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【中文标题】中国是新的美国吗？
【原文标题】Is China the New America?& ^# l& u- u; f' V! N
【登载媒体】Foreign Policy
【来源地址】求真http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4778&;page=0
务实 理性交流; z5 C' U" {! @& A6 u& U5 o
【译者】gabirella
【翻译方式】人工bbs.m4.cn/ D& h+ |/ w( L! V* h7 I1 X0 t
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=193058&extra=page%3D1%26amp%3Bfilter%3Dtype%26amp%3Btypeid%3D2139 N' _( C+ T" z0 b: P0 S7 c
【译文】
The Great Depression made the United States the world's unquestioned financial leader. The current crisis can do the same for China.
大萧条使美国成为了不容置疑的全球金融领袖，而目前的金融危机同样把中国推向了那个位置。
In the Great Depression, as in the current economic crisis, the downturn was particularly severe because of a lack of leadership in the international order. The dominant financial power of the 19th century, Britain, was financially exhausted by the First World War. The new major creditor, the United States, had emerged as a strong economic player, but did not yet have leadership committed to the maintenance of an open international economic order. The simple diagnosis was that Britain was unable to lead, and the United States unwilling.
和目前的金融危机一样，在大萧条期间，由于缺乏对国际秩序的统一领导，经济状况尤为低迷。大英帝国，这支19世纪的经济中坚力量，一战后经济遭受重创。而美国作为新的债主，开始以主要经济体的身份出现，但还没有足够的领导能力维持一个开放的国际经济秩序。因此，得出一个很简单的结论：英国已经没有能力领导世界经济，而美国还未做好准备。
If the scenario sounds familiar, it should. The story from the Great Depression has an uncanny echo in current debates about international economic leadership, with the United States playing the role of Britain -- the exhausted debtor economy -- and China taking the place of the United States as the world's largest creditor. But if China is the America of this century, can it do a better job than the United States did in the 1930s? The way in which the emerging superpower takes to this role will determine in large part how the world will emerge from the downturn and the shape of the new global economic order that will follow.
未来可能出现的情景对大家来说肯定不陌生。大萧条时期出现的情况和当前关于谁来领导世界经济的争论不可思议地产生了共鸣。目前，美国扮演了过去英国作为的角色——因债务繁重而精疲力竭的经济体；中国取代美国的地位，成为世界上最大的债主。但是，中国在本世纪扮演着原本由美国掌握的角色，她能否比美国在上世纪30年代经济大萧条时表现得更好呢？新兴超级大国在逐步成为世界经济领导者的过程中所采用的方法，将在很大程度上决定世界经济如何从衰退的阴影中走出来，以及接踵而来的新的全球经济秩序。
Charles Kindle Berger, the late economist, argued that the United States should have acted as a lender of last resort in the early 1930s, continuing to keep its financial markets open to investment and its market open to foreign goods, rather than heading down the path of protectionism. It should also have stimulated the world economy through countercyclical fiscal policy.
已故经济学家查尔斯 金德尔博格（音译）认为，在上世纪30年代初，在各国走投无路的时候，美国本应该担当起借贷者的角色，保持其金融市场一如既往地吸收多种投资，市场继续向外国商品开放，而非走贸易保护主义之路。美国还应该通过顺应时势，灵活多变的财政政策来刺激世界经济的发展。
But at the time of the Great Depression, there were all kinds of convincing reasons why Americans did not want to take on the burden of a worldwide rescue. Sending more money to Europe was seen as pouring money down the drain, and after all, Europeans had fought the world war that had been the root cause of the financial mess. Economically, helping Europe would have made a great deal of sense from a long-term perspective, but politically it was a non-starter with no short-term payoff.
但是在大萧条时期，很多令人信服的缘由都在解释为什么美国不愿背上拯救世界的包袱。借更多的钱给欧洲被认为是打水漂，而且最重要的是，欧洲人所参与的世界大战正是造成那场金融危机的罪魁祸首。
In the middle of the current financial crisis, a deep-pocketed China faces the same dilemma: swallow its pique and help save the same countries that got us into this situation, or look to its own short-term interests first.
Today, there are increasing demands that China contribute more to internationally coordinated rescue packages through a reformed International Monetary Fund (IMF). China is also one of the few economies still growing in 2009, though most economists have reduced their estimates of growth rates. Finally, China and the United States are the only countries that are large enough, and have sufficiently well-ordered government finances, to launch major efforts at fiscal stimulation.
