11 月21 日每日英语--中国必须适应新角色 China must adapt
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11 月21 日
中国必须适应新角色 China must adapt
有人生来伟大，有人获得伟大，有人肩负起伟大的使命。就国家规模、经济成就和对世界经济开放的程度而言，中国三者兼有。中国幅员辽阔，并在过去20多年中实现了异乎寻常的经济增长，对世界产生了重要影响。如何对待这个亚洲巨人的崛起，成为我们时代一个无法逃避的问题。
Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. By virtue of its size, economic achievements and openness to the world economy, China falls into all three categories. It is huge, has managed extraordinary growth for over two decades and has a global impact. Managing the rise of Asia's giant has become an imperative of our era.
在这一方面，前人的例子并不令人乐观。当新强人出现时，现有的强权并不甘心，怀疑日增，直至爆发冲突。修西得底斯（Thucydides）描述了类似的悲剧：公元前5世纪发生在斯巴达和雅典之间的伯罗奔尼撒战争。在20世纪，挑战者和现有秩序维护者之间的冲突，造成了两次世界大战以及冷战时期。经过一个世纪奋斗之后，美国这个19世纪的暴发户，成为21世纪初的“超级强权”。现在美国面临着潜在的从未有过的最大挑战者：这个新来者拥有四倍于美国的人口。
Precedents are not encouraging: a rising power emerges; incumbent powers challenge the newcomer; suspicion grows and conflict breaks out. Thucydides wrote about one such calamity: the Peloponnesian war between Sparta and Athens in the fifth century BC. In the 20th century, conflicts between challengers and incumbents created two world wars and a cold war. At the end of a century of struggle, the US, an upstart in the 19th century, has turned into the "hyperpower" of the early 21st. Now the US confronts potentially the biggest rival of all: a newcomer with more than four times its population.
幸运的是，美国和新崛起的中国发生严重军事冲突的可能性几乎不存在。核弹幽灵、美国的常规军力、对付伊斯兰恐怖主义的共同利益，最重要的是，两国对经济繁荣共同的渴望，足以防止任何形式的神经错乱。
Fortunately, armed conflict between the US and a rising China hardly seems a serious danger. The spectre of nuclear weapons, the conventional military strength of the US, a common interest in combating Islamist terrorism and, most important, a shared desire for prosperity should suffice to guard against such insanity.
但是，公开冲突并非唯一的风险。美国的崛起对19世纪末期的自由经济秩序产生了破坏性的影响。1870年代，源源不断的廉价谷物引起欧洲的保护主义。这种保护主义的现代版本便是欧洲共同农业政策。美国的贸易政策破坏了英国单方面的自由贸易承诺。美国宏观经济波动动摇了金本位制。要不是因为大萧条，可能也不会出现希特勒和东条英机。
Yet open conflict is not the only risk. The rise of the US had devastating consequences for the liberal economic order of the late 19th century. The outpouring of cheap grain in the 1870s led to the agricultural protectionism in Europe whose contemporary manifestation is the common agricultural policy. US trade policies undermined the British commitment to unilateral free trade. US macroeconomic instability destroyed the gold standard. Without the great depression, there would have been no Hitler and no Tojo.
这位有竞争力的新来者也拥有无穷无尽的供给潜力，中国是劳动集约型制造业，就像当年美国的谷物一样。作为一个贸易强国，中国即将超过日本，在十多年后，会与美国和欧盟并驾齐驱。中国也是一个生产率不断提高的低通货膨胀国家，外汇储备已经达到3800亿美元，仅次于日本，位于世界第二。已经有人指责中国向全世界出口通货紧缩了。
China is for labour-intensive manufactures what the Americas were for grain: a competitive new supplier with nigh-inexhaustible potential. It is on the brink of surpassing Japan as a trading power and, within a decade, will match the US and the European Union. It is a low-inflation country, with soaring productivity and foreign currency reserves that have reached $380bn, the world's second largest after Japan's. It is already accused of spreading deflation worldwide.
如今，幸运的是，在中国和美国之间，存在着一种共生关系。中国“出”钱，美国花钱。美国追求扩张性的货币政策，而中国在帮美国抑止通货膨胀。双方各取所需：美国人花的比他们挣的多，而中国人喜欢储备带来的安全感。但是，这种方便的姻缘关系隐含着日后闹离婚的隐患：美国与中国日益增长的贸易赤字，常常成为美国政治家蛊惑人心的借口。在通货膨胀的威胁面前，美国的经常帐户赤字使美元这个主要的世界货币十分脆弱。
Today, fortunately, a symbiotic relationship exists between China and the US. The latter spends, while the former lends. The US pursues aggressive monetary easing, while China curbs US inflation. Both sides obtain what they want: Americans spend more than they earn; China enjoys the security of its reserves. But this marriage of convenience contains the seed of a bitter divorce: the growing bilateral US trade deficit with China is open to populist exploitation, while the US current account deficit makes the world's key currency vulnerable to an inflationary collapse.
