们很难理智地探讨税收和支出水平问题。

The land system is a legacy of British colonialism. London wanted Hong Kong to be self-financing. So the colonial authorities raised money by leasing land, an apparently free source of revenue that persists to this day. The state hives off chunks of land in plots so large that only the biggest developers can bid for it. Developers also pay the government an upfront premium in return for permission to convert its use, say from agriculture to commercial, a hey-presto transformation that releases more value.
香港的土地制度是英国殖民时期的遗物。当初，英国政府希望香港在财政上自给自足。因此，香港殖民当局通过出租土地来创收。这显然是一个毫无成本的收入来源，并一直延续至今。香港政府划出大块的土地，每块地皮的面积都大到只有最具实力的开发商才能够竞标。开发商还向政府预付一笔额外费用，以换取变更土地用途的许可，例如从农业用地变更为商业用地。这样摇身一变会释放出更多的价值。

飞雪寒冰

Civic Exchange estimates no less than 45 per cent of government revenue comes from land, including land premiums, property rates and taxes on property developers’ handsome profits. Hemlock, the nom de plume of a business writer with close connections to Hong Kong’s tycoons, compares the property cartel that benefits from this arrangement to “feudal lords granted the right to gather tax from the peasants”. The tax in question is rent. Hong Kong’s is the highest in the world. According to DTZ, the property consultancy, the cost of office space in central Hong Kong pips that of even central London, Tokyo and Zurich.
思汇估计，香港政府至少有45%的财政收入来自土地，包括土地预付款、房产税以及对开发商的可观利润所征的税收。Hemlock——一名与香港地产大亨关系密切的商业作家的笔名——将从这种关系中获益的房地产卡特尔，比作“获得向农民征税权利的封建领主”。引起质疑的税收是房租。香港的房租位居全球之首。房地产咨询机构戴德梁行(DTZ)表示，香港市中心办公楼租金甚至高过了伦敦、东京和苏黎世。

Spiriting cash from land creates distortions. The top rate of income tax, at just 17 per cent, is legendarily low. But it turns out to be precisely that: a legend. Taxes are extracted, invisibly, via rent. There are also disguised expenditures. Take the MTR Corporation, which runs Hong Kong’s underground train system and airport express line. Such is the extent of the land holdings granted to it that some call MTR a property company with a train running through it. Land allocations require no legislative oversight. Nor are they accounted for as expenditure. By this means, Hong Kong has conjured a cheap and gleaming transport system seemingly out of nothing.
通过土地秘密创收，歪曲了人们的认知。堪称传奇的是，香港个税上限很低，仅为17%。但事实证明，这的确只是一个传奇。政府通过房租在无形之中征税。还有一些支出被隐瞒。以负责香港地铁系统和机场快轨线路运营的香港地铁有限公司(MTR Corporation)为例。香港政府拨给该公司的土地面积之广，以至于有些人将该公司称作是一家中间跑火车的地产公司。土地划拨不需要任何立法监督，也不会被计入支出。就这样，香港似乎没花任何钱，就凭空变出了一个造价低廉、崭新的交通系统。

飞雪寒冰

There are physical distortions, too. One is that half of Hong Kong’s citizens are herded into cramped government flats. Paying commercial rent or buying an apartment is quite beyond the reach of poor or even middle-class families, leaving them dependent on subsidised housing.
还有一些切切实实的曲解。一是香港半数市民都住在逼仄的政府公房内。支付商品房房租或购买公寓，远远超出了穷人甚至中产阶级家庭的承受能力，让他们只能依赖政府补贴的住房。

Hong Kong has become a construction state. Money raised from property premiums is allocated to a special account that can only be spent on infrastructure, guaranteeing a building frenzy in perpetuity. So the government, perversely, has an incentive to reclaim land on which to build. That is why so much of Victoria Harbour, once one of the world’s most beautiful waterways, has disappeared under concrete. If similar policies were pursued in New York and London, the Hudson and Thames rivers would be long gone.
香港已成为了一个建筑工地。房地产商预付的资金，被划拨到一个只能用于基础设施开支的专门账户，由此保证了建筑狂热长盛不衰。所以，香港政府始终存在开垦土地建造房屋的动机。正因如此，曾经是全球最美丽水道的维多利亚港，现在已消失在一片混凝土下。如果纽约和伦敦也曾推行类似的政策，哈德逊河和泰晤士河早已不复存在。

飞雪寒冰

The system is in need of overhaul. But there is little chance of that. The property tycoons who benefit are deeply entrenched in Hong Kong’s undemocratic political system. In return for stability, Beijing has made strange bedfellows with the guardians of this semi-colonial conjuring trick. That leaves Hong Kong’s people with few options but to throw the government’s bribe back in its face – and demand something better.
香港的土地制度需要彻底改革，但这种可能性微乎其微。从中获益的房地产大亨，牢牢把持了香港有欠民主的政治体制。作为他们维持稳定的回报，北京方面与这个半殖民地把戏的守卫者们达成了某种同盟。这让香港民众几乎别无选择，只能将政府的贿赂扔到它的脸上——并要求得到更好的东西。