在目前的金融危机之中，荷包鼓鼓的中国面临着同样的两难境地：忍气吞声来帮助那些把我们拉进泥潭只盯住眼前利益的国家。现在，要求中国通过改革后的世界货币基金组织，对在全球范围内协调的救市方案做出更大贡献的呼声越来越高。
Beijing's leaders might feel like they have already taken their best shot. The initial stages of the credit crunch in 2007 were managed so apparently painlessly because sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) from the Middle East, but above all from China, were willing to step in and recapitalize the debt of U.S. and European institutions. Between November 2007 and March 2008, the SWFs provided $41 billion of the $105 billion injected into major financial institutions. Had this process continued, the events of 2008 would have included problems with U.S. real estate and a severe stock market decline, but no meltdown of financial institutions.
北京的领导人也许认为他们已经采取了最好的办法。由于来自中东地区，但大部分来自中国的主权财富基金愿意介入并改变美国和欧洲金融机构的资本结构，因此关于2007年信贷危机早期阶段的主力是毫不费力的。
But after March 2008, the availability of funds to prop up the global financial system shriveled up. The pivotal moment in today's events came when the state-owned China Investment Corp. (CIC) was unwilling to go further in its exploration of buying Lehman Brothers. CIC's turning back will be held up in the future as a moment when history could have shifted in a different direction.
但是2008年3月份之后，支撑全球金融系统的资金不足。国有的中国投资有限责任公司（CIC）不愿在购买雷曼兄弟上再浪费时间，此举标志着目前局势的重要时刻的到来。这次中国投资有限责任公司打退堂鼓，将会被列为历史原本可以往另一个方向发展的范例。
Today there may be plenty of reasons why the Chinese will be tempted to pull back from their engagement with the world economy, and the external political logic sounds very much like the U.S. case of 1931. Some of the economic arguments reverberating around Beijing are very reasonable: There is a great deal of uncertainty, and the SWFs have lost a lot of money already and might lose more. China's investments in U.S. securities in 2006 proved to be a huge costly mistake. Clearly the CIC would have initially lost further billions had it tried to rescue Lehman. Other lines of thought are more emotional and political: Might not 2008 be a righteous payback for the U.S. bungling of the 1997-1998 Asian crisis? Trying times tend to heighten paranoia.
现在关于中国为什么会被怂恿退出世界经济大舞台，众说纷纭。中国国外的政治形势似乎和1931年的美国很像。在北京，一些余音回绕的经济论断很是合理：目前不确定性很大，主权财富基金已经损失了很多钱，而且有可能损失更多。2006年中国在美国证券方面的投资是个耗资巨大的错误。很明显，中国投资有限责任公司若果想要拯救雷曼兄弟的话，那么她将在刚开始损失更多的钱。其他人的想法更带有感情色彩和政治意味：难道2008年美国不应该为1997年到1998男的亚洲金融危机付出应有的代价吗？目前的困境更增添了人们的幻想。
There are also many domestic reasons why China might be wary about opening up to the global economy. The Chinese banking system is still quite opaque and might still have to wrestle with the legacy of problems of the 1990s, in particular, bad loans to big state-owned corporations that were the consequence of a political logic of directed credit. China is investing large amounts in education, but it may be more difficult to build a creative and innovative society that replicates the dynamism of the United States in the second half of the 20th century (which was fed in large part by openness, above all openness to immigration). China also faces a problem of aging and even demographic decline after the 2040s as a legacy of its one-child policy, which has also created a potentially destabilizing surplus of young males. With all these threats to stability, an authoritarian though reformist regime may find it harder to respond flexibly to popular demands and may be prone to try to mobilize a reactive nationalism to fend off challenges to its authority.
关于为什么中国会在对全球经济开放方面保持谨慎态度，其实还有许多中国国内的因素。中国的银行业系统仍然不透明，并仍有可能要处理上世纪90年代的遗留问题，尤其是大型国有企业欠下的呆账，这些呆账是由政治逻辑上的定向信贷所造成的。虽然中国在教育方面投入了大量资金，但是要想建立一个像20世纪前半期的美国一样充满活力的创新型社会仍很困难，那时候美国的活力很大程度上是由于其开放性，最重要的是对移民的开放。中国同样面临着人口老龄化的问题，甚至本世纪40年代后因计划生育政策造成的人口下降。该政策也引发了年轻男性过多造成的不稳定。由于所有这些对社会稳定的威胁，一个尽管热衷改革但实际独裁的政权也许会在灵活应对大众需求方面犯难，也许会倾向于利用反动的爱国情绪来抵抗对其权威的挑战。
The pressure to engage in large-scale fiscal stimulation is also likely to alter the balance of China's economic development. The Chinese model of capitalism is very different than that of the United States, and even before the economic crisis, there were two alternative models. The first was the rural, family, and small-business-based boom of the 1980s. But by the 1990s, some of the private-sector growth was being choked off by a rival vision of economic growth built around prestige projects and the large, state-owned enterprise sector. Consider Shanghai, which impressed many commentators as the most modern city in the world: Analysts of the Chinese economy have suggested it is one of the least entrepreneurial cities in China. Yasheng Huang, in his book Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, described it as "a classic industrial-policy state." The new stimulus package is likely to push the balance of Chinese development more decisively in this latter direction, toward state capitalism.