即使避免了发生最坏的事情，有两点也是很清楚的：一是中国必须充分考虑其政策和进步在世界上引起的反响。二是需要赋予中国对世界经济演进的共同责任。可幸的是，目前世界存在一种制度性框架，这个框架可以容纳新生的强权。而一百多年前则没有这样的框架。这方面的伟大成就，是美国的功劳，即使现在美国发现由此造成的束缚令其不快。
Even if the worst does not happen, two points are clear: China must take full account of the global repercussions of its policies and its progress; China also needs to be given joint responsibility for the evolution of the world economy. Fortunately, the world possesses an institutional framework within which to accommodate new powers, something lacking a century ago. For that great achievement, the US deserves credit, even if it now finds the resulting constraints irksome.
中国是一个西方阵营以外的发展中大国，由对民主和人权概念持抵制态度的共产党统治。在处理仍然是西方主导的世界经济事务中，并不是一个天然的参与者。没有中国的参与，七国集团发现其重要性在日益减弱。七国集团包括了美国、日本、德国、法国、英国、意大利和加拿大在内的央行行长和财政部长。而“Quad”集团---- 一个由美国、欧盟、日本和加拿大贸易部长组成的非正式集团，甚至更显荒唐。中国可能还不是成熟的金融强国，因为其货币尚不能自由兑换，但是，中国已经是一个贸易强国。
China, a huge, non-western developing country, ruled by a communist party resistant to notions of democracy and human rights, is far from a natural participant in managing what remains a western-dominated world economy. Yet the Group of Seven, which includes the finance ministers and central bank governors of the US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Canada, will find itself increasingly irrelevant without full Chinese participation. The "Quad", an informal grouping of the trade ministers of the US, the EU, Japan and Canada, will be even more absurd. China may not yet be a fully fledged financial power, since it lacks a convertible currency, but it is already a huge trading entity.
由于中国的战略极为成功，如果要求对其作出改变，中国政府自然会加以拒绝。但是中国出口的高速增长，似乎走了这样一条道路，即低估的实际汇率，结果造成外汇储备的迅速积累，这必然会让其重要的经济伙伴感到不悦。中国也积累了回报率很低的美国政府债券，并使国内货币控制更为困难。那么中国应当怎样重估其在全球经济体系中的优先事宜呢？
The Chinese government will, naturally, resist changing any aspects of its outstandingly successful strategy. But the path of rapid export growth, built on what seems an undervalued real exchange rate and consequent rapid accumulation of foreign currency reserves, is bound to upset important economic partners. It also builds a mountain of low-return US government liabilities and makes domestic monetary control difficult. How then should China reassess its priorities within the global economic system?
第一，中国应当考虑迅速实现自由贸易，至少在制造业产品领域理应如此。现在，中国制造业产品的加权平均关税率已经降到7％。作为世界上最富有竞争力的制造业和外国直接投资的吸铁石，中国有能力把其市场向全世界产品开放。这将有助于提高其非歧视、自由贸易政策的声誉。这是中国增长所依赖的。这样做也可能有利于解除贸易保护主义者的武装，他们对中国的出口产品持抵制态度。甚至还可能提高对其具有社会敏感性的农业部门的保护。如果承诺实现制造业产品的自由贸易，中国便可能在重新启动多哈谈判方面扮演决定性的角色。
First, it should consider a rapid move towards free trade, at least in manufactures. Already its average weighted tariff on manufactures is down to 7 per cent. As the world's most competitive entrant into manufacturing and a magnet for foreign direct investment, it can afford to open its market to the products of the world. This would help give a big boost to non-discriminatory, liberal trade, on which its growth depends; it would help disarm protectionist resistance against its exports; and it would even increase relative protection in its own socially sensitive agricultural sector. Committed to free trade in manufactures, China could play a decisive role in relaunching the Doha round.
第二，中国积累的外汇储备使之获得加快过渡到灵活性汇率机制、金融自由化和货币自由兑换的机会。一个仍然存在大量贫困人口的国家，向世界上最富有的国家进行开放型投资，这实在是令人费解的。更不能容忍的是，其得到的回报是接受国的忿恨。更为糟糕的是，这样做推迟了急需的全球宏观经济调整。政策改变不需要在一夜之间现实。但是，考虑怎样来实施政策改变应当成为亟待优先考虑的事情。
Second, the accumulation of foreign currency reserves presents an opportunity for China to accelerate its move towards exchange rate flexibility, financial liberalisation and a convertible currency. It cannot make sense for a country burdened by vast poverty to make open-ended investments in the world's richest country. Worse, it receives its beneficiary's resentment in return. Worse still, it postpones needed global macroeconomic adjustments. Changes in policy do not need to be made overnight. But consideration of how they are to be executed needs to be an urgent priority.
对所有政策转型的相对经济重要性作出估价并不容易。中国的崛起将挑战美国在世界舞台上所起的作用。在过去几十年中，中国因沉溺于内斗而蒙受耻辱。在邓小平的领导下，中国转向复兴之路。到上世纪末为止，中国开始担负起世界责任。伟大的使命现在落到中国的肩上。世界经济的未来取决于中国以及现有的强权怎样适应它们的新角色。
All transitions in relative economic importance are difficult. China's rise will rival in significance the arrival of the US itself on the world scene. For many decades, a humiliated China indulged in the politics of resentment. Under Deng Xiaoping, it turned to renewal. By the end of the last century, China had come to bear global responsibilities. Greatness has now come to China. The future of the world economy depends on how both China and the incumbent powers adapt to their new roles. |
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发表于 2003-12-15 00:00:00