致力于大规模的经济刺激的压力也可能会破坏中国经济发展的平衡性。中国式的资本主义和美国的很不一样，甚至在金融危机之前就有了两个可互换的模式。第一个是上世纪80年代以从村、家庭、小户经营为基础的经济繁荣。但是到了90年代，由于大型项目和大型国有企业的经济增长，一些私营经济的增长收到了抑制。想一想上海，那个世界上最现代并且让许多评论员印象深刻的城市：中国经济分析家说，上海是中国最不适合创业的城市之一。丫圣皇（音译）在他的《有中国特色的资本主义》一书中，把上海描绘成了一个以工业政策兴市的经典例子。
China thus has plenty of reasons why it might want to close itself off to the forces of globalization, as the United States did in the interwar years. This thinking will be reinforced by the structure and character of the international order. Again, an interwar analogy is appropriate. The United States felt uncomfortable with the international institutions of the interwar period, in part because they were aligned with the interests of the old hegemonic power, Britain. The League of Nations looked as if it was an instrument of British power. Similarly, in the modern context China worries about whether it is adequately represented in U.S.-dominated international institutions. Its influence in the IMF and World Trade Organization clearly does not correspond to its real position in the world economy and to the role that China could play in economic stabilization. Reforming international institutions is thus a key issue in deciding whether the coming geopolitical alterations will be crisis-ridden, abrupt, and disruptive, or whether a more gradual and peaceful path of adjustment can be achieved.
因此，和美国在二战期间的做法一样，中国在为什么想要把自己关闭于全球主要力量之外方面有了足够的理由。国际秩序的结构和特点更加强了这一观点说服力。战争期间的类比是合适的。美国不适应战争期间的国际组织，一部分的原因是他们和老霸权国家英国结盟了。国家联盟看起来就像英国行使权利的工具。同样，在现代环境里，中国担心自己在由美国主导的国际社会中能否完整地展现自己。很明显，中国在国际货币基金组织、世贸组织的影响不会和其在世界经济中的实际地位以及在维护世界经济稳定方面可发挥的作用相平衡。改革国际组织在决定未来地缘政治的变化是否会充满危机和突兀，以及更加渐进、温和的调整能否实现方面起关键作用。
Just before the Asia-Europe meeting last October, President Hu Jintao stated that China would behave "with a sense of responsibility." It remains to be seen what stake China really has in the survival of the global economy. As in 1931, the political arguments are all against a rescue. Only the farsighted will see that the economic case for such an operation is compelling. Much depends on the extent of China's voice in an altered international institutional architecture.
就在去年亚欧领导见面会上，中国国家主席胡锦涛称，中国将“带着责任感行事”。中国在全球经济的恢复上还有什么筹码还有待观察。就像1931年那样，政治方面表达的意见都是反对拯救经济的。只有有远见的人才会看到对于当前的局面，经济上的措施是必需的。很多东西都取决于中国在变化了的国际组织中的声音有多大。
But that voice will make demands that are increasingly difficult for the old world to accommodate, including demands for a guarantee of China's U.S. asset holdings and suggestions for an alteration of the world's reserve management. In proposing a global reserve currency to replace the dollar, the Chinese central bank president recently followed in the footsteps of Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s. But unlike France, China is in a much stronger position to assert its preferences for international monetary reordering.
但是，中国的声音将会做出一些要求，旧世界越来越难适应这些要求了，其中包括中国对于美国债务持有的保证，以及对世界储备金管理改变的意见。在建议以国际储备货币取代美元上，中国中央银行最近效仿了60年代查尔斯 戴高乐的做法。但是，和法国不一样的是，中国在表达自己对国际货币重新整顿方面的倾向时，拥有更大的发言权。
In other words, the world may be asked to transition from an American to a Chinese model of capitalism, and as in the 1930s, that won't be an easy switch for any of us.
换句话说，世界也许会被迫从美国式的资本主义转向中国式的资本主义。正如上世纪30年代那样，这样的转变对我们任何人来说都不简单。
翻译交流见#19
翻译挺好的，鸡蛋里挑2个刺
a deep-pocketed China faces the same dilemma: swallow its pique and help save the same countries that got us into this situation, or look to its own short-term interests first.
荷包鼓鼓的中国面临着同样的两难境地：是忍气吞声来帮助那些把我们拉进泥潭的国家，还是只考虑自己的眼前利益
yasheng Huang